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Volcano Click to enlarge (and more...)

Clash of continents causes earthquake Click to enlarge (and more...)

Iceland is a violent country. In the past this was true of the people. The "Sagas of Iceland" are filled with stories of murder and mayhem; the landscape remains that way. The island was and still is restructured by volcanoes, earthquakes, and glaciers. We travelled the perimeter of the island, wishing to experience the effects of all these natural phenomena. The interior can only be crossed by 4x4 vehicles in the height of summer. Glacier Click to enlarge (and more...)

A byproduct of this combination of natural events is waterfalls. The country must have more falls per square kilometer than any place we can imagine.

Another reason for visiting this seemingly unhospitable place is bird viewing. Millions of them flock to the cliffs of the fjords to breed. This attracts many birdwatchers interested in kittywakes, fulmars, razorbills, auks, eiders and swans. But the stars of the show are the puffins. These little guys with their colorful bills delight everyone, as well as allow humans to come closer than would other birds. This explains how over 100,000 of them are captured every year, winding up on dinner plates. We didn't encounter this delicasie on a menu; guillemot was as close as we came, but passed on that and the whale. Yes, Iceland has recently returned to whaling "for scientific research." How this research gets served in a restaurant is beyond me.

Contrary to the treatment of puffins and whales, the eiders are a protected creature. The eider down that fills all those pillows and quilts is not plucked from dead eiders, it is collected from the nests after the families have finished using them. Many eider are a common sight here. On one of our kayak trips we disturbed a female eider off her nest. After a quick retreat, we were gratified to see the male eider resumed the care of the nest with no harm done. Now what could have frightened this duck?
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Because of the isolation of these self-reliant people, they have become stoic and independent minded. With few resources to feed themselves, they have had to fight long and hard to establish a 200 mile exclusion zone for fishing rights. They even claimed a small island north of the Arctic Circle to extend their claim. This action and resumption of whaling will probably keep Iceland out of the E.U. Naturally, this means that to maintain their independence, the Icelanders have to pay for it. Whereas in the Faroe Islands, just to the southeast, the inhabitants prefer to remain a protectorate of Denmark; therefore, they receive aid from Denmark and hence the E.U.

The road systems of Iceland are still primative. The roads in the area around Reykjavik are modern, but less than 100 km away they quickly degrade. It is common to be driving along on a straight paved road, then encounter (see photo on left) which translates to "end of pavement." The gravel roads that service most of the island are well maintained, but to reach inland destinations may require waiting for the roads to open, often not till July. Our journey was in early June, so we were almost denied some of the more desirable highlights.

Another frequently encountered sign is (see photo on right) which means "one lane bridge." There are also signs for blind curves and limited vision at the tops of hills. Sometimes these narrow passages are marked by a pole in the middle of the road with an arrow pointing to your side of the trail. A few of the longer one lane bridges contain pullovers at intervals to allow safer passage.

Question: What happens if a volcano erupts under a glacier?
  Answer: One heck of a flood that occurs without warning and destroys anything in its path.

The girders Al is sitting under are the remains of a bridge that was swept away in just such an event in 1996. It took two years to replace, meanwhile a 1000 km. detour was the result for some folks.




Before the arrival of man around 900 AD the only mammal species was the arctic fox. Now there are a few wild reindeer, some cattle, millions of sheep, and the Icelandic horse, a short yet sturdy animal that is unique to Iceland.

               
All in all we enjoyed our trip. The weather was fairly dismal, cold and wet, but then this was an adventure, not a vacation.

We usually end one of our albums with a sunset. Since the sun never set the entire time we were in Iceland, how about a rainbow.