Thanks for coming back. It’s been over a year now since the move to
I’m going to start out with the last bit of
My project is going well, thanks for asking. I’m currently in Reykjavík meeting with my advisor Jón. I have been working on identifying chironomids to the species level (consider yourself lucky if this doesn’t mean anything to you). Since I don’t live in Reykjavík, I only get the opportunity to have my work checked every few months, and this is one of those months. It turns out that a lot of my identifications have been accurate, but I have also had several learning opportunities too.
I finally got to do a decent amount of field work this summer. Bjarni and I revisited about 30 springs. Jón, Bjarni, and I also collected some samples in the Hengill geothermal area (a central volcano near Reykjavík where the field pictures in the first post came from).
Field work this summer:
Both of my advisors doing all of the work:
Awesome river crossing instructions from a trip with Bjarni:
This past weekend was Laufskálarétta (the horse round-up), which was the main topic of my first post. It was much colder and snowier this year. About two weeks before the horse round-up was the sheep round-up. In the spring, the farmers send all of the sheep up into the mountains to fend for themselves. This frees up the fields for the farmers to grow, cut, dry, and bail hay for the winter a few times before the end of the summer. In the fall, the sheep are all driven out of the mountains and sorted into the appropriate farm’s pen. Icelanders revere the sheep as practically sacred because they were such an integral part of survival on the island for so long. Because of this, the sheep round-up is much more culturally significant than the horse round-up, even though the horse round-up is a much larger production.
Icelandic sheep are different from most sheep Americans are familiar with. They have long, straight hair, and many of the ewes have horns. The rams’ horns are curlier than the ewes’, but it's pretty hard see the difference at a glance, and you usually have to look pretty closely to tell them apart.
Sheep that have already been corralled:
I thought you might want to hear them too:
The purpose of this section is to show you one of the things we can do near Cat’s and my apartment when you visit. The town of
Getting started (G):
Guðmundur calling for a ride about 15 minutes into the hike:
Just another Icelandic waterfall:
Snowy waterfall (G):
A look back at where we came in (G):
Another look back from a little farther in (G):
Dean, Marie, and me starting to cross a glacier:
Cat and Marie crossing a glacier:
Lunch break at the highest point:
Inside the hut from above, complete with guestbook:
A fog rolled in and overtook us while we ate (G):
Cat and me begging the descent (G):
Halfway down (G):
Not-so-treacherous stream crossing:
Blue skies (G):
Dean and Marie close to the bottom:
Guðmundur and me involved in a more treacherous stream crossing. Trust me, this thing was ripping along. It’s a glacial river that we crossed way too late in the day:
One valley over from home. Horses that still had a couple months of freedom before the round-up:
The northern lights have already been out a lot this year. I think it is colder right now than it was this time last year, and the skies have been really clear at night, so that might be why. A few nights ago, I went out with Dean and Marie to see if we could get some pictures of the lights. In a previous post, I included some northern lights pictures. All but one of those pictures were taken by me, and I’m really bad at taking pictures. The other night, Dean was in charge of photography, and the result was pretty impressive. Credit for all of these photos goes to Dean and Marie, and I am very grateful that they shared them with me.
Northern lights:
Alright, if you’re not interested in hearing about the trip to Alaska, this is where you get off. Thanks for checking out the Iceland stuff, and I hope to have more of it in the future. For those of you who are interested in the Alaska trip, here we go.
We set out on August 1. We had to make it up to Fairbanks by August 7 so we could be guaranteed enough time to get Cat moved into her cabin and take care of business at a bank and the post office before we both caught flights on August 9. Because our trip was so quick, a lot of the pictures are from the car or from the side of the road, so you have my apologies in advance. If you’re going to take this trip, you should set aside at least two weeks so you can see a lot more. Anyway, we set out from Des Moines fairly early (although not as early as intended due to a slight hangover, whose hangover it was is not important) with 164,259 miles on Cat’s Jeep:
This was our house for the trip (with the exception of one night in a hotel):
And this was our kitchen:
We went up through Minnesota and North Dakota before we crossed into Manitoba. We camped at a family campground sort of place west of Winnipeg after about thirteen hours of driving. We packed up early (a little too early for our neighbors) and headed northwest into Saskatchewan, across Saskatchewan, and into Alberta. Below are the pictures of all of the beautiful parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the beginning of Alberta:
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After about 14 hours of driving, we ended our second day in Elk Island National Park, just east of Edmonton. We had enough time to eat a little bit and squeeze in a quick (5 or 6 miles) hike through a marshy area.
This is where a moose was supposed to be:
It was on this little hike that we both started to remember how much we hate mosquitoes, which don’t exist in Iceland.
We got up early again on the third morning and hiked around near our campsite.
I’m not very good with birds, but I’m guessing Canada geese?:
There was a little boardwalk that taught us to identify one fish, some inverts, and some plants:
As we rounded a bend leaving the park, we had this guy walking straight up the road at us:
The only native (terrestrial) mammal in Iceland is the arctic fox, so we’re not really used to seeing mammals... especially really big ones.
In the morning, these guys just walk around and steam, which is pretty sweet:
We couldn’t leave Alberta before stopping off in Beaverlodge to see the giant beaver statue:
After more than 30 hours of total drive time, we finally made it to mile “0” of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. As you can see on the milepost, it’s only 1,523 miles to Fairbanks from here:
This is the Sasquatch Crossing. Apparently Sasquatch likes to cross the road with two twelves of Kokanee:
This was a nice view of British Columbia:
After about 12 hours of driving on the third day, we got to stay in a hotel. We had booked a room in Ft. Nelson, BC for this night, and we were pleased to find that we were on schedule.
We slept in until about 8:00 before getting on the road on the fourth day because the mattress beat the hell out of sleeping on a Thermarest. It was a pretty nice day, so we stopped off to go for a little stroll in Stone Mountain Provincial Park. Even though Cat has switched to marine fisheries, she hasn’t switched completely. Once a bug nerd, always a bug nerd:
The lake at the park:
We got back on the road and spotted what I believe are caribou:
The mountains were pretty big here:
Cat in front of Folded Mountain:
Toad River:
These are stone sheep. Apparently this is the only place you can see these guys, and people don’t see them very often. We really lucked out:
Muncho lake:
On the fourth night, we camped at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park (still in BC). If you camp at this place, your admission to the hotsprings is included in the campsite fee.
Marshy area on the way to the springs:
This population of lake chub (Couesius plumbeus), which live in the marshy area above, is adapted to this thermal regime:
The hot springs:
Unfortunately, only the lower pool was open the other one was closed becasue somebody was being a jerk:
On the fifth day, God said, “The water shall teem with swarms of living creatures. Flying creatures shall fly over the land, on the face of the heavenly sky,” and Dan and Cat made it to the
The next big stop was the
You can’t tell from this, but this place is vast:
I don’t know why Iowa scrapped the greatest license plate ever for the piece of crap they have now. It was good to see you again, old friend:
Cat with two different Chambersburg signs:
I accidentally deleted the pictures of me with the Govoniville and Govonitropolis signs.
This is the Watson Lake department store (north country Nordstrom):
From the time that we entered British Columbia, there were lots of areas that were really smoky along the way because of the forest fires. By the time we got to the Yukon, it was pretty much constant smoke. Most of the time, you couldn’t see the source of the smoke, it was just more of a haze. When we stopped at Teslin Lake, it was pretty apparent where the smoke in the area was coming from:
Unfortunately, the smoke really limited the view of the mountains in a lot of places for the rest of the trip.
Whitehorse is pretty much the only decent town on the Alaska Highway, so we had to stop off there. Aside from actually looking like a “city” (more like a college town really), it had one special feature that enticed us:
After grabbing a couple of take-out items, we got back on the road. Lake Kusawa campground was our resting place for the night. The campsites at this place are awesome. Each one has its own little trail down to a beach. It’s pretty cheap, so if you make this trip, I would definitely recommend it.
Lake Kusawa:
On the sixth morning, we stopped at Kluane National Park. We didn’t have a ton of time to spend there, but we were able to squeeze in a pretty quick (nine miles) hike. You can see in the pictures that the mountains do not have a lot of definition. This is because of all of the smoke.
Kluane hike:
After the hike, we hopped back on the road and passed through Burwash Landing, which is home to the world’s largest gold pan:
About 120 miles past the gold pan, we crossed into Alaska:
Shortly after we got into Alaska, we pulled over to take a quick stretch. We spotted this moose hanging out in a little marshy (I have used this word a lot in this post, don't think you're the only one who noticed) area:
I decided that I should try to get a little closer to get a better picture, so I walked down across some crappy
terrain, and I found that this was still the best shot I could get without getting too close:
After we got back in the car, we rounded a little bend after the pull-off where we had seen the moose, and we realized that there was this much better, much easier photo opportunity available:
None of those pictures is great, but it was my first (and only non-roadkill) moose ever, so I was excited to try to capture it. Apparently Cat is already bored with moose; she has even seen them on campus.
We drove on to find a sleeping place for the night. We ended up at Deadman Lake Campground, which is a free government campground. It was really nice for a free government (god damned socialists) campground, except there was a real jerk of a squirrel who kept trying to steal our baked beans.
Deadman Lake:
On the seventh day, we told the jerky squirrel goodbye and headed toward Fairbanks. Pretty early on, we pulled off into a little overlook to try see some mountain that was going to be impossible to see because of the smoke, but Cat had to know for sure. Of course we couldn’t see the mountain, but we did come up on this little guy (I don’t know how to sex a fox, so I’m just referring to it as male):
He immediately ran and hid something in the bushes and then came back and sat down and looked at us like he hadn’t been doing anything:
After a while, he ran over and starting playing with/trying to eat a raven.
First, the raven taunts the fox:
Then the fox tries to get the raven:
After all of that excitement, we finished off the Alaska Highway:
Then we finally made it to Fairbanks:
It welcomed us, so that was nice.
We found a hotel to stay at, and we clicked a picture of the final mileage:
After exactly 3600 miles (~5800 km) of driving from Des Moines, we had finally made it.
We got Cat moved into her cabin, opened a bank account, and got squared away with the post office on August 7 and 8. On August 9, I flew back to Reykjavik, and Cat flew off to Homer for her three week course.
Things are good in Alaska, and things are good in Iceland. Cat is coming back from December 19 to January 18, so we get a month together around the holidays, which I’m really looking forward to. That’s about all I’ve got for you. Thanks for stopping by again, and I’ll try to delve further into the culture so I have something more for you in a few months.
--Dan (The Hairy American)
