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Oct. 28th, 2004
Day 6, continued: Bodø and beyond
Oct. 28th, 2004 05:59 pmGlaciers aren't all bad. So long as one isn't threatening to eat your house, it's quite beautiful. So distressingly shortly after the Polarlys crossed into the Arctic, I was down in one of the ship's car decks, boarding a small and somewhat battered 1960s fishing boat, Melløycruise II, now converted into a tourist conveyance, to be ferried to Svartisbreen.
Svartisbreen – the Black Glacier - is Norway's second largest glacier, out of more than 1,700 – the greatest of all being Jostedalsbreen. It's not actually black – it’s mostly a pale turquoise-blue colour, where it's not covered in fresh snow – and the locals aren't actually sure why they call it by that name, but they do. It might come from a Sami word which sounds a little like the Norwegian for "black ice" but actually means "blue ice".
From sea level, onboard a small boat chugging quietly up a silent fjord in an early Arctic morning, the glacier is remote, aloof, a roof across the top of the mountain range to our right. Behind distant peaks I catch a glimpse of white, bridging their gaps.
Our young guide, who sadly doesn't introduce herself, is a classical Scandinavian beauty: blonde, leggy and lovely - and fluent in English and German besides her own tongue. She also has a remarkable knack at bird-spotting. Occasionally, a sea-eagle sweeps across our path, sometimes settling in a waterside tree – there are many such growing on a scattering of small, uninhabited islands. These great birds, wingspans reaching up to two and a half metres, are so plentiful here that some have been taken and moved to Scotland in an effort to reintroduce the species there. They sit in trees and regard us. I gaze back through binoculars, rapt. Their eyes seem to hold a mixture of aristocratic, elegant disdain and insane imbecility.
An hour's sail up the fjord, past tiny villages and their apparently inseparable fish-processing factories, and the occasional salmon farm, we come in sight of two lobes of the great glacier as it spills down precipitous valleys towards the mirror-smooth water. The sun barely skims the mountain-tops right behind it, making it almost impossible to get a clear photo, but the sight is dazzling. At this moment, the guide's voice over the boat's less-than-hifi PA system is replaced by the instantly-familiar soaring strings of the Peer Gynt Suite. It's old, it's hackneyed but it's perfect: archetypically Norwegian, hauntingly lovely and perfectly plangent.
I actually weep for the beauty of it.
( Read more... )
Svartisbreen – the Black Glacier - is Norway's second largest glacier, out of more than 1,700 – the greatest of all being Jostedalsbreen. It's not actually black – it’s mostly a pale turquoise-blue colour, where it's not covered in fresh snow – and the locals aren't actually sure why they call it by that name, but they do. It might come from a Sami word which sounds a little like the Norwegian for "black ice" but actually means "blue ice".
From sea level, onboard a small boat chugging quietly up a silent fjord in an early Arctic morning, the glacier is remote, aloof, a roof across the top of the mountain range to our right. Behind distant peaks I catch a glimpse of white, bridging their gaps.
Our young guide, who sadly doesn't introduce herself, is a classical Scandinavian beauty: blonde, leggy and lovely - and fluent in English and German besides her own tongue. She also has a remarkable knack at bird-spotting. Occasionally, a sea-eagle sweeps across our path, sometimes settling in a waterside tree – there are many such growing on a scattering of small, uninhabited islands. These great birds, wingspans reaching up to two and a half metres, are so plentiful here that some have been taken and moved to Scotland in an effort to reintroduce the species there. They sit in trees and regard us. I gaze back through binoculars, rapt. Their eyes seem to hold a mixture of aristocratic, elegant disdain and insane imbecility.
An hour's sail up the fjord, past tiny villages and their apparently inseparable fish-processing factories, and the occasional salmon farm, we come in sight of two lobes of the great glacier as it spills down precipitous valleys towards the mirror-smooth water. The sun barely skims the mountain-tops right behind it, making it almost impossible to get a clear photo, but the sight is dazzling. At this moment, the guide's voice over the boat's less-than-hifi PA system is replaced by the instantly-familiar soaring strings of the Peer Gynt Suite. It's old, it's hackneyed but it's perfect: archetypically Norwegian, hauntingly lovely and perfectly plangent.
I actually weep for the beauty of it.
( Read more... )