Tag Archives: Arctic Circle

Ghost Trees

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Sunrise/sunset: 08:41/ 14:21. Daylength: 5hr 40min

It’s been an eventful week. As Donald Trump and Joe Biden totter towards a final result in the US presidential election, coronavirus is surging worldwide. On a more personal level, the abattoir season has ended (hooray!) and I had my 2-3 month review.

The review went well. I knew I had done all the online coursework I had been set, but there were one or two tasks I hadn’t really had a chance to get my teeth into. One of my tasks is to find out what my colleagues do. Some of them are involved with aquaculture, others with quality control of drinking water and those in my own small section are involved with animal health and welfare. But with many of us working at the slaughterhouse, there has been limited time for other tasks.

Before my review, therefore, I had a quick look at what my colleagues were up to. Øivind (who works with drinking water) had a trip next Thursday to Husøy, and so I decided I would ask Hilde whether it might be a suitable trip for me. I was unsure where Husøy was. Øy means island and I know that there are some far flung places in our region. If it involved an overnight trip, it was unlikely I could join at this late stage. But Husøy, I discovered, is a small island off the coast of Senja. No ferries required – there’s a bridge across. Hilde told me that Husøy had been the subject of a Norwegian documentary, “Da Damene Dro” back in 2008. All the women on the island were taken off for a ten day holiday in the sun, while the menfolk were left to fend for themselves and their children.

This seemed like the kind of social experiment I could get behind, so a taking a trip there would be fascinating… but it wasn’t to be. When I caught up with Øivind at lunch time, he told me that the trip had been cancelled. With the surge in coronavirus cases, nobody wanted to take any chances and the trip was not urgent.

I left after lunch as Charlie had texted me to let me know he was arriving soon. Charlie is John, Anna and Andrew’s dad and he is here for the weekend. He came up to watch Andrew in a school concert. Andrew has been learning the piano and the music group had put together some songs, which were to be performed in a local café. But that too was disrupted by coronavirus. The venue changed from the café to the school and then the message came through that it would be broadcast online. So Charlie flew all the way up here from Stavanger to sit in the living room and watch the concert on TV. There were advantages though. Charlie and I were going to support Andrew, but with the change in the agenda, both Anna and my parents were able to watch from the UK and Wytske, a friend from the Netherlands also joined us.

The weather this week has been stormy, but despite the forecast, Charlie, Triar and I took a walk this morning in Ånderdalen National Park. It was a wonderful place to explore. There is a trail up into the park which has been made suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs, and beyond that, the tracks are well marked, so even if the weather had taken a turn for the worse, it would have been possible to get back safely.

The park is stunning, even at this time of year, when everything is lowering into winter. Fir trees dominate the landscape and in the distance, snow covered mountain peaks, but the trees are sparse, the landscape shaped by the long winters. There are many dead trees amongst the living, their trunks and branches still rooted deep against the winter winds. The weather was changeable, one moment bright and clear, the next darkening as snow or hail began to descend.

I love trees and found myself as fascinated with these beautiful ghost trees as I am with the living trees that stood alongside them. Lichen caught my eye, and wonderful shapes on the trunks of the bigger trees.

And so, tired and damp we returned home. It was Charlie’s birthday yesterday and there was leftover carrot cake to go with our coffee. And now, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the rest of the day. I’ve taken Monday and Tuesday off and I am looking forward to going back to work fully refreshed.

Many happy returns Charlie.

Dreaming of a White … Halloween!

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Sunrise/sunset: 08:07/ 14:54. Daylength: 6hr 47min

The days are getting very short now and in only one month, the sun will go down for the last time on 2020. It won’t come over the horizon again until almost the middle of January.

Monday started well with another elk sighting. This time, since the snow hadn’t yet arrived, I pulled in quickly and managed to take a photograph, though it’s not the clearest. Difficult to capture a moving target in the pre-dawn twilight.

In other news, the snow arrived properly on Thursday. For the past two days, I’ve had to factor in scraping it from the car before I set off in the morning, though so far I haven’t had to clear the driveway. . Even in those two days, I feel I’ve learned a lot. For example, it’s clear that you should never rent or buy a house in the Arctic Circle that doesn’t have a garage. Equally, if you apply for a job where you are expected to use cars daily from a car pool… make sure you don’t choose a workplace without some kind of covered parking. I expect I will get very efficient shortly, doing it at least twice a day. More if it snows while I’m at work!

Today has been rather lovely. Andrew and I set out this afternoon to go to Silsand on Senja Island. We go there some evenings and there’s a pleasant enough walk up to a lake, but to our surprise, the car park, which is usually empty, was full. Rather ominously, there was a sign up which said “Testing Senter”.

Recalling that I had read somewhere that a specialised centre for COVID was being set up in Silsand, we beat a hasty retreat, then drove north for a short way. A sign directed us towards “Woodland Lodge” and we drove down a little track, which to my delight led to a tiny pavilion and a stretch of woodland.

Andrew found some animal tracks. At first I assumed they were a dog’s, but if they were, it had gone for a walk alone. So we began to follow them. When we got down to the waterline, we found the lovely little jetty pictured at the top of the page. And though we never found the Halloween wolf… or whatever it was, all three of us very much enjoyed roaming around in the snow.

Manic Meat-inspector

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Sunrise/sunset: 08:36/ 16:26. Daylength: 7hr 50min

The slaughter season for lamb is almost over. I can’t pretend to be unhappy about that. With three technicians out of action and a vet colleague limited to inspection of live animals, I’ve ended up working in the abattoir every day for the past couple of weeks and it will continue for a week and a half more. I’ve decided to write a bit more about what I do… though it will be tongue in cheek. I have the typical dark humour about my job that I think many vets share. The life of a vet has some grim moments alongside the joy that working with animals often brings, and so it pays to laugh about it all now and then. So if you’re squeamish, you could just look at the photos and ignore the text altogether… otherwise, feel free to join me.

I’ve said before that the abattoir is a dangerous place. We have to wear a lot of PPE ( I no longer have to explain what that means – thanks Covid!). I generally work for an hour, then have half an hour off, but during the break, I have to strip off the outer layers of protective clothing, then put them back on again, which takes five minutes or so off each end.

Everyone in my section wears white trousers and a T-shirt as standard, and as I go into the sluice to get ready, I add a hair net, a white cotton short sleeved shirt, some rather fetching chain mail, a blue plastic apron, a helmet with ear protectors, a Kevlar glove on my left hand, a cotton one on my right, and finally a pair of waterproof latex gloves on top of the first pair. It’s important to put it all on in the right order. It’s hard to get a chain mail shirt over your helmet and harder still to tie your apron behind your back with two pairs of gloves taking away most of the fine sensation. I’ve managed to arrive in the hall missing every single item, including one head-scratching moment* when I reached up a hand to grasp something and realised that although my right hand was fully gloved, on the left I was wearing only the Kevlar glove. Goodness knows how I managed to remember the first and not the second, but there it is.

The line often stops while we are working. There’s a long succession of people, each one playing a small part in the process, and if any stage a problem occurs, then it is possible to stop the line while it is overcome. Most of the time, I have no idea why everything has come to a standstill as much of it is out of sight. I imagine generally, it is something mundane: one of the shearers hasn’t completed the job, or some item of equipment has lost power. But the other day, as I was leaving the hall for my break, I heard loud yelling. When I turned round, someone was running to stop the line. With a sense of shock, I saw one of the engineers was up in the rafters. His shirt was entangled in one of the meathooks and he was being dragged towards the edge of the inspection platform. Luckily the line stopped in time and someone else began to climb up the ladder to free him. Which is fortunate for me as if it had ended differently, I would definitely not be including this part of the story.

As I said earlier, I will be glad when the season is over. There are good things about the work. I could wax lyrical about my wonderful colleagues and the simple pleasure of a really good sharp knife, or even the unexpectedly entrancing swirl of a chainmail shirt as you stride across the floor. But as I walked back into the hall on Wednesday, checked to see that nobody was hanging from the roof, then dodged between a pair of swinging pig carcasses, both decorated with one of the big red tags that means the vet has seen something dodgy that needs attention, it struck me** that you could make the most wonderful platform game based on the production line.

If you’re young, you probably won’t remember Manic Miner, who rushed around underground trying to avoid spiders, slime and at one point being pursued by angry toilets with flapping seats that I could never get past as I was laughing too hard. But for those of us old enough to remember the pleasures of a good platform game, I hope you’ll agree that the slaughterhouse holds loads of possibilities. As well as pork dodging, there could be ladders up to the ceiling with moving hooks to avoid, a run through the flaming hot section where the hair is burned off the pigs, and a section with slippery bits of fat lying on the floor, just waiting for you to put your heel on them and slide into oblivion.

Anyway, enough of that. Back to the real world. It did snow a little, as you can see from the pictures of the frozen pond halfway up the page. But before that there were a few days when the temperature dropped fifteen degrees overnight. The resulting hoar frost was the best I have ever seen. Everything was sparkling, each blade of grass and tree branch wonderfully decorated: white on blue. I stopped half way home to take some pictures, one of which is at the top of the page. The rest I will add below. So while work is less than perfect, I am still marvelling every day about the fact that I get to live somewhere so beautiful. And as the winter arrives in full, I very much hope to share it all with you.

* Head-scratching is neither advisable with gloved hands, nor really possible with a helmet on. ‘Twas only a figure of speech.

**It was the thought that struck me, not a lump of pivoting pork. Just so we’re clear!

Waiting

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Sunrise/sunset: 08:06/ 16:58. Daylength: 8hr 51min.

I was hoping to share the first snow pictures of the winter with you today. The weather forecast was for sleet, and I know these things can be wrong in either direction. I am, at last, beginning to feel I might be prepared. Yesterday I bought snow scrapers for the car windscreen and the driveway as well as some bags of environmentally friendly, reusable grit. But for now, there is only rain outside my window, as there has been for days. The picture at the top of the page was taken on my drive to work on the last day before the rain began. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t resist stopping. I sometimes wonder whether people will see the Mattilsynet logo on the side of the car and wonder what I’m up to!

There isn’t much of interest to report at work. The seasonal meat inspection is still in full swing and I have been working there every day this week, though the drive over is often a pleasant experience. Yesterday, I glimpsed what I thought were some horses or cows in a field. I turned my head at the last minute, as something was hammering in my brain about them being the wrong shape. To my pleasure, I saw it was a moose with two almost grown calves. I still feel a frisson of delight in seeing wild animals. By the time I realised, it was too late to stop for a photograph, but hopefully it won’t be the last time.

The basement flat where we live is feeling more and more like home. Anna and Andrew bought me an Alexa for Christmas last year, and other than wrestling with her for a while as I tried to get her to play Tir n’a Noir I haven’t used her very much. But John, having researched a new lighting system that is voice activated, has set her up so that we can now ask her to turn on the lights and she does so. The bulbs are heinously expensive (I bought a new one last night which was reduced by 114kr or around around £10 [16 Canadian dollars for Iceland Penny!]) but they can be set on different brightness levels and also to warm or bright light. We also have strip lighting on a shelf beside the TV which can change colour. When it is properly dark, and especially if I work from home at some point, the lighting is going to be very important.

Anyway, John is home for the weekend, and he and Andrew need to go shopping for winter boots, so I will leave you with another photograph of misty mountains at dawn. Have a great week everybody.

Changes

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Sunrise/sunset: 07:38/ 17:29. Daylength: 9hr 50min.

I have been adding the changing daylength at the top of each post for a while now. Those who have noticed might have calculated that over the course of each week, we are losing an hour of light and gaining an hour of darkness. The rate of change is not exactly disconcerting, but it is a little disorienting. I look at the clock expecting it to be late evening and find it is only seven o’clock.

Sometime last week, I noticed two of the trees beside the little pond in the town centre had been decorated with lights. In the UK and in the more southerly part of Norway where I used to live, there were tasteful lights draped in the branches of the trees around Christmas, but this was something different. The whole tree, trunk and branches, seemed to be swathed in lights, and it seemed odd that there were only two. I drove home yesterday and to my delight, saw that now there were lots more trees lit up. I don’t know whether they are finished, or whether there are more to come, but Andrew, Triar and I went for a wander around the pond and it was beautiful.

As well as the changing daylength, there has been another change this week. John has started to do seasonal work at the abattoir. He is working with the sheep shearing squad. There is a technique, of course, to sheep shearing. He tells me it’s important to remove the wool in a smooth manner, ensuring that the length doesn’t get disrupted. If they don’t get it right first time, they are encouraged not to take another cut as the shortness of those segments would degrade the quality and mean the price would be lower. For my part, I’m glad that the wool is used. I remember being told at university that wool was considered so worthless that it was often thrown away. If we breed animals for food, I can’t help feeling that we should do what we can to use every one of the products that creates. Anyway, for now, John has moved out and is living in a house with other members of the team and seems to be enjoying it, which is wonderful.

Andrew has also been away this week, visiting his dad and the orthodontist. He flew back yesterday evening, and as the airport is near to where I was working, I decided I would find something to do there instead of coming home and having to drive back. Rather than leaving Triar at home all day on his own, he came with me in the car. The airport is at Bardufoss, and as Foss is Norwegian for waterfall, I decided to go and look for it. It didn’t take too long to find. I’m sure it was beautiful once… but it was now empty. Norway is famous for its renewable energy. 98% of electricity production comes from renewable sources, and though the number of wind farms is increasing year on year, the majority still comes from hydroelectric.

But of course, where there are mountains, you are never too far from a waterfall. As I was driving, I noticed signs for Målselvfossen and so I followed them. It was well worth the effort. As Triar and I walked down into the valley, sunlight stippled the hills in the distance.

Down beside the river, the roar filled our ears. There was a salmon ladder, currently closed, but well worth a revisit next year as the summer comes round again. We’ll definitely be coming back!

Circle of Light

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We reached the Arctic Circle yesterday. As you can see there was some snow, despite the fact that we are in the later stages of summer.

Our road trip is going well. I hadn’t mentioned it in my last blog, but we met Wivek and Trifli (Triar’s mum) and had dinner together the night before we stayed in Mo i Rana. Here’s the loving reunion (with apologies for the unromantic, muddy car park setting).

The road trip is going well, though repacking the car has proved to be somewhat traumatic. Up until two days ago, I had been cooking breakfast and washing up, and John had been cramming all our worldly goods back into the car, but I could see this arrangement was getting him down. He gladly took me up on my kind offer to swap. Since then, we’ve had a pistachio ice cream cone for breakfast one day and a slice of cheesecake this morning. No complaints from me!

The scenery was beautiful as we descended from the mountain where we had crossed into the Arctic Circle. Within the circle, in summer, there must be at least one day when the sun doesn’t dip below the horizon for 24 continuous hours.

Melting ice and snow rush down the mountainside, carrying their chilly waters into the valleys far below.

And in the valleys the flowers grow so tall they’re almost at head height. The sweet warmth of their scent is wonderful.

We stopped here for an impromptu shower…

…then shivered our way to a campsite on the edge of Fauske in the late afternoon sunshine. This is the view from the cabin where we stayed.

This morning we took a boat to the Lofoten Islands. For now, the mountains are swirling with mist, but I hope that tomorrow the weather will clear.

Goodnight again and thanks for reading.

Almost Arctic

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Does clearing and cleaning a house ever go fully to plan? It never has for me, and this time was no exception. Having loaded most of our worldly goods into the moving van the day before, we realised that we had wildly overestimated how many things we could fit in the car alongside a large dog cage and a guinea pig hutch. Not only that, but in a moment of wide-eyed horror, we discovered we had forgotten to empty the tumble drier. Inventive as ever, John piled the clothes into boxes, and the guinea pigs ended up on a pedestal. Unbowed and undeterred by the lateness of the hour, we set out at seven o’clock on Friday evening and drove to Flekkefjord.

We had stayed there back in February, with no idea that the world was about to be turned upside down. I also had no idea then that almost six months later we would use our knowledge of all the local back roads to find a place to camp.

Despite the long hours of daylight, it was well and truly dark before we began to set up our tents. Feeling our way around in the light of the car headlamps, we bent our tempers and several tent pegs, but finally everything was complete.

 

 

The green tent in the front housed me, my son John, and Triar the dog. He slept remarkably well. The blue tent housed… the guinea pigs, Kiwi and Susie. Clearly we were intent on camping decadence (although John’s allergy to hay might have played a small part in the decision). Washing hanging in the background gives a homely feel… but reflects the disorganisation that occurred when I put the washing machine onto a short cycle after work… quite forgetting the (still accidentally full) tumble drier took four hours and seven minutes that we didn’t actually have.

Before going to sleep, I went outside. Looking up through summer trees, the sky was bright with stars. A soft breeze cooled my skin. Somewhere in the distance, the gentle clank of a sheep bell sounded. Retiring into the tent, I lay down and felt Triar slip into place beside my feet.

Day two began well, with a walk in the sunshine. We realised though, as we repacked, that the complex jigsaw we had created the night before, slotting a guinea pig cage on top of boxes, would rapidly become untenable. Rolling down the back windows and dropping things in as they were raised was not a great long-term solution. We drove on to Kristiansand, looking out for a pet shop.

Spotting one, we parked in the shade and took Triar out of the car. We needed someone to charm the staff, and he seemed the most likely. We bought a new, smaller travelling cage for Kiwi and Susie, and with Triar’s inspirational waggyness, managed to persuade the staff to dispose of the old one.

It was something of a relief to find that Kiwi and Susie seemed perfectly happy in their new cage, as well as in the car. Indeed I can recommend a cavy road trip. Sitting at head height behind us has finally convinced them that we are mostly harmless.

I don’t have many photos of the early days of the trip. We made it as far as Oslo on Saturday, and found a place at a campsite. Although the lack of bedrocks was an advantage, there were far too many people around for my liking, not to mention a plague… of mosquitos. Eaten, but not discouraged, we drove on the next day to Trondheim, stopping only for some pastries, and then later to look at Ringebu Stave Church.

Unfortunately on Sunday evening, the fine weather began to break up. Clear skies were replaced with ominous clouds. Abandoning the tents seemed a good idea, but as we were turned down by potential rental hosts, one after the other, we began to despair of finding a roof over our heads to shelter from the impending storm.

We were rescued by a local schoolteacher. Sending us his phone number in a clandestine code (private lettings being forbidden by the website we were using) he offered us the use of his family hytte. Lots of Norwegians very sensibly have a weekend retreat situated less than an hour from home. We were a little nervous as we followed his car up the longest unmade track in the universe… after all, who knew if he was actually an axe-murderer? Scandinavian horror films must surely be based on something or other…

We needn’t have worried. He took us to the most wonderful cabin, complete with a turf roof, candles and a wood stove.

There was running water and electricity too… not always guaranteed. The composting toilet in the little shed out the back only added a little aromatice piquancy to the situation… but at least it was painted a very calming blue.

And Triar very much enjoyed the garden, even though it was still very wet by the next morning.

Though we were reluctant to leave, we dragged ourselves away this morning and turned back onto the E6 northwards. The southern farmlands gave way to tall pine trees. We spent the day driving through a forest that spread in every direction as far as they eye could see. The mountains grew higher too, wild and rocky as we drove up to Mo i Rana, where we are staying tonight in another rented house.

I’m not sure when I will be able to write again. I had hoped to update a little more often, but this evening is the first time I have had the magic combination of simultaneous electricity and internet.

It’s been a wonderful trip so far, and as we go further north, and the motorways near Oslo become a distant memory, we plan to take our time a bit more. After all, I don’t start work for a week… and there’s so much more to see. It all depends on the weather.

Tomorrow morning, we will reach the Arctic Circle. It’s all very exciting! But for now I have to go to bed.

Night all!