Black and White

Recently a challenge was posted on Facebook to share seven black-and-white photos from your life. No people, no explanations. I chose to make it into a blog post instead. So here are seven B&Ws from my life… no people, no explanations.

Alberta’s Golden Week

In Asia several countries celebrate a number of national holidays in what they call The Golden Week at various times of the year. In China it is this week, but in Japan the week of holidays starts in late April. Students and most working people have the whole week off and travel near and far to visit family and friends, or just travel somewhere to get away. And why do I know this? Because I was trying to come up with a title for this blog post and googled “golden week,” just to see if I infringed on someone by using the phrase.

Alberta celebrated a different type of golden week last week. Anyone who spent any time outdoors would have noticed how leaves on trees and bushes within days changed colour from a pale green to a dull yellow to a vibrant gold with a few splashes of red and orange thrown in here and there. Every day on my morning walk in the neighbourhood at sunrise I could see the difference, and on Saturday morning what met my eyes was absolutely spectacular. I just had to capture the beauty on my iPhone since I didn’t bring my camera. The light was perfect and lasted for such a short time.

Late that afternoon Jan and I took a drive in the country around here, and this time I took my camera with me. The angry sky to the north and a recent rain shower lent some drama to the fall splendour.

Sadly, after today’s winter storm, all of this will be but a memory until next year. But I'm glad I had Saturday...

Iceland, Part 3 : The Faces of Iceland

Remember in the late 80s/early 90s all the rage was 3D hidden image stereograms? If you stared at the picture long enough and knew how to adjust your eyes, a 3D image would suddenly pop up. It took me the longest time to learn how to do it, but once I did it was a pretty cool thing to do.

When I hike I often see faces in rock formations where others see nothing. Writing-on-Stone / Áísínai’pi Provincial Park is the place I have seen the most, and the spiritual me understands why the sandstone cliffs and hoodoos along the Milk River are sacred to the Blackfoot and other First Nations. It is indeed a very special place.

In Iceland I saw a fair number of rock faces, too. The first was on Day 1 when we stopped to admire rock formations of hardened lava along the highway. It didn’t take much to imagine the molten lava floating down in waves before cooling off. There are two faces in this picture. The one in the middle of the picture has a lot of hair sticking straight up from his head and he is looking at you. The one to the right of him just has a couple of strands of hair and a very pronounced right eye. He is lying down looking up.

One evening we took a short walk in the Fjadrarglijufur Canyon after supper where I discovered a lady’s face in profile. The first “bump” under the green moss is her forehead; the second is her nose; her mouth and chin are under that.

The icebergs in the Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon were incredibly beautiful in the sunshine and nature’s work of art. In one of the icebergs I saw an alien’s face lying down looking up. His mouth is slightly open and the sun shines through his eye.

A woman in Sudureyri told us about the Lady in the Cloak. She did not do her chores when she was supposed to, but wrapped herself in her cloak and took a nap instead. She never woke up and turned to stone! Parents would tell the story to their children to make them do their chores, “or you will turn to stone like the Lady in the Cloak!”

On our last day in Iceland we hiked through arctic birch brush to Eldborg Crater. Along the way Jan took this picture of a craggy lava rock. He thought it was a neat rock… I saw a lioness in front of her mate, both in profile.

How did you do? Were you able to see my faces? Let me know!

Iceland, Part 2 : Birds of Iceland

When we moved to Alberta in 1976, we bought two books right away: Wildflowers of Alberta, and Birds of Alberta. Both books were our companions on hiking and camping trips, and many an hour has been spent leafing through them and others that were added to the collection over the years to find that flower or that bird.

We knew the bird life in Iceland was very different from that of landlocked Alberta, but we were utterly surprised at how many birds we encountered. We have never been to a place where so many birds occupied such a small area. Some birds we recognized from home, such as the Harlequin duck, 

the green-winged teal,

and the horned grebe,

but most were new to us, or we recognized them from other coastal areas we have visited. Because of the time of year we were in Iceland we witnessed birds pairing up and building nests. The first was fun, and the latter was utterly fascinating.

Jan took some amazing close-up pictures with his new camera—as a matter of fact I didn’t even bring my zoom lens to Iceland—and most of the pictures in this blog are his. It would be a shame not to share them.

The Arctic tern was everywhere, and I mean everywhere! Thousands and thousands of them nested on the ground in huge colonies. We avoided the dive-bombing they will do once the chicks hatch.

The redwing is Iceland’s answer to our robin. It sings just as prettily and as often, even at 4 in the morning!

We were pretty impressed when we saw greylag geese on our first day, but we soon realized they are as numerous as Canada geese are here. This one seems determined to get somewhere fast!

The common snipe can be found all over Alberta, too, but I just love this picture.

Icelanders know spring has arrived when they see the first golden plover, much like us waiting for the robin to return.

Tufted ducks are a Eurasian relative of our scaups.

Black-legged kittiwakes nest on the tiniest ledge of a sheer cliff. Can you feel the love between these two?

Northern fulmars were plentiful and almost as agile as kittiwakes when it came to nest building. I doubt these two are together from the stern look on mama and the mischievous look on the one hiding behind!

The white wagtail was one of the few songbirds we saw and heard.

Redshanks constantly picked through seaweed along the shoreline for insects to eat.

We encountered eider ducks almost everywhere, and most often they were in flocks. They have the cutest throaty call which made me smile every time I heard it. Eider down collection has long been a source of income for Icelanders, and because eider down is regarded as an economic asset, the species has been totally protected from hunting by law since 1847.

Watching a flock of whooper swans take off from a field was hilarious, but on the nest you won’t find a more graceful bird.

We found this black-tailed godwit at the side of the road one morning as we set out for the day.

The whimbrel is very well camouflaged.

At Latrabjarg, a bird cliff which is also the western-most point of Iceland, we couldn’t believe the amount of common guillemots and Brunnich’s guillemots clinging to the vertical cliff.

If you look closely you can see the egg this Brunnich’s guillemot is trying to position itself onto.

My greatest wish was to see puffins and towards the end of our vacation it came true at Latrabjarg.

I feel especially blessed to have had a puffin fly directly towards me and at the very last moment veer off and enter its burrow under the cliff top where I stood. That picture is in my mind only but will stay with me forever. But you may be able to see the grin on my face in this picture Jan took right after it happened!

Iceland, Part 1: We remembered to breathe…

The last two weeks of May Jan and I drove around the island country of Iceland. Many people asked us ahead of time “why do you want to go there?” and the answer was always the same: “Because of the nature.” And there is a lot of that on Iceland…

Skaftareldahraun Lava Field is miles and miles of moss-covered lava rock. I am amazed at how the moss has transformed craggy lava rock into soft pillows.

Skeidararsandur Sand Plains. Following a volcanic eruption in October 1996 under Vatnajökull Glacier, seen in the background, millions of tons of water and ice flooded over Skeidararsandur. The flood washed away large parts of the road and destroyed two bridges, the remains of one still visible. Some of the icebergs the flood carried with it were as large as three storey houses. The sheer volume of this natural disaster is hard for me to fathom.

Jökulsarlon Glacial Lagoon is a 180 m deep lagoon in which icebergs float on their way to the Atlantic Ocean. They break off enormous ice lobes and advance down deep valleys from the Vatnajökull glacier. The lagoon has been formed over the last century as the glacier has retreated in the warmer climate. Nature’s ice art is stunning.

Basalt columns at Reynishverfi. How nature can form these geometric shapes is beyond me even though I read the explanation on a sign!

The Alps of the Westfjords. Need I say more...?

The elevation of Hrafnseyrarheidi Moorland in Westfjords is 552 m and the view is spectacular.

An evening view over Bredafjördur from Stykkisholmur filled me with peace and serenity. This was towards the end of our trip and a good time to reflect on what we had seen and experienced.

To pick seven pictures from the 548 I kept of the 1496 Jan and I took together was not an easy task, hence the “Part 1” in the title. There will be more parts coming! To close Part 1, suffice it to say—Iceland’s nature is breathtaking.