FIRE AND ICE
Rex Burress
At a time in the last of July, 2016, when a 'heat dome' hovered over most of North America like a monstrous alien space ship, the thought of a land of ice is rather inviting. Longing for winter is always more pronounced in the hot summer, just as summer is appealing during winter when cold seems to hang on forever.
In the midst of the heat, my daughter Rebecca and her daughter Maya, made a trip to the island country of Iceland--18th largest island in the world, with 40,000 square miles and a 3000 mile coast line! Even though invited by a friend who lives there, they got their cool break, as they said it stayed in the sixties with considerable cloudiness for the two weeks.
Looking over her hundreds of pictures and hearing a first hand account of their camping trip around the interior of waterfalls, snow-capped mountains, and rock formations of volcanic basaltic rhyolite and andesite gave me a new understanding of a sight I don't think I'll ever see, but it's interesting to compare environments even by photos and word.
However, it's not all ice and snow in Iceland since summers melt back to a number of glaciers, and green grass grows lushly to enhance the landscape and feed the sheep herds. Although the land is quite mountainous and festered with volcanic upheavals, there is a desert-like open space feeling amid the mostly treeless terrain. You would think it was the Californian coastal range in springtime...minus the majestic oaks that hang on the Golden State hillsides like wandering explorers.
The open space feeling is like the exaltation one feels in the springtime on the Mojave Desert after a confining winter, or going up on Table Mountain when the wildflowers burst into bloom on the basaltic plateau.
In an unlikely coupling of fire and ice, an underground region of seething magmas strain to break through the Icelandic overlay, where there are already 30 active volcanoes. Many of the human settlements thrive off the steaming vents that supply hot water and geothermal energy to the homes and businesses--a real bonus to the ~ 300,000 residents largely dependent on the sea for sustenance.
Since Iceland is located just below the Arctic Circle like Alaska, the long-lighted days in the summer and lack of sun in the winter is contentious . In Iceland on June 21, the sun is visible 24 hours a day, but in winter at Barrow, Alaska, the sun does not rise for 67 days, but rather skims along the horizon in a lingering twilight! Such extremes would seem disturbing, but adaptation conquers all, so adjusting and using what you've got wins, though photography and art must be a challenge.
The wildlife watcher has slim pickings on Iceland. Three-fourths of the island is barren of vegetation. There are no reptiles or amphibians, and only 1,300 species of insects, minus ants and mosquitoes, have been discovered on a planet that features over a million insect species. About 300 species of birds can be found, mostly seabirds, including the pompous puffins. The only native mammal is the Arctic fox. Domestic sheep now thrive where there are no predators, and overgrazing has kept the hills rather denuded and often eroded.
Most tellingly, from a conservation standpoint, is the lack of trees. Like in so many places on this planet, and I think of England and America too, over-harvesting of trees for firewood and lumber has robbed the landscape of bio balance. When the first settlers arrived, Iceland was extensively forested with willow, juniper, and birch, but now only birch remnants remain in a few areas, plus some alien introduced species. The largest tree on Iceland is an 80-foot Sitka Spruce planted in 1949! Colonizing an island or an ice land is not easy.
Fire and Ice
“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice./
From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire,/
But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate,/
To say that for destruction ice is also great,/
And would suffice.”
--Robert Frost