Packed In Oil

A wonderfully quirky word: "iddis," which is Norwegian for "sardine label collecting."  Apparently, there are whole organizations and clubs devoted to iddis.  No wonder: there are literally tens of thousands of different labels to collect.  These examples are displayed at the Norwegian fish canning museum, in Stavanger.  Labels make up only a small part of the collection; there are old wrenches and smokers, steam baskets and fish grinders, de-headers and tin-pressers, label printers and lid crimpers.  The building itself is an old tinning factory, with a century-old patina and beautiful light.
Stavanger is a pleasant seaside town with a turbulent history of depression and wealth, boom and bust. Because it's currently booming, there are over a dozen museums open.  On a rainy day in early September, as the sea churned grey and the populace huddled in their offices and bars, we visited two very interesting, very different ones: the Norsk Hermetikkmuseum (devoted to fish canning) and the Norwegian Petroleum Museum.  Together, they give a great picture of the town's glory days, grit and regeneration.

Norwegian Sardines aren't really sardines at all - that's just the category the canners thought would be most marketable.  In fact, there are no "true" sardines in the north Atlantic.  At least, there are none of the Mediterranean fish that popularized the term.  Instead, the most common "sardine" canned in Stavanger - and the type you'll still find in a tin of King Oscars - is really brisling.  These tiny little fish are actually mature when they're caught and canned, unlike true sardines which are too large at maturity to fit.  Also called European sprats (binomial: Sprattus sprattus), brisling are only about as big as  a baby carrot.
Along with herring, these delicious little fish made up the backbone of Stavanger's canning industry between the 1880's and the 1950's, when the industry fell on hard times.

Norway's fjords have always been full of fish, but - until industrial canning was invented - there was no way for those fish to be exported in any great quantity.  Sardine tins changed that, and Stavanger was at the forefront of the fish boom.
The sprats were caught in the fjords around Stavanger during the summer, from about May until October.  They arrived at the town docks packed with ice in wooden boxes.  At the cannery, they were salted, threaded onto steel rods, smoked, de-headed (first with scissors, later with purpose-built machines), laid into the cans by hand and filled in with oil.  Before a "seaming" machine was invented to seal the lids in place, the cans were soldered shut by hand.  When they were closed up, the cans were then steam-sterilized, washed, labeled and put into crates.

The floors creak, the walls are rough plaster.  Upstairs, one can peek into the old bathrooms and see a grainy film about the fishing ships.  Sardines are for sale in the entryway.  They advertise monthly sardine-smoking events, where one can taste "freshly smoked brisling from woodburning stoves."  It's all very low key and quiet.  Amazingly, the first-wave industrial equipment that was in use here lasted almost all the way until the middle of the twentieth century.  Stavanger's canning problem, eventually, wasn't a scarcity of fish.  They were just trying to compete using antiquated machinery.  Partly, that's what gives the museum its charm.

Stavanger's depression began even before the canneries closed.  The town was one of the scruffiest in Norway during the 1950's and '60's, with high unemployment and no great industry.  Even as other cities along the west coast were thriving, Stavanger wallowed.
Amazing what a few billion barrels of oil can do for a place.
Prominently displayed on the wharf, the Norwegian Petroleum Museum (Norsk Oljemuseum) stands as blocky, shiny testament to the new economy.  Here, monumental, spaceship-like machines crowd together behind sparkling glass.  Tubes droop, scuba gear hangs in the air, robot claws grasp at nothing.  Norway's oil mostly lies deep underwater, and the museum's focus is on the difficulties involved in extracting it.

At the beginning of the 1970's, Norway's government chose Stavanger to be the landfall point and onshore base for the country's new offshore drilling operations.  At the time, this was regionally significant, but not overwhelming news - there were far bigger petroleum producers in the world.  Now, though, it is a big deal.  Norway is currently the fifth largest oil exporter on earth and the sixth most productive natural gas country.  Statoil, the state-run Norwegian oil venture, is based in Stavanger.  Housing prices are nearly as high as in Oslo.  The streets are full of designer boutiques.  The city is scruffy no longer.
Even in miniature, shown as models, the offshore derricks are impossibly complex.  At tiny scale, they still towered over us - these platforms are virtually cities unto themselves, with room for thousands of occupants to live complete lives, miles away from land.

The world's largest drill bit is the first thing one encounters in the lobby.  It weighs almost two tons, and is about the size of a small armchair, with ugly, three-part teeth beneath it and a bolt on top as thick as a man's leg.  It's been cleaned up, of course, but it still has the snarled, dinged look of a tool-box regular.
The Ojlemuseum's greatest accomplishment, from a curatorial standpoint, is the way it displays very grimy, much-used artifacts in a clean, graceful way.  There are old control panels and submarines, wetsuits and blowout-plugs - all dented and abraded.  The space looks amazing.  The portrayal of the oil-industry, however, is a little defensive and heavy-handed.  It should be enough for a museum to focus on these deep sea drilling machines.  Nobody asked them to lay out an argument for petroleum.

One could spend a whole day there.  There are exhibits devoted to the earth's geologic history, to the primeval swamps that created the oil and to life onboard the platforms.  We counted three different movie rooms.  A large part of the museum is actually built on stilts out over the harbor.  There's a well-regarded restaurant.  In the lobby, a sign pointed the way to a meeting room; ExxonMobil apparently had a group visiting.  One (rather perplexing) feature got the kids all riled up - it was some sort of escape chute.  We're not sure where it led.

Up on Pulpit Rock

You see pictures of it everywhere in Norway, this shelf of a cliff which is most picturesque with a brave person set standing, sitting or laying on its edge.  Possibly even head-standing.  Yep, I saw a head-stander. Pulpit Rock (Priekestolen) is named for its shape as seen from below.  Since that's not exactly the viewpoint most people get of the cliff, I'll just go ahead and say that the name is most appropriate because every person standing at the Pulpit gets a glimpse of heaven, feels a little godly, contemplates their mortality (if they have even the slightest fear of heights).

National Geographic Traveler reports that Pulpit Rock is the most searched image in their entire database.  Lonely Planet has named it one the 1000 Ultimate Sights and, more specific, one of the world's most spectacular viewpoints.  Countless backpackers have called it "awesome, man."  It takes about two hours to get up to Pulpit Rock, with some steep sections and a little scrambling, but the hike's end is so iconic that you see families with toddlers, tourists with flimsy footwear and people generally not ecstatic about hiking make the trek to Pulpit Rock.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to any of those people but, hey, adventurous spirits are great! (Though, dryer weather would have been better).

Especially with a wet-and-getting-wetter terrain beneath us, we hikers weren't really making any eye contact with each other.  Everyone was looking down, being careful of their footing, hopping from rock to rock and finding alternative routes across some streams that had sprung up.  The trail is rocky most of the way, paths that would make my rock garden aficionado of a mother swoon.  "Leave me here!" she'd most likely tell me, snapping pictures of the ground at a particularly interesting spot.  There would be no need for her to travel any further... especially because she happens to be afraid of heights.

And oh the height!  Pulpit Rock is 1,982 feet high.  For a comparison, that's 758 feet higher than the observatory at the Empire State Building.  Without windows or walls or even a guard rail between you and the drop.  If you want to compare the natural and the man-made wonders a little more - Preikestolen was formed by glacial shifts approximately 10,000 years ago - as opposed to glacial egos around 80 years ago.

There was torrential rain when I first reached the summit, but the sun came out a smidge when I was only a few minutes away.  So, I scrambled back up to join the other wet, but victorious hikers.  We all pulled back our hoods and looked out.  A communion.  A group who'd hiked all the way up with enormous chess pieces sticking out of their backpacks and big sacks of water to weigh the pieces down, went to work setting up their board while a cameraman filmed.  The head-stander did his head-stand and I looked over the edge.  The world famous view was pretty misted over.  But I was absolutely thrilled to have made it there.  And then I went back down.

The Bergen Fish Market

The Fish Market in Bergen wasn't what I was expecting.  We love food markets, we count on them - often - for that first introduction to a new country.  Or that experience that lets us really connect with a city.  Usually, there's the sense of frenzy at food markets with an added dose of gore at fish and meat ones.  The fisketorget in Bergen is a different sort of fish market.  This isn't really where the locals get their fish.  It may be where some get their lunch.  More than anything, it's a showcase of the best the Norwegian seafood world has to offer and an excellent place to grab a meal.  Go with an appetite. 

This, right here, is the first bit of blue sky we'd seen in days.  Our last three days in Iceland and the first in Norway had been clouded in... clouds.  With a break in the weather, everyone had an extra spring in their step.  The orange rubber overall wearing vendors had their game faces on, which were big, inviting smiles.  Because of the rain, and the fact that high season is over, we weren't in the crowd that we'd been warned about.  There was plenty of browsing and eating room for everyone.  A lot of the offerings were the same down the line, more smoked and cured salmon varieties than my heart could dream up, caviar, dried cod, live lobster, crab legs, prawns, mussels, whole beautiful fish de-boned and ready for portioning out. It's a compact, mostly redundant market that leaves you salivating.

While there was plenty of fish to buy that you'd have to go and cook yourself, the real star (and what the emphasis was definitely placed on) was the prepared food.  Picnic tables lined the exterior of the stalls and tourists from around the world sat with plates and had the condiment of their choice at hand.  It's rare that you find a centerpiece with Tabasco, HP, thousand island dressing and soy sauce in a neat little huddle.  Sure, the local feel of a food market gets diminished by a high rate of tourism (take the excellent but flash-bulb filled Central Market in Bucharest or Seattle's Pike Place Market which is jam-packed with people just browsing... but you can't blame them with the game of fish catch being played).  But the real live commerce and fresh, local products still make any food market feel authentic in its way.

The authenticity that Bergen's fisketorget held for me was, firstly, in the history of it all.   Bergen is one of the most historically important ports on the Atlantic and the dried cod trade was an enormous part of the city's rise.   As far as modern Bergen goes, the fish market was a perfect representation of the culinary scene- this is a city in which it easy to eat exceptionally well - and the social one - the number of immigrants have been growing exponentially in recent years and, with them, have come new groceries, ethnic cuisines, and flavor influences.   Here, you had fresh, amazing fish being served as fish & chips, fish kebabs, sandwiches.  You had it steamed, smoked, cured, dried, raw, grilled, packaged.  It felt a lot like a New York street fair in which the stuff worth buying is eaten on site, platters are set out, aromas waft, the choices are different to a point, but all fall into a few categories and there's a definite international feel.

The fish market vendors were a lively bunch.  Chef's knives were outstretched with cubes of cured salmon on them.  They laughed and joked with each other in languages that I could tell weren't Norwegian and interacted with customers in accented English.  This man, who was busy grilling up some whale meat, told me he was from Spain.  "We all are," he continued, asking me if I wanted a taste of whale (I declined).  The ones that weren't from Spain hailed from Italy, both countries that give a worker some serious food cred and also the need to go find a job somewhere else. 

I read somewhere that there used to be a rule, from 1630 through 1911, that wealthy Bergeners and restaurant owners were banned from buying their seafood at the fish market.  I can only assume this was to make sure that "commoners" got their fair share of the inexpensive, local catch before it was all bought up.  Nowadays, there seems to be a different sort of delineation between who is at the fisketorget and who's not.  It's essentially local foreigners selling to visiting foreigners.  Nary a local Norwegian in site.  At least in the outdoor tents.  Inside the main buildings of the fish market are a number of upscale restaurants and then a sort of fishmonger boutique.

If the outdoor tents felt like a New York street fair, the indoor market section was Dean & Deluca.  A black and white photo from Bergen fish market past was blown up to cover the back wall.  Everything was chrome and glass, clean, shiny, filled like a jewel case with the diamonds and rubies of the sea.  There was a make your own sandwich station, crustaceans galore, gourmet salt, rubs and seasonings to accentuate the culinary slant of this versus the other market stalls.  The staff was Norwegian and offerings included sushi.

Our choice of lunch?  These gravlaks sandwiches from a stall outside.  They stood out from the salmon sandwich crowd for three reasons:  1) the bread was brown with seeds and cut into much longer slices than some competitors  2) the salmon itself wasn't smoked and sliced like all of the rest, but rather salt-and-sugar cured and flaked apart 3) the normal iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise had been brushed aside for mesclun greens and aioli.  We were very happy with our choice, even if it was a bit much to try to get your mouth around.

Bergen's Hanseatic Bryggen

This is Norway's "city of rain." On wooden streets – even if they are storm-soaked and age-softened – footsteps echo so loud that two people can sound like a troop.  Bergen’s Bryggen (the name translates to “wharf”) is a neighborhood of lilting gutters, odd angles, old houses, blind corners, narrow spaces and medieval history.
Created in the 11th century, settled by the Hanseatic league in the 14th and updated during the late renaissance, the pretty stretch of buildings is the symbol of Bergen, a UNESCO site and an unfailingly charming tourist trap.

At every Bryggen entrance, there’s a big “no smoking” sign.  It seems silly on wet days in September, but the city is truly worried.  Most of the buildings have burned down at one time or another.  Fire destroyed most of the buildings in 1476 and 1702.  In 1955, several of the waterside houses were flattened in a conflagration that burned more than one third of Bergen.  In each case, the buildings were carefully reconstructed according to the original settlement plans, with old tools and methods  - which is interesting in the 20th century, but is astounding for the 15th and early 18th centuries.
The result is a fascinating area of boarded canyons and dripping clearings, filled with shops and confused tourists.

The Hanseatic League was, during the middle centuries of the last millennium, the pre-eminently powerful trading force in northern-coastal Europe.  The German-based association of tradesmen (all of them bachelors, all of them sworn to German law and the Holy Roman Emperor) existed as a kind of extra-state, self-governing partnership.  They set up enclaves in cities from London to Novgorod, with closely-held internal management, and essentially built their own cities - Gdansk, Bruges, Malmo - where they could.
Bergen was an outlier, far away from the north coast of the continental mass.  Still, its sea wealth and northern location made it a valuable outpost, and it became a major Hanseatic port. The Bryggen kontor, or enclave, was established in 1360, mainly to trade in Atlantic fish (which was brought to the south) and southern grains (which the people of Norway had a difficult time growing).  As a Hanseatic settlement, it was excused from local rulership and laws.  The traders mostly kept to themselves.

Wandering through the Bergen Bryggen, it's easy to feel off-kilter, as though you've just stepped off a rolling ship's deck.  None of the lines are plumb, none of the windows seem square.  People bump into eachother in wooden passageways - the whole place seems more in danger of tipping over than burning up.  It's especially off-kilter after the square lines of the modern town and present-day Norway in general.
In Bergen, like in most Hanseatic enclaves, the trading center was a compact and well-guarded compound close to the docks.  These mini-towns consisted of the trader's houses, storerooms and shops, all enclosing open courtyards where markets were held and goods were unloaded.  Today, there are high-price hair salons and antique stores, souvenir shops, art galleries and clothing boutiques scattered along the wooden walls.  They all have a quaint, nordic softness to them; frayed wool and well-worn wood, moose-heads hung on the walls, bold paints and grey skies overhead.  The courtyards are of well-rounded cobblestones.  The shop-proprietors are Norwegian now - not German - and generally they trade in tourism.

The Bryggen is one of those places that at first looks tiny, then feels huge, then reverts back to feeling small.  From across the harbor, it appears as a simple row of buildings.  A few minutes wandering through wooden alleys makes it seem like an endless sequence of corners and uneven boards.  Roofs hang, second-floor protrusions loom.  Then, it runs out - a few turns through and one realizes they've passed the same courtyard twice, the same yarn store three times.

Things Icelandic People Like

Saying "No, Thanks!" to European Union Membership.  Within an hour of arriving in Iceland, we spotted a billboard that said "ESB - NEI TAKK!"  Our quick airplane study session had taught us that "nei takk" means "no, thank you" and the European Union flag keyed us into the meaning of "ESB."  We saw hay bails wrapped in branded plastic with the same message throughout the countryside.  Even though membership talks successfully began between Iceland and the EU in 2010, 56% of Icelanders polled this February were against them moving forward.  The main causes for concern have to do with agriculture and fisheries.  Basically, the enormous subsidies currently provided to sheep farmers would be cut drastically, the import tax currently on imported meat and produce would be lifted and the local farmers would get competition that they simply couldn't win. As for the fisheries, once EU member states get access to Icelandic waters, there's no telling what would happen.  Both of these things would, undoubtedly, affect the island's environment (on top of its ability to be self-sufficient, a vital skill for an island nation).

Coca-Cola Products.  Icelanders consume more Coca-Cola product per capita than any country in the world.  It's true.  The upside to such a depressing statistic is that they are the only European country to sell my very favorite soda, Fresca, a product of the Coca-Cola Company.  Aside from Iceland, it is distributed only to North and South America.  So, thank you, Iceland.  (Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Sprite and Sprite Zero were the other products regularly on hand).
When buying a soda like a true Icelander, one needn't have any available cash.  Because, another thing that Icelandic people like is...

Using a Credit Card for Everything.  Absolutely everything.  Even the vending machines have card swipers.

Cairns.  Some marked trails, some stood lonely and tall in the middle of fields - ancient leftovers from a trail long since disappeared.  At Skálabrekka, on the drive toward Þingvellir National Park, we saw dozens of tourists buildings cairns in a field just chock full of them.  A different sort of marking, just saying that they were there.  This cairn was spotted on the way up the Strandir Coast of the Westfjords.

Saga Museums.  The Sagas of Icelanders are the best known and most loved pieces in Icelandic literature.  Written in the 13th and 14th century by unknown authors, they tell the stories of the 10th and 11th, when the descendents of the original settlers began to navigate their way through life in this new world.  This involved lots of murder, as far as I can tell, as almost every saga details one killing after another.  Of course, this makes for great entertainment.  So, museums telling the stories have popped up around Iceland.  Most are in the location of the actual saga.  Let's just say, we saw a lot of violence reenacted by wooden statues and grotesque dummies.  Above, at the Saga Museum in Borgarnes, a tavern full of men listen to the very first poem recited by young Egil of Egil's Saga.  Spoiler alert: Egil grew up to become quite the murderer.

Self-Service Soup Stations.  In tourist information centers, gas stations, bakeries, museum gift shops and restaurants, there was always a big cauldron of soup sitting in the corner.  The soup of the day was always self-serve, inexpensive and offered up with slices of complimentary bread.  Cauliflower soup popped up twice, but usually mushroom soup and kjötsúpa, Icelandic lamb soup, were the ones on hand. 
Usually, a self-serve water station was also stationed somewhere in any room.  Icelandic tap water is excellent and having big pitchers on counters and bars across the country was excellent.  No waiting to ask your waiter for a refill, here!

Sod Roofs.  This architectural feature dates all the way back to the Vikings.  Covering log cabins with birch bark was the roofing method of choices throughout Icelandic history - and since birch bark so easily curls or blows away, the pieces were weighed down with think pieces of sod.  The process was labor intensive, but basically free, so it continued on in rural areas for centuries.  Recently, people have begun using sod roofs again.  The birch is waterproof, the sod is a great insulator and the weight of it all compresses the logs beneath to make the walls more draught-proof.  The sod roof above seems to be mostly chosen for look.

Icelandic Food

An old woman at the Reykjavik flea market snipped us samples of harðfiskur with heavy shears.  Before her, many kilos of the dried fish were arranged on a table.  She told us the differences between the varieties in an unintelligible language that might partly have been English. Some types were dry enough to flake and powder around the edges.  Others were almost moist, and smelled of docks and brackish water.  Harðfiskur is no delicate treat - the flesh needs to be worked in the teeth before it softened.
Like so many Icelandic foods, harðfiskur - dried cod, arctic char, haddock or ocean catfish, usually eaten smeared with salted butter - is very simple and very much a part of the environment.  In the old days, before grains were imported, it often served as a kind of bread for the hearty islanders.

On a cool night in the northern fishing village of Hólmavík, we wandered into the local pub for dinner. It was misty outside, the sea was grey and empty, the town had been battened-down for bad weather.  The few people who were out in the elements walked briskly, heads down, their chins tucked into raincoats.
But the pub - called Café Riis - was bright, warm and almost full.  A harried, red-cheeked waitress informed us that they only had a buffet that night, which seemed disappointing until she began pointing out dishes.  In addition to hearty mainstays - breaded lamb chops and potato salad, pink shrimp in garlic, flatbreads, various mayonnaise concoctions, fish balls - there was a whole array of Icelandic specialties.  Smoked salmon, of course, but also smoked lamb.  Fried cod cheeks with onion: voluptuously oily and tender.  Cured puffin: chewy, meaty and deep purple.  Marinated minke whale: soft, fatty and coated in strong rosemary.  We drank lots of Gull beer, refilled our plates and forgot about the worsening gale.
(A note: whale meat is pushed on tourists as though it's a longstanding tradition.  Really, it's not, and Icelanders don't eat much of it - the new whaling industry mostly exists to satisfy foreign curiosity about eating these animals.  We tried it, but don't feel terrific about it.)

Ships from distant Europe used to sail for Iceland's waters in all weather, spending months on the sea in search of one, specific fish.  From Brittany, Spain, Portugal and England, arriving in creaking fleets loaded with salt and brave men, the ships came for cod.  It's still the king of the North Atlantic fish, even if the catches are smaller, the cuts are more diminutive and people have begun worrying about mercury.
Heavy metals and overfishing aside, cod is absolutely delicious.  In Iceland, we ate it crusted in curry, stewed in soups, salted, smoked,  baked in hot earth and sautéed - ever so simply - in a pan. At the Hotel Djúpavík, as we sat to dinner with other wind-burned travelers, the smell of the cooking fish was intoxicating.  The plates were simple, the meal was perfect.

Cod may be king, but Iceland has plenty of other fish in its seas. Plokkfiskur, a dish of mashed haddock and potatoes, is one of the more basic and popular seafood dishes in the country, especially as the days grow shorter and August begins to feel like autumn.
Plokkfiskur can be made a variety of ways, with anything - cheese, butter, cream or (even) mayonnaise.  It's great piping hot; a filling and fishy lunch between hikes or a fisherman's dinner after a day on the waves.

At Fjöruborðið Restaurant, in Stokkseyri, Rebecca was given almost more langoustine than she could eat.  They were slid onto the table in a copper pot, cooked in butter and oil with new potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper and otherwise unadulterated.  At the end of the lunch, a translucent pile of rosy shells sat beside her plate.
Northern pink shrimp also pop up often on menus. Spider crabs, sea cucumbers and urchins too, but more rarely.

At the Sorcery & Witchcraft Museum, in Hólmavík, the exhibits were scant but the mussels were plump.  "From the bay outside," our chef (and sorcerer) said, presenting us with bright orange creatures cooked in saffron, celery and hot pepper.  Another museum goer asked about the intense coloring; "the orange ones are girls," our host said.

We came to associate open-faced sandwiches with ports.  At the Stykkishólmur ferry office, just feet from the nodding fleet, we ate shrimp sandwiches, clingwrapped and presented in an artful tableau.  These little delights are like still-lifes, arranged just-so to highlight each ingredient (mayo, salad, cluster of crustacean).  Often, you can't even see the bread.
In another port town, on the island of Heimaey, we ate lunch at sunlit and sweet Café Varmó.  Here, my ham and egg sandwich sat on a spelt pancake.

Iceland's yogurt is called skyr, a term which has only recently become known in the United States. It's a thick, strained, less-tangy melody in the worldwide theme, but not hugely different from Greek goat's yogurt.  Icelander's eat their skyr with added cream to moisten it, or drink it pre-packaged, in watered-down form.
We liked ours with fresh krækiber: "crowberry," when it exists in English.  We saw old women and young children picking these pithy, sour berries on the wastes around the south coast.  They look something like blueberries, but have only a little sweetness.  With skyr, they taste perfectly of Iceland - rocky, windswept, grassy and wet.

In the Land of the Puffins

The Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands), off the southwestern coast of Iceland, are home to the world's largest puffin colony.  Anyone taking a ferry ride from the mainland to Heimaey - the largest and only inhabited island in the archipelago - is at least somewhat drawn to it by the promise of puffins.  Us included.  The front deck of the boat was closed off. So, standing outside meant approaching backwards.  We saw the mainland move away into a silhouetted sliver and then disappear entirely.  Then, it was just sea until islands began to pop up, out of nowhere, on either side of the ferry.  Cliff side streaks of white bird poo were our first signs that we had arrived in the land of the puffins.

Some of the islands look like the little round scraps that would confetti a tabletop if you hole punched a photo of the alps.   A grassy peak with a lone sheep on top of it smack dab in the center of a body of water.  We had no idea how Lamb Chop got up there.  At least two of Vestmannayer's uninhabited islands have a single building set atop or nestled into the side of a hill.  That white dot on the left side of the island above is one.  We thought, initially, that these were maybe the homes of the world's most romantic loners - or possibly its devoutest monks.  But they are actually puffin hunting cabins which are rented out to groups of dedicated huntsmen within the six week season each year. Needless to say, they have to pack reserves. 

The main island of Heimaey has 4,000 inhabitants who receive around 6 million visiting puffins per year. This used to be quite the boon for residents, a food source arriving in bulk. Puffins were the diversity in an islander's diet of fish, fish and more fish. There was a period at the end of the 19th century when the birds were harvested for their down, too, which was then sent off to Denmark to use in bedding. While lucrative, this put a big strain on the Atlantic puffin population and the practice was banned. All hunting was called off for 30 years. Today, the Atlantic puffin's conservation status is ruled as "least concern," meaning they are far from endangered.

Still, like so much wildlife in the world today, the puffin population have been showing some signs of decline and, as a result, hunting the birds has been prohibited for the last two summers.  Most people chalk the dwindling breeding numbers up to changes in the eco system, over-fishing of the puffins' food sources (small fish), and the introduction of new predators such as domestic pets.  Whether hunting plays a role or not, it's better to just err on the side of caution and cancel the season for a few years.  Or maybe for good?
Any hunting that does take place is done using a method borrowed from the Faroe Islands.  "Sky fishing," involves grabbing a puffin right out of the sky with "fledges," a kind of oversized lacrosse stick.  Their neck is then broken by hand.  It's actually very humane - and only non-breeding puffins are caught.  You can see a huntsman in action in the above Heimaey building art.

Puffin art adorns plenty of buildings on Heimaey.  The people of Vestmannaeyjar have a special relationship with their birds.  The yearly arrival of the millions-strong colony is an event, a tradition and a cause for celebration.  This is the only time in a puffin's life that they set foot on land.  Aside from this breeding period, their entire existence is spent at sea.  As they arrive in Vestmannaeyjar, the birds meet up with their mates.  Some are known to meet midflight and go right at it.  Honey, I haven't seen you in so long!  Puffins are monogamous, except in the rare case that no eggs are produced for a few seasons. Then, the puff daddy goes out and finds himself a new puff mommy.  (Ever think the problem may be with you, bub? Look at him, so smug in that tophat.)

The domestic life of a puffin is undeniably endearing.  Aside from the whole swoon-worthy mating-for-life thing, they also act as true partners in their time together on land.  The male puffin is mainly responsible for building their nest, burrowing a hole into the side of a cliff or finding a rabbit hole to repurpose. The female lines the spot with grass and leaves to make it more comfortable.  Then, once the single egg is laid, the couple share incubating responsibilities - and, once hatched, feeding duty.  Then, the little puffling is mostly on its own, braving the world outside its nest for the very first time during the night.  Its natural instinct is to use the moon to guide its flight, but some get confused by the bright orb streetlights of Heimaey.  So, every year, a "Puffin Patrol" goes out onto the streets and finds the confused little pufflings, bringing them back to the water's edge and sets them free by hand.

Breeding season was just coming to an end as we arrived on the island, but we still got a glimpse of a few stragglers.  After seeing their image on just about every souvenir possible throughout Iceland and in street murals and pub signs in Heimaey, it was both more and less exciting to see them in person.  It's a lot like seeing a rainbow.  You know exactly what one looks like, you know what environment you're most likely to see one pop up, but it's something so attached to drawings, symbols, cartoons, iconography that spotting a true one in nature feels predictable, but lucky somehow. 

"Do you hate it when people order puffin?" Merlin asked... after ordering puffin.  "No, no," the young waitress answered, shaking her head on top of which about a mile of blonde hair was piled.  "When they are young, they are cute.  But when they get big..." she scrunched her nose.  Four deep brown puffin breasts were served alongside a candied pear and some roasted potatoes.  They looked like beef liver, even more so when one was cut open to reveal an intense pink.  It definitely didn't shout "poultry," but then again neither does duck.  The texture was also similar to liver, but the taste was a cross between duck and venison.  You know, in case you were wondering.