Farewell Mr Puffin

by Paul Heiney

  Tourism creates leaflets and within two small printed pages that I picked up in the coffee shop there was enough to keep me busy for the remaining days before Crispin arrived. The photographic museum, of all things, had an outstanding vintage camera collection, including a gold-plated Leica. Such a place would have been a major attraction for camera enthusiasts if it had been anywhere else, but here it was just a bloke with a lot of display cases in his front room and a great deal of pride in showing them off. The poetry centre was closed, and I didn’t shed a tear over that for I suspected the Nordic verse might not be the jolliest, but I was sad to see no action around the folk music centre, from which not a single note emerged; possibly they were waiting for the arrival of a cruise ship – the latest species of sea creature, which provides a good income for some of these remote communities.

  The church, as dazzling white as a freshly iced wedding cake, with a spire of similar construction, was impressive from the outside, even though it did look like every other Icelandic church I’d seen. At the time of its building, in 1932, it was the largest church in Iceland. And that was pretty much all the attractions of this place, until much to my relief I discovered the Herring Era Museum.

  Siglufjörður was once the herring capital of Iceland and at its peak accounted for 40 per cent of Iceland’s fish exports. It was founded as a shark-fishing village, but after the herring industry arrived in 1900 it became one of the largest towns in Iceland – hence the mighty church. The herring, of course, has now gone, but only since 1969. Gone, but not forgotten. I walked the length of the Snorragata, a long straight road leading out of town, to find a collection of wooden buildings painted in that typical rich red paint common in Nordic countries. Why always red? Is it to cheer them up in the dark winters? In Sweden, from where the habit may have come, the proliferation of red-painted houses stems from the use of a by-product of copper mining, when the residue is mixed with water and starch to provide a good paint for keeping the rain off the wooden walls. Some suggest it was to make their houses look like brick-built houses, of which they might have been envious. Without doubt, red paint makes a house speak of homeliness and in Finland they say that all a family needs for happiness is ‘a red house and a potato field’.

  It was the Norwegians who sailed here in 1903 to launch an era of great prosperity – a Viking invasion of the agreeable kind. At one time it was known as the ‘Atlantic Klondike’, bringing not only trawlers but speculators too. The town opened a salting factory and, in what must have been an odious-smelling plant, turned herrings into fishmeal.

  To walk the quiet, deserted streets of this town, it is almost impossible to imagine its heyday. When the weather was bad, the harbour would be crammed with boats seeking shelter. Thousands came here seeking jobs, and the streets could be so jammed with people you might think that every day was carnival day. It is said that when the herring simply failed to turn up one summer in 1969, the good days were over. If the Icelanders shed any tears over the departing herring, it would be worth reminding them that it might have been their own fault. As the years went by, the fishing methods became ever more efficient and greater fleets came here to drag the herring out of the sea. Much blame must rest not only on the Icelandic fleets, but on those from Norway and Russia as well.

  To step inside the Herring Era Museum is to be transported – whoever designed this knew how to create atmosphere. I could easily imagine the gangs of herring girls who followed the fleets to gut and salt the catch. Fish oil production was so lucrative that they claimed to be ‘grinding up gold’, and vast factories were repaying the costs of their construction in just three or four years. In the boathouse, next to the museum, I found a reconstruction of a typical harbour. It was so real I could smell the sea, the fishy catch, the hot oil of the engines. This was museum-making at its best. I was overawed by the massive generators built to feed the electrical needs of the developing factories, just one of which was processing 1,300 tons of herring a day. I had glimpsed what was once the real life of this town, now departed. Nature moves on, as the herring did.

  We all move on. Perhaps the puffins are moving on too. A writer, like me, may come to Iceland in 50 years’ time and instead of penning a nostalgic screed about the loss of the herring, they might be describing what the abundance of puffins once looked like. The herring shows us how creatures can easily turn into memories.

  ***

  Nordic television drama was all the rage at that time, with films of Icelandic cops, criminals and icebound landscapes pulling in huge TV ratings. Some weeks after I returned home, I recognised Siglufjörður, which featured in one of them. The drama was set in winter but there were buildings I spotted and locations I knew quite well. In fact, the place where they landed a limbless and, needless to say, brutally murdered corpse was exactly where Wild Song had been moored. Had I known it at the time, I might not have slept so easy. There were car chases down streets that had become familiar and in one scene, set in a filling station, criminals met to plot wicked deeds. I sat in that filling station too, waiting for Crispin, who was arriving by air and bus, to join for a couple of weeks. The idea of passing your time in a filling station would be a sign of leading a desperately sad life back home, but here they sold respectable coffee, hot dogs and burgers in a clean, pleasant environment. People think nothing of going to a filling station for a good night out.

  The bus arrived spot on time and stumbling from it into the chill evening air, laden with a bursting rucksack, was the unusual figure of Crispin, bravely clad in his shorts as ever, oblivious to the chilly weather. He is one of those figures of indeterminate age with a large mop of frizzy hair, and more often than not to be seen wearing odd socks. He looked like one of life’s wanderers who might have spent the previous night sleeping under a cow. I met him through his ownership of a patch of attractive woodland from which he slaves to extract firewood while at the same time doing his best for the natural life of the woodland – an ambitious balance to strike. He told me he was a former Steiner school pupil, an educational method founded by the Austrian academic of the same name notable for its promotion of universal human values, unpressured learning, attention to cultural and artistic needs, as well as learning with the ultimate aim of providing well-rounded adults. Critics have described them as ‘playful and hippyish’.

  The better bits seemed to have rubbed off on Crispin, lover of nature, inquisitive about the world, eager to discover, uncaring about personal comfort, shunning matching socks. I soon realised that all the effort at replumbing the boat’s lavatory might have been wasted, for I’m sure that if I’d offered him a bucket instead he would have accepted it with a well-rounded Steiner shrug. In fact, he’d already heard via my wife that there were plumbing problems. She is well used to boat plumbing difficulties and suspected the grade of harsh Icelandic lavatory paper might have been the problem, which explained why a baffled Crispin opened his rucksack to reveal three rolls of Andrex smiling up at us. He hadn’t been on board long before I recognised him as a jolly presence, despite having never sailed on a yacht. Skill is quite useful in a crew, but good company is far more valuable. He didn’t seem in the slightest bit bothered at the prospect of sailing off into Arctic waters, even in his shorts, and he happily confessed that he didn’t have a clue what to do, although he had done a trip on a tall ship, which is a completely different kettle of fish.

  The next day dawned sunny, almost warm, and with the lightest of breezes, although I expected more when we were out of the fjord and on our way to the Arctic Circle. We were less than six hours’ sail now to this imaginary line at 66º33’ north, which marks the northernmost point at which the centre of the noon sun is just visible on the December solstice, known to laymen as the ‘shortest day’. Actually, the latitude of the Arctic Circle varies by as much as 2º over a period of 40,000 years – very worrying. At the moment, experts say that it is drifting north at a rate of 15 metres a year. How unstable this planet is!

  The island of Grímsey
lies partly within the Arctic Circle and is the most northerly of Iceland’s off-lying islands; a lump of chilly rock on to which 60 hardy souls cling. If you stand at its most northern point there will be nothing twixt you and the North Pole, with the possible exception of an islet called Kolbeinsey, which is rapidly being eroded so doesn’t really count, especially as its surface area is only that of a circle 11 metres in diameter. Grímsey is great for tourists who want to return home and brag about ‘having been in the Arctic’, but they had better hurry because that northern drift of the Arctic Circle means that by the middle of the 21st century, Grímsey will have been left behind. And what will they do then with the lump of sculpture-like, engraved stone, billed as the only tourist attraction on the island, to which visitors trudge to pay homage to this iconic line of latitude? In fact, there have been three such stones, the first having been placed there in 1717.

  I knew Crispin was going to get the idea of this sailing business when he said softly, during the course of the afternoon, ‘Isn’t it magic to see an island appear over the horizon?’ You have to appreciate that kind of magic to get any enjoyment out of sailing your own boat, and to appreciate and understand the uncertainties leads to the greatest rewards. If you don’t get that, then sailing is just a slow and rather wet way of getting around. A sailor with not a hint of poetry in his soul must be an arid character indeed, and certainly no seaman.

  The harbour on Grímsey, which is on the south side, is the only settlement on the island, and is called Sandvík. It’s difficult to know where to go when you first enter a harbour, especially one where cruising yachts are not often on the agenda. My first choice proved to be a wrong one and the harbourmaster soon shunted us alongside a lengthy pier, well sheltered so I was quite happy to be moved there. Even more so when he told me I could top up the diesel here without having to move again, but would have to wait till the bus driver came back from a trip to the Arctic stone as he was the only one with a key. Stout inflatable boats were bringing hundreds of passengers ashore from a cruise ship anchored off, all dressed in identical bright red anoraks and looking like a swarm of insects crawling over the island. The sight of this red army, however, is not as bad as some tourist groups, which arrive wearing Viking helmets. Perhaps they do so in memory of Grímur, a Norwegian farmer who was the first to settle here and set about removing the giants and trolls, reserving the daughter of one of them for himself, as legend has it.

  The less courageous tourists soon crawled back to their ship once they looked at their watches and sensed it was time for dinner. On board our more modest little ship the heater was playing up again and I forecast a chilly night. Crispin had been for a walk ashore, taking athletic strides like a fit teenager, and returned to tell me he’d taken a shower in a fast-running stream that tumbled down the hillside and felt enlivened by it. If he was cold, he certainly wasn’t going to get warm again on this boat. While he’d been bathing, I’d wandered through the small settlement of tidy houses with well-kept lawns to find a modest church, looking from the outside like an unremarkable wooden village hall with a square tower stuck on the end, and built with great love from driftwood in 1867 and rebuilt in 1956. The entire church was tied down with tight and substantial ropes, just as in those pictures of Gulliver, to prevent it blowing away in the winter gales. I noted on leaving that one of the gravestones carried the same birthday as that of my late son.

  I returned to the boat without coming under airborne assault from the Arctic terns that live here in numbers, nor were my eyes dazzled by the flocks of puffins. There were no puffins. Not a single one that I could see. They are supposed to crowd in here every summer, welcomed with open arms by the islanders, who have an affection for them – alongside, it has to be admitted, a desire to hunt them, although these days they hold back to keep the tourists happy. Even so, I heard that the only restaurant on the island served, one summer solstice, a celebration menu that ranged from auk eggs, through minke whale, to puffin.

  If puffins were supposed to be here in numbers, they certainly weren’t showing it. I looked at every feathered thing in the sky, or bobbing around in the white water breaking at the cliff edge, and saw not one single puffin. Even if I screwed up my eyes and tried to imagine them, I couldn’t see one. Like a child who believed in fairies, I deeply wished to see a puffin, but no joy.

  20

  No bleaker sail than this

  Heading east from Grímsey under heavy skies and a freezing wind, I felt colder than at any time on this trip so far. We were less than a mile south of the Arctic Circle but we might as well have been within touching distance of the North Pole for any comfort the weather might have given. Hot soup and steaming tea were our only deterrents.

  Then, guess what!

  A puffin!

  I shouted to Crispin, ‘There’s a puffin. A bloody puffin!’

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, bobbing on the sea, a single puffin! The excitement left me shaking. The beak was the giveaway, glowing like a warm beam from a lighthouse across a steely grey sea. After weeks of sailing, of peering hopefully into the sky and across the ocean, of saying prayers, I got my meagre reward as one lonely puffin made a solo appearance.

  Just one.

  I ought to have been thrilled, and to some extent I was, but when I calmed myself down I found it only served to remind me of how much I had been cheated. Others get to see thousands, this was my first this entire trip. I had sailed past some of the most prolific puffin breeding grounds in northern Europe, I had wished them well as I passed, I wanted them to know I was their friend. None of this had been reciprocated until now, but in a perfunctory manner, when the voyage was nearly over, when it was too late to mend the hurt. I greeted that lone puffin. I looked at him directly into his black-rimmed eye, then I watched him dive swiftly beneath the water as our bow wave came into his view. He didn’t even pause long enough to wink back at me. After a short while he appeared on the other side of the boat, looked around, then paddled away as furiously as he could to gain speed before a desperate flapping of his little wings eventually got him airborne.

  Farewell, Mister Puffin. That was the last I would see of him. Then, without any clear reason, he changed course and started flying towards me, performing a complete circuit of the boat, lifting one wing after the other like an elderly aeroplane doing acrobatic stunts. It felt like a salute. Then he headed for land and this time it really was farewell.

  ***

  Crispin was fired with enthusiasm for sailing now, really getting into his sailing stride and looking forward to what I promised him would be a long day’s sail. It would be a good ten hours of heading eastwards towards the most northerly, and most remote, harbour in Iceland. There was no strong wind forecast, but this is the far northern shore, a spit from the Arctic Circle, and that brings with it uncertain weather, so we took nothing for granted. Thankfully, Crispin now had mastery of the stove, so kettle-boiling duties I could safely delegate. All felt good, if cold.

  On the north-eastern tip of Iceland is the small village of Raufarhöfn, which is a mere eight-hour drive from Reykjavík, assuming the rain hasn’t washed the road away, or a dump of unseasonal snow hasn’t blocked the tortuous, rutted road. This village was once a massive export harbour in the days of, you’ve guessed it, the herring boom, which has long since disappeared. I don’t think any sailor chooses his harbour by reference to the leisure industry, and certainly long sandy beaches or a promise of five-star restaurants are of no significance round here. You look for shelter because nothing else matters more; all you ask is a harbour where you can be confident that nothing the weather can throw at you will disturb your night’s sleep. The wind can howl, the heavens may open, but none of that matters to you once you have made your perfect harbour. And anyway, every new harbour is like opening a Christmas present to me, wrapped in uncertainty but always hoping to find joy inside.

  The wind hereabouts usually blows from the north-east at this time of year and since we were heading east it could
have been a bit of a slog, given that the wind was stiffening and we were getting weary. Conveniently, it started to shift a little more to the north, which gave us some faster but increasingly chilly sailing. I could not complain. This is what I had come for, wasn’t it? I longed for that feeling of North, the sense of the clear air, to be uplifted by the sharpness of the north wind’s breeze, to drink its freshness. That was the theory anyway, but in practice it just got colder and colder as the day progressed and we drank more and more tea to keep warm. Romance is easily quenched when the temperature drops.

  For most of the day we were rewarded for our efforts with only ever greyer sky and an equally metallic sea, whipped by the knife-edged wind. I don’t usually light the diesel heater when at sea, largely for safety, but the going wasn’t rough and I thought a little warmth below would be an indulgence we had earned. The lighting process is never predictable, except in the sense that it goes wrong more often than it goes right.

  The sensation of being chilled to the core is different to just feeling the cold. You sense your internal organs are coming under attack and bracing themselves by stiffening, especially the muscles. The mind slows, the most dangerous symptom, and movements become clumsy, which creates obvious danger on a tossing boat.

  Crispin was still in his shorts. I honestly thought he might die.

  We nibbled dark and stimulating chocolate, put on thicker gloves, and did all those warming up things, all to no effect. We were getting very cold by now, way beyond chilly. I was going to suggest to Crispin that trousers might help, but I wasn’t certain he had any. The weather was making fools of us. The bright sunshine and light winds of Grímsey had tricked us into thinking we were back home in balmy, summertime UK. We needed that diesel heater to start working but nothing I could do would get even the meths to ignite, let alone the diesel.