Field work, Nordvoll

 After we weeded all the strawberries by hand, by wedging knives into the roots to try to extirpate the weeds, we covered all the fields with insulating white cloths. (This double-insulates the fields, which are already covered with black tarps that Roger disconcertingly referred to as "membranes.")

arctic swim, nordvoll, 2013

Roger, who grew up here 200 miles above the Arctic circle, said that he and his family would never have imagined going for a swim. 
But Michelle and I always looked for excuses to go, on hot days (because we were constantly dirty from work anyway) just in underwear.

The midnight ride, Nordvoll, 2013

End of times at Nordvoll, Norwegian Arctic

 Around midnight on my last day. When the sun doesn't set you feel like the end of the world is just around the corner.

 This are photos from the last two days of my time in Norway and as a Shaw fellow. I haven't uploaded them before (they're from June) because I really couldn't tell, looking at them, if the photos were interesting or not. It's like a magic trick how waiting 2 months can change your photos from boring to utterly filled with longing.

Just on my last day we found three strawberry flowers

me and michelle

 part of what I wrote in the wwoof book

 The same field and beach, Snarby, at the end of April

The same field in mid May

When I think about Michelle or this last day in Nordvoll, I hear Ida's "My Fair, My Dark." The readers who know me know I don't listen to music that often, but when I do I get all emotional, and Norway and "My Fair, My Dark" are so perfect together. Michelle sang me a song she wrote while we stood on the beach, maybe that's why I remember her and the end of the Arctic with a melody.

Please listen to the song I mean here.

my watercolors of the beginning of my stay, and the end

Nordvoll Part II

White Tailed Eagle (the European version of the bald eagle and with the largest average wingspan of any eagle!)
From Wikipedia: "The single confirmed case of an eagle flying with a human being involved the White-tailed Eagle. One June 5, 1932, Svanhild Hansen, a 4-year-old girl, was playing next to her parent's farm house in Norway when a White-tailed Eagle grabbed her by the back of her dress and flew with her to its eyrie. The eyrie was 800 m (2,600 ft) up the side of the nearby mountain and about 1.6 km (0.99 mi) away in flying distance. The eagle dropped the young girl onto a narrow ledge about 15.2 m (50 ft) below the nest. After being discovered by a quickly formed search party, the little girl survived with no major injuries, ultimately having kept her talon-pierced dress throughout her life."
Also, generations of these eagles like to use the same nests, even using the same ever-enlarging nest for more than 100 years.

First day in Tromsø and at Nordvoll Farm