The Vanishing Landscape by Andrew Harrison

July ice melt in Norwegian Fjord                    credit Nike Knudsen

 Sailing through the ‘night’, if such a word can be used to describe a land where the sun does not set for part of the year, we headed north under day lit, grey nimbostratus choked skies. Gently rolling seas rocked our boat, the M/S Nordstjernen. On the morning of Friday 12^th July, we left the sea behind for the calmer waters of Magdalenefjorden. The fjord stretched away to the east with a light breeze rippling its almost mirror like surface. Finely ground sediment, washed off the surrounding landscape, gave the water an almost milky blue-grey appearance. 

Surrounding the fjord on three sides, jagged mountainous peaks rose sharply. Deeply incised valleys, stretching down to the water’s edge, separated the mountains or, on occasion, were left hanging half way up the mountainside. Frozen fresh water lay as pristine white icy patches upon the mountain sides or sat as grubby white glaciers in the valley bottoms.

From the fjord shore to approximately one third up the mountainsides, stretched a noticeable horizontal brownish-grey band like a grubby tidemark. Bare ancient rock and shattered conical scree slopes gave the band its appearance. Above this band, where no ice lay, lichens and mosses covered the upper slopes in deep green and dark brown shades. 

Small icy lumps, like mini icebergs floated on the fjord close to shore. Mini-icebergs and exposed boulders provided ideal resting places for an occasional harbour or bearded seal. Guillemots, little auks and puffins flew about the M/S Nordstjernen or floated happily on the water. Nesting little auks could be heard calling noisily from one onshore vertical cliff. Seals and seabirds alike were all very happy to call this place home. 

However, despite the nature of this tranquil view, all was not well. The floating icy lumps and appearance of the enclosing mountainous slopes, signified an important change to the local landscape. One with global implications.

More than 100 years past, this scene would have looked very different. Glacial ice would have covered the fjord’s eastern end forming a towering wall that hid the shore beneath. Today, the grubby white glaciers are a fraction of their former size and sit, tongue like, in the bottom of their incised valleys. This grubby appearance stems from eroded and ground up soil and rock within the icy body. Lateral moraines formed the scree slopes surrounding the fjord perimeter. Where two glaciers met, their lateral moraines coincided to form a dark streak or medial moraine. The greyish-brown band encircling the fjord, was testament to how far up the enclosing mountainous rim, the glaciers historically rose. 

Where icy mass met the water in the fjord, the glaciers appeared heavily crevassed and blocky. In places, bare rock was visible beneath the glacier front with the entrance to an ice tunnel receding deep into the glacial heart. These tunnels and occasional, thunderously loud cracks were another sign of the glaciers retreating due to melt water entering the fjord or the glacier carving to form the mini-icebergs. 

Time did not allow for a landing at Magdalenefjorden. However, during lunch we sailed on to the next fjord, Smeerenburgfjorden, where in the afternoon we landed and experienced a ‘dead glacier’. That is, the Smeerenburg glacier is no longer growing because there is no precipitation to replenish the ice. Instead, it is thinning as it melts away into its host fjord. 

A deep hole, or Moulin, formed from deep blue and green ice on the glacier surface, was testament to how unstable the ice was. The Moulin was produced from melt water, which it funnelled to the glacier’s base. Here, the melt water acted as a lubricant making the glacier flow faster, causing extensional stresses to build up in the ice. The result was crevasses that could open at any time. 

Walking back to our landing boats, we crossed pinkish brown granite moraine that varied in grain size from coarse sand to small boulders. According to our guide, Jakob, five years previously we would have been walking on ice. This was how fast the glaciers were retreating. We were informed that we would be amongst the last people to land at this spot. Next year, new government rules were coming in to change which spots could be visited and reducing the number that could be landed upon.

Getting back into our landing boats to head back to the M/S Nordstjernen, we took in the scene for one last time with a rather melancholic feeling. Receding glaciers, exposed moraines, floating ice blocks and occasional thunderous cracks. Not only would we be amongst the last people to land here, we would also be amongst the last to see this fjord and Magdalenefjorden as they currently appeared.