I spent my free morning before my flight on a 2.5 hour
bus tour around Rekjavik. We visited the national
museum , a big church, the “Pearl”, which is a
restaurant, snack bar and observatory atop the
geothermal hot water supply for the city. The
building stands on the highest point in town, and so
can gravity feed the home heating systems.

One interesting thing the guide pointed out that I
hadn’t noticed is that when you look across the
Rekjavik skyline, you see zero exhaust from any
buildings. No smokestack emissions of any kind. The
guide said if there is any smoke seen, the offending
source is quickly addressed. This makes for very
clear, pollutionless skies and is part of the Iceland
culture. I noticed that vehicles – even the buses-
did not spew out any noticeable exhaust, even in the
cold air, much unlike vehicles (my own included) in
Alaska.

With regard to population density, there are about
300,000 Icelanders on an island 100,000 sq.
kilometers.

Finally, I grilled the guide about the fishing
industry. He said that when the country went to and
individual fishing quota system, where the catch was
divided up somewhat like a stock in the stock market,
the larger companies quickly bought up most of the
fishing rights from the smaller boats. As the small
boats sold their quota, the processing plants they
supplied their fish to went out of business. This
caused a general migration of Icelanders from the
rural fishing towns to Rekjavik, where jobs are many.
He said the unemployment rate was under 2%. About 60%
of Iceland’s population now lives in the greater
Rekjavik area.

I flew out without incident. I’d hoped for another
bump ticket on an oversold flight, but it appears that
the flight the previous day – a Sunday – was oversold
due to the large number of college kids who came to
Rekjavik for spring break. I had an emergency row
seat right at the door, so it was easy on and easy
off. I lucked out again in Boston, where the US Air
ticket I was supposed to have flown on the day before
was cheerfully reissued and I got out without further
cost or delay.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

I went to the mineral hotsprings spa here today the
Blue Lagoon (BlueLagoon.com). It’s between Rekyavik
and the international airport, so I just stopped there
on the way to my flight. GREAT! I was off the bus,
and in the water in less than 10 minutes. You can
rent swim suit and a towel for about $10, then don’t
have to worry about wet clothes for the suitcase ride
home.

The milky water was just the right temp, and I stayed
in for 90 minutes, which is forever for me. Then I
took a bump on an overbooked flight, so get to spend
another night here, AND now have a free ticket to come
back! The Iceland Air flight service agent was
extremely helpful – got me a room, meals, bus ride to
and fro, the free ticket, a great seat on the next
flight out, and even walked me all the way back
through customs and to my bus!

Ate a variety of seafood at dinner tonight – shrimp,
gravalax, cod a few different ways. I was not
expecting the great food here, and sure am enjoying it.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

Touring the capital today. Went to the fishing docks
first and looked over the trawlers and a few smaller
boats that I didn´t know if were commercial or charter
boats. Then found my way to a greasy spoon on a side
street on the wharf. It was smoke filled with
everyone drinking coffee, so it looked a fisherman´s
coffee klatch to me. They looked like they were
talking about fish and politics. None of them had
boots on, and with all the boats in town and the
harbor pretty full I surmised it´s off time for them
and they are in there by force of habit.

Snowing and blowing hard now. I went into a store and
spent a cool 4,000 kroners on my wife and friends.
Good thing is, it sounds like alot, but I don´t even
know how much it is!

I went to the maritime museum along the wharf as well.
Nice display, and always fun to see that fishing is
pretty much the same anywhere you go.

I also went to a sportsmans shop. Looks like salmon
fishing and duck hunting and pull-behind campers are
the primary outdoors activities. Saw some cool
campers, and would be a great way to spend tooling
around Iceland in the summer. I also thought how nice
it would be not to have to worry about bears or snakes
or anything else – I think you could sleep in a tent
with no worries except for maybe mosquitoes.

The service here is definitely of a different tone
than it was up country. Many of the clerks, etc. are
pretty cranky, even when they´re trying to sell you
something. I must say the two ladies who were
volunteering in the store I bought the gifts at (it
donates proceeds to charity) were delightful.

We leave tomorrow. Hope to hit the blue lagoon hot
springs for a ‘swim’ as they call it here on the way
to the international airport and back to Boston.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

Took the bus from Akureyi to Rekyavik today, a 6 hour
ride of which I probably slept for 3 hrs. Narrow
roads wind through the mountain valleys. There were
the famous Iceland horses on farms all along the road.
Each farm seems to consist of a fenced in area of
grassland, with horses on it. I also saw a few cattle
and sheep, but horses seem to be everything unless I
missed something like hogs that were inside. Houses
are simple and very neat. The simple life.

I asked the bus driver what they did with all the
horses, and I couldn´t understand only making a living
owning horses for riding. He said they also are used
for meat, which made alot more sense for making a
living farming.

Essentially, the bus ride was through horse farm
country about all the way here, and few homes at that.
It´s mostly very low vegetation or no vegetation from
the valley right up to the mountain tops, which are
not far apart, creating a very surreal, rural sense of sightseeing.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

We toured two plants here today. One in Akureyri and
another in a small town of about 1500 people 20 miles
or so from here. Both are modern plants, highly
mechanised. One plant was doing shrimp and the other
cod. In both places, the raw product comes in one end
and a finished product comes out the other end, ready
for market. Very clean, and the workforce looked
dedicated. Pay here is about 13 dollars/hour, similar
to wages paid in the Danvers plant we toured near
Boston, and well below Alaska processing wages.

The plant was not large, but very sophisticated, with
computerized machinery. At the cod plant, fillets
come down a line to a row of women workers, who slice
the fillets into several different cuts. The women
are paid a premium for fast, quality cutting, and some
make an extra 3 to 4 dollars an hour, according to the
tour guide.

The weather was sunny and warmer today with less wind.
After the tour, I took a hard nap, still adjusting
from the 9 hour time change from Alaska. I then took
a walk around town. I ate at Greiffins Restaurant. I
wanted to try something local, so I had the salt cod.
It was steamed, on top of moussed potatoes, and the
that was surrounded by a red wine sauce which
contained some fresh bell peppers. Very, very good.
And service is wonderful here.

Tomorrow, instead of taking the plane back to
Rekyavik, I´m taking the bus. 6 hours through the
countryside that will be spectacular if today´s
weather holds.

Prices are somewhat higher here for goods. Although
it sounds like heating (all geothermal) and
electricity (all hydro) are not expensive. Would be
interesting to see what the total cost of living is,
not just comparing the price of a beer here vs.
Juneau. Lots of land with not lots of people, either,
so I wonder what housing costs are.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

I joined an Alaska Processor Leadership Institute
through the Univ. of Alaska Seagrant Program last
year. We did HAACP training in Kodiak in April, some
Human Resources training in Anchorage last Oct, and
the culmination and highlight of the program is this
trip to the Boston Seafood Show and Iceland.

The Boston Seafood Show show cases seafood – farmed,
wild, and anything in between – from around the world.
There was shrimp from Louisiana, crab from Virginia,
tilapia from Panama, and hybrid striped bass from
North Carolina. Of course, there was wild salmon from
Alaska and Canada, and farmed salmon from Canada and
Chile. And this is just a partial list.

With the suppliers were also the distributers – people
who take the seafood and do something with it – either
add value and sell it again, or simply move fish on to
someone who does.

For the value added sellers, I saw that seafood in
America is more about the coatings than the seafood
product, for the most part. Shrimp is pretty much
shrimp, but you can distinguish the food product by
what type of breading or batter you place on the
product – batters and coatings, I might add, that are
likely negating much of the benefits of the raw
seafood product.

For a $30 ticket, you can eat seafood all day. I´m
not sure if the ticket is good for one day or all 3,
but either way, it´s well worth it. I sampled
tilapia, shrimp cooked every which way, salmon, smoked
salmon, clams, crab cakes – the food just keeps coming
from open to close, and no one cares if you grab a
piece and move on to the next booth or stop and talk.

The machinery sellers were perhaps the most
interesting to me. Freezers and skinners and slicers
and fillet machines and pin bone removers all are
something I could see getting if we can get enough of
us together to buy one to justify the cost.

We now are in Iceland, up in Akureyri. Today we´ll
take tours of 2 plants. This is quite a place.
People are friendly, but somewhat formal with us here.
My biggest impression so far is that I´ve not see one
really overweight or obese person since I´ve been
here, and I want to know why. And the legend of
beautiful scenery – both landscape and female, are
certainly true.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com