Dispatches From the Baltic 2013: 13 - Dispatch From the Fjord

Last visit, it was winter - snow so deep that helicopters had to shoo moose using the snow-cleared tracks, so trains could get people to the Winter Olympics. This time, they thank us for bringing the “California weather.” Tank-tops, plaid shorts and the cruise ship hoards - welcome us back to a sunny Norway.

Boats fill the fjords of Oslo and Bergen, both with harbors worthy of their Viking sons - like Amundsen and Heyerdahl. Sled-dogging to the South Pole with the former never attracted me, but Easter Island did. I studied Thor Heyerdahl’s theory and read Kon-Tiki on my sail from the Galapagos to Easter Island 40 years ago. I thought he had it figured out, but DNA and other new science has made it all a mystery again - solved only in theory.

1973 Easter Island

2013 Oslo

Current theory that does make sense is that Easter Islanders sailed in, populated and then squandered their little world. They cut down the trees while building those huge statues - and the rats they brought in ate all the tree seeds. No wood = no boats = no fish = starvation.

100 yr. old dried codfish

For hundreds of years, Norway too depended on a fishing empire. Mummified in the salty wind, the fish kept for ages and provided Friday feed for much of Medieval Europe. But all that fish flesh they removed was the incoming nutrients - the food chain that supported baby fish. Without it, the cold still waters of the fjords were starved.

Fish Farms in the Fjords

Small tides, a constant cap of lighter fresh over the salt, and the very deep water, trapped other nutrients on the bottom of the fjords - and the wild fishery collapsed.

Another No Name falls - Fresh into salt

Beautiful Bergen

But Norway still gets its “nutrients” from the sea - fish farms, North Sea oil and thousands of cruise ships, fill the coffers. Likewise Easter Island now has a runway to fly in the tourists. Both human populations are doing well - but the trees and the fish are still gone.

We are wishing the cruse ships were too.

- Seasalt Stew