“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.” ~ John Burroughs

Sunrise? Sunset? It’s was actually closer to noon when this was taken. On a clear winter day, daylight runs from around 10am till 3pm, with the sun never rising above the horizon(this is as high as it get’s in December & January). The Polar Nights of the Norwegian winter bring cotton candy skies and a steady beautiful pre-sunrise/post-sunset light that lasts for a few hours. Also, notice the wooden structures off to the left? They are drying racks for fish. Cod stockfish are air-dried on these racks to the consistency of bark…retaining their nutrients for half a decade. It was the food that allowed the Vikings to travel farther and longer than any of their contemporaries; more than a millennium on, Norway’s polar explorers had discovered no improvement on it, and dried cod was first on their expedition packing lists. For centuries, cod was the country’s biggest export.

Reine ~ Moskenesøya-Lofoten Archipelago ~ Norway 1/2/2017