June 10, 2014 – Alberta Master Jon Amundsen recently took a trek to Iceland for the Fossavatn Ski Marathon, held on May 3 in Isafjordur, the event featured 50km, 25km, 10km, and 5km distances. Read about Amundsen’s experiences in the ski race and his take on this fascinating country.

We arrived in Iceland with only the minimal website information on this first week of May Ski Marathon. It is the oldest and largest cross country ski race in Iceland, dating from 1935 and continuous since 1956. All we knew was that it was 50/25 kilometers in distance, just below the Arctic Circle with a base of 200 centimeters and on one of Iceland’s most insolated fjords – the Skutulsfjörðuron on the west fjords peninsula, about which more will follow.

There are a couple ways to get to the race venue: fly, fairly cheaply from Reykjavik; have a guide drive you, or drive yourself. We elected for the last and gave ourselves the recommended couple of days. Glad we did as, while the drive is really pretty easy – not much traffic, okay primary and secondary roads – there are lots of reasons to go slowly and stop a lot. Let me count off a few:

• incredible vistas of massive open space;
• one humbling fjord, to drive up / down after another,
• wild swans, geese, eider ducks, ptarmigan, and wading birds that you got to get one more picture of
• snow drifts six meters high and waterfalls over 100 meters tall
• Icelandic ponies on isolated farmsteads that just shout out Viking heritage.

Okay, a few more facts before getting to the ski race:

• more people in Iceland believe in elves (80%) than God (45%)
• according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) it’s the best country in the world to be a woman, though men have the longest lifespan in the world there – about 79 years
• the prime minister is a single parent, never married woman, who lives with her same sex partner in the capital
• the population is so small everyone is listed in the phone book by their first name
• you can straddle the mid-Atlantic tectonic plates and be on both the North American and European continents by hopping from side to side, and
• finally, you’ll race on klister.

The town of Ísafjörður, the race site, is about 3,000 people and they celebrate a lot. The ski race is a pretty big deal but it also coincides with the “end of winter” celebration, high school graduation, and, this year, the regional handball championships. So we woke up to fireworks at midnight, high school kids dressed up as Teletubbies, banging drums at 5:00am and revelers glad for Spring / Summer. You’d be glad too if winter meant as little as four hours of “effective” daylight mid-season!

The venue is set at about 300 meters above the sea level town site on an alpine ski hill. The conditions can vary from howling wind and “clouded in” through what we get, crystal clear blue skies, and (literally) race in short sleeves conditions. It is never, even in winter, too cold there as the Gulf Stream keeps the ocean and environs warmed up. The race is generally close to zero; a few degrees below at start time; a few above by the end. Hence it’s a great place for klister meisters or to learn / perfect the craft. This year the magic wax for everyone was Rode Multigrade +6 to -6.

The course is above tree line – in fact all of Iceland is above tree line as the once forested continent was deforested by early Viking settlers. It climbs from about 300 meters to just under 600 at the high point, all gradual and punctuated by all do-able downhills; that is neither herringbone ups nor scrub speed downhills. It encompasses two valleys so to speak, from the ski hill proper over a snowed in road to a remarkable 2nd 25K; the backside of the long course. As mentioned, klister (my choice was an old Target ‘spring’ wax 0 to +10) was necessary with a binder base as the snow is characteristically aggressive in structure, result of a lot of freeze / thaw activity. There is a fierce hill at the 45 / 20K point which gives way to a long and (this year) fast downhill to the finish. You start and finish at the same place, which also makes it easy.

Once the race is over – there is great transport to / from the town for those who don’t have a car – and the awards are presented on the hill – this year Petter Skinstad from Norway and Mary Young from Canada were the first men and women in the 50km – it is time for the cake party! Again, Icelanders really celebrate and so everyone gets up early, bakes cakes and fills a long, long table with, well, cake! And then everyone eats.

Speaking of eating… it’s best you like fish because if you go – it’s fish, fish, and more fish or lamb for the most part. There is a ‘secret’ fish restaurant in Ísafjörður that has this buffet and it features staples like potatoes (boiled, mash and fish mashed), cucumbers and tomatoes, plus a vegetable mix and haddock, regular cod, salt cod, cod tongue / cheeks, catfish (really a wolf fish from deep water), monk fish or angler fish, red fish and halibut. If you go try and find it. Stores offer groceries for the more self-contained and the most common and well stocked has a big pink pig on its sign – everything from dried fish, potato tortillas and skyr (milk cured yogurt) through snickers, potato chips and ice cream.

Great race, very cool people and country as big as the sky. Don’t let me forget to remind you as well that all over the place are thermal pools and hot water spas which also can break up the drive. God I hope that picture of me in the Arctic Ocean, just out of the natural hot spring nearby never surfaces….