Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2011, Page 12

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 6 — 2011
It is no doubt that Iceland's natural
beauty and landscapes invite many dif-
ferent types of nature lovers that travel
the country road to take it all in. This
should be encouraged. But what should
be actively discouraged is the practice
of bicycling the ring road. It increases
danger to the bicyclers and the vehicles
and costs much more fuel and carbon
than if they simply took an existing seat
on a bus going to the same destination
anyway.
I will spell it out for those that are
not familiar with some unique aspects
of Route One, the "ring road" that con-
nects most major towns and encircles
the island. Route One carries the vast
majority of vehicular traffic: cars, camp-
ers, motorcycles, long haul trucks and
those that are bicycling between towns.
Don't get me wrong, by all means en-
joy your bicycle in Iceland—but it would
be wise to restrict it to the townships and
areas that you wish to explore... namely,
anywhere other than the long parts of
Route One connecting the towns and
across the highlands. This is for your
own best interests (and mine). Most
towns and tourist areas have places
that rent bicycles (check with the tour-
ist office) and these areas expect to see
bikers on the local roads. But when it
comes time to head to the next destina-
tion you should: rent a car, hitchhike or
take a seat on a tourbus. The latter two
options are much more environmentally
friendly than biking long distances, and
now I shall explain why.
Route One is a difficult and poten-
tially dangerous road for any vehicle. It
has few "shoulders" so there is rarely
room to swerve off the road if needed or
by accident. This is an existing danger
that contributes to accidents every year
as it is. Add to that the fact that many
parts of Route One are sharp, curvy,
hilly and downright ridiculous. You of-
ten cannot see oncoming traffic until it
is coming around a corner and zooming
past you. Additionally, there is only one
lane for each direction and even in the
best of weather (not common) driving in
Iceland requires constant alertness and
a bit of luck.
Enter the cyclist: sometimes riding,
often walking their bicycle up a long
and steep incline. It is common to see
them with little time to react—often you
have to slow down to nearly a complete
halt (note the fuel consumption of each
driver affected each time you must be
passed) and now the driver is creeping
behind you and must try and make a
pass because you take up the majority
of the lane with your giant hikers pack
arranged horizontally across the back of
the bike like a dead deer. This is dan-
gerous for everyone involved. Now more
fuel must be spent by the vehicle to go
from zero to passing speed (often on a
hill) to get around you and hope some
trucker (or cyclist) is not coming around
a blind corner in the opposite direction!
I have sympathy for those bikers and
I often think they might rather enjoy
their time exploring specific locations
instead of nearly killing themselves (and
possibly me and my cat) getting there.
Perhaps this can be the motivation: it is
NOT green. You are hurting the environ-
ment with this behaviour. No matter how
much you love nature, your decision to
come to Iceland is a selfish one unless
you sailed here. Jet fuel is expensive and
costly to the environment. We are glad
you are here, but let’s not pretend you
are saving the world—the money and re-
sources it takes to visit and return could
have been put to more charitable use if
that is your primary concern.
As stated earlier, Route One serves
the major towns all around Iceland.
There are a variety of bus companies
serving any area you wish to see and of-
ten with multiple day passes and pack-
ages to accommodate any flavour of
traveller. Iceland is popular. The buses
are nearly full and being used anyway.
Some may even let you bring your bike
along. It takes marginally more fuel to
carry your butt (and human-sized back-
pack) than it does for these same vehi-
cles to have to suddenly react to bikers
on a steep, blind road with no shoulder
room.
Think green... ride a bus.

RYAN PATRICK
Iceland | Growth
Why Riding
Your Bike In
Iceland Isn’t
Green
A bus ticket is less dangerous and
more eco-friendly and we don’t
need MythBusters to prove it.
Opinion | Environment
Medieval Manuscripts – eddas and sagas
the ancient vellums on display
iceland :: FilM – Berlin – copenhagen – reykjavík
icelandic Filmmaking 1904-2008
cHild OF HOpe – Youth and Jón sigurðsson
tribute to the leader of the independence Movement
exHiBitiOns - guided tOurs
caFeteria - culture sHOp
the culture House – Þjóðmenningarhúsið
National Centre for Cultural Heritage
Hverfisgata 15 · 101 Reykjavík (City Centre)
Tel: 545 1400 · www.thjodmenning.is
Open daily between 11 am and 5 pm
Free guided tour of THe Medieval Manu­
sCRipTs exhibition Mon and Fri at 3 pm.
Marimos are about as strange as Ryan Patrick's opinions on biking around
Iceland. Or do you maybe agree with him? Either way, write us about it.
Iceland, the land of volcanic erup-
tions, glacial fields, and herds of graz-
ing sheep, does not welcome plant
life with open arms. The ones that do
slip through the cracks (quite literally
sometimes) are often marvels of evo-
lutionary accomplishment. The marimo,
a big fuzzy ball of algae that dwells in
the shallow waters of Mývatn, is such a
plant. It's one of those weirdo, outcast
plants, the kind that other plants gawk
at in the photos ynthesis line: they do
not know the latest fashions of fruit or
flowers, the sport of root growing, nor
the lingo of leaves. But perhaps the
marimo's huggable form or their lush,
calming green hue, often adorned by
pearls of air bubbles, might win you
over.
GETTING TO KNOW THE MARIMO
Marimos are the creative limits of
evolution in the flesh. And for this, us
nerdy naturalists are utterly enamoured
with them. However, according to Árni
Einarsson, director of The Mývatn Re-
search Station, an ecological research
institute that monitors Lake Mývatn,
the "marimo has no place in Icelandic
culture." Only until relatively recently,
he says, were they known to people
outside of the Mývatn area. But to be
fair, scientists only discovered the colo-
ny that inhabits the lake in 1977.
When gazing upon a marimo, one
might wonder how the elements of na-
ture convinced algae, an organism that
prefers a more planar existence, to take
the form of a perfect sphere. Normally
plants want to increase their surface
area-to-volume ratio (e.g. with big
leaves or lots of pine needles) to cap-
ture as much light as possible for their
size. Spheres are really bad at maxi-
mizing this ratio; actually, they're the
worst. The marimo, however, has got-
ten around this staple rule of evolution.
They took the hypotenuse line to sur-
vival: require less light (thus, energy)
to live by staying small. The marimos in
Mývatn reach only about 10 to 12 cm in
diameter.
Though scientists aren't completely
sure how they form, they think it in-
volves the gentle caresses of wind-
induced waves over Mývatn, the silky
sediments of Icelandic volcanoes, and
the light conditions of life at the bot-
tom of a clear lake. When these three
factors combine, marimos leave the
psychedelic dreams of a young bota-
nist's slumbers and materialise here in
Iceland and only a few other locations
on earth, including Japan's Lake Akan.
Like Mývatn, Akan was formed by vol-
canic activity, which might explain why
large colonies of marimos call both
lakes home.
English speakers actually adapted
the Japanese word for these algal balls,
'marimo,' as their own. The direct Japa-
nese translation is quite literal: 'mari'
meaning 'ball' and 'mo' meaning 'wa-
ter plant.' The direct translation of the
Icelandic word, 'kúluskítur,' is a bit less
endearing. 'Kúlu' translates to 'ball'
and 'skítur' means 'shit' in Icelandic.
"Fishermen often used vulgar names
for strange things that come to the
surface when fishing," says Árni, and
in the marimo's case, they were prob-
ably deemed shit because they would
get "entangled in the fishing nets but
[aren't] fish," he says. So for Icelandic
fishermen, not fish = shit. Makes sense.
LET US IN
Maybe what stunts any growth of re-
spect for marimos in Iceland is their
elusive behaviour. In order to see one of
these guys in the wild, you'd have to be
lucky enough to hook one on a fishing
line or be part of a registered diving op-
eration. The Natural History Museum in
Kópavogur does have some on display
in a tank, but that's not really the same
as seeing scores of them piled on top of
each other in Mývatn.
Though their exterior allows for
quick judgement, the marimo's inte-
rior deserves the respect of many far
and wide. It is evolutionary fitness at it
greatest: break one of these guys open
and out comes a torrent of chloroplasts
that in a matter of hours will awaken
from a dark hibernation. After these
chloroplasts see the light, they become
photosynthetically active and start pro-
ducing energy that the marimo uses to
make one broken ball into two shiny
new balls.
NEVER GONNA GIVE UP
The way to kill a marimo may require
a slow, insidious approach. Us humans
are accomplishing this quite success-
fully, scientists believe. Marimo popula-
tions are declining worldwide. Though
they aren't exactly sure how, biologists
have a hunch that the decline involves
eutrophication, which is the build up
of nutrients caused by either natural
sources, like bacteria, or human sourc-
es, like fertilizer runoff. Eutrophication
can make lakes foggy, which hinders
the amount of light that reaches the
things living at the bottom of the lake.
The situation in Iceland is bit more
complicated, where during the winter
months everyone's got to learn to live
with little sunlight. If the marimos can
survive months without sunlight, then
a little extra fogginess can't be the
cause of their decline, Icelandic sci-
entists reason. Basically, what we've
got here is a case of the elusive out-
cast, shunned by society, which only
leads to more secrecy. The marimo has
stumped the scientific community, not
only concerning the cause of its decline
but also the basics of its life cycle. But
there are a few of us that take a fancy
to your elusiveness, little Icelandic ma-
rimo, and we will continue chip at the
wall you have built around yourself until
we reach the emerald core of your biol-
ogy.
Ode To Nature's Fuzzy Balls Marimo, rise from the depths of Mývatn and speak
VANESSA SCHIPANI
VANESSA SCHIPANI