Antarctic summer colours

Summer in Antarctica lasts 6 months, from October to March. During the central 4 months, 24 hours of complete daylight allow a summer temperature maximum around 2°C.

What about flora? Everybody knows about antarctic fauna - seals, penguins, birds - but are there some flowers ? Like the beautiful arctic flowers ?

Well, life is really hard for plants there. There are several mosses, fungi and lichens , but just two kinds of native flowering plants manage to grow:

- a fine-leaved, perennial grass, the Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica), one of only two flowering plant species living below latitudes of 60 degrees:



- and Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis), that has white flowers and grows about 5 cm tall, with a cushion-like growth habit that gives it a moss-like appearance:




They are present mainly in the 1% of the region that is ice and snow free, along the warmer parts of the Antarctica Peninsula and in the South Orkney Islands and the South Shetland Islands.
Small clusters of the Antarctic hair grass can be seen among rocks and in moss-filled cracks in the bedrock.
Moss - on the better drained, stony slopes of the Antarctic Peninsula, mosses build up to a deep peat - as much as six and one half feet deep and 5000 years old !

Lichens - more than 350 species. They have proliferated in Antarctica because there is little competition from mosses or flowering plants.

Piteraq in Kuummiut - Greenland at its best and worst

From Carl Skou's Kuummiut blog, I got this amazingly beautiful video:
(listen to the atmospheric music)



A violent Piteraq storm strikes Kuummiut village in March 2011. The Piteraq is a katabatic wind. Intensely cold heavy air drains off the Greenland ice cap. The cold descending air is channelled through the valleys and can blow at 40-80 metres per second. The Piteraq is characterised by deep blue skies, intense sunlight, clear dry air and much blowing snow which can obscure visibility. Most people stay indoors during a Piteraq. This Piteraq followed a period of overcast weather and heavy snowfall. The Piteraq strips the snow from the land and breaks up the fjord pack ice.

Ultima Europa: Hamningberg and the witch memorial

Hamningberg, at 70° 32' N, 30° 37' E, quite above the arctic circle, claims to be "The end of Europe".

Once a fishing village, it has been abandonned for many years and is now under recovery for the location, the scenery, historic testimonials and tourism.

Hamningberg has a cultural heritage, preserved houses and a brave past of resilience, all in a fascinating landscape. Vardø is the main nearby town.

At the end of continental road E 75, the village is so totally isolated that german troops missed it in WWII, so it escaped fire and devastation in 1944.

A moon-like terrain of sharp black rocks forms the landscape along the Barents sea coastal road; reins on the beach sand and a low taga vegetation announce the arctic around; in spring, many-coloured flowers decorate the wet lowlands.

The freezing sea, the grey sky, lonely houses, the scenery reeminds us a a Bergman film.

A famous café, the "End of Europe", and a church. That's still Europe indeed!

The preserved past:

And so Europe ends, in memories and ruins...

The Steilenset Memorial,

monument for the victims of the infamous VARDØ WITCH TRIALS

A moving shrine to the 91 vctims of witch persecution, 348 years after a savage trial that condamned the last 20. By the time, Finmark region had a population of about 3000; the murder of 91 had a strong and hard social impact.

Opened on June 2011, it is located by the road from Hamningberg to Vardø, overlooking the Barents sea from the top of the cliff.

The "cube" contains a chair on which a fire burns permanently, surrounded by mirrors.

The "gallery" is an inside corridor through 91 silk drapes.

The Steilenset Memorial is a work of art of swiss achitect Peter Zumthor and french artist Louise Bourgeois.

More:

http://www.norwaycommunicates.com/memorial.html

A post on nearby Vardø here:

http://ultima0thule.blogspot.com/2010/09/vard-norways-arctic-fronteer.html

poetry: - Terra Ultima, Ultimus dies -

WHEN YOU ARE OLD
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

"When You Are Old" from The Rose

W.B. Yeats. 1893.

New images from Mars

Mars, XXI century's Ultima Thule for mankind.

Sunset on Mars

Claritas Fossae

Nasa, ESA