Rannoch Moor

My eyes have been watering and throat scratching from the smoky, Canadian air that’s been hanging around here this week. In photography, the conditions are called “atmospheric.” How about some scenes from dawn in Scotland, where the word atmospheric fits better?

Rannoch Moor dawn, Scottish Highlands

Rannoch Moor is a boggy moorland in the western highlands near Glencoe. For history majors, it is the home of Clan McDuck, the ancestors of Scrooge McDuck. We arrived at dawn as fog covered the ground and early light began to glow.

Fire and ice on Loch Ba

The fog got a bit thicker as alpine glow hit the distant peak. Hoarfrost covered the plants while more ice skimmed the lochen. A morning not to forget.

Fogbow on the moor

The morning’s treats were not over. As the sun got higher and the fog began to clear, a fogbow framed the distant mountains.

Winter at Jökulsárlón

About ten minutes from where we stayed on Iceland’s south coast is one of the country’s wonders. A tongue of the massive Vatnajökull glacier flows into Jökulsárlón Glacier Bay where icebergs break off and flow on Iceland’s shortest river into the Atlantic. Then waves break the bergs even more, and incoming tides push the broken ice unto the black sand, giving the place its name—Diamond Beach. Unfortunately, for our visit, no ice flowed back to the beach. Nonetheless, the mountains, glacier, bay, and beach were still wondrously beautiful.

Jökulsárlón Bay, Iceland

As we sat at the edge of the water, a school of fish fluttered and jumped in front of us, and soon seals were feeding. Far across the Atlantic, past Greenland, on Cape Cod, Mary Oliver watched seals and wrote a poem of memory.

Winter at Herring Cove

Years ago,

on the bottle-green light

of the cold January sea,

Breaker on Bagh Steinigidh

two seals

suddenly appeared together

in a single uplifting wave—

Seal on Jökulsárlón

each in exactly the same relaxed position—

each, like a large, black comma,

upright and staring;

it was like a painting

done twice

and, twice, tenderly.

Sunset seal

The wave hung, then it broke apart;

its lip was lightning;

its floor was the blow of sand

over which the seals rose and twirled and were gone.

Of all the reasons for gladness,

what could be foremost of this one,

Dawn Jökulsárlón beach

that the mind can seize both the instant and the memory!

Now the seals are no more than the salt of the sea.

If they live, they’re more distant than Greenland.

Over Greenland

But here’s the kingdom we call remembrance

with its thousand iron doors

through which I pass so easily,

Loch Ba golden ice

switching on the old lights as I go—

while the dead wind rises and the old rapture rewinds,

the stiff waters once more begin to kick and flow.

Herring Cove, Mary Oliver from What Do We Know? 2002

Dawn on Diamond Beach, Jökulsárlón, Iceland

Cherrio

Two years ago, my photo excursion was to leave Isle of Skye and head from the Inner Hebrides to the Outer Hebrides.

Elgol, Isle of Skye

Instead to heading to the remote island of Lewis and Harris, the restrictions in the UK were tightening and my traveling companions from Australia got notice that they had to return to their country. So we returned to the mainland, traveling through Glen Shiel.

Glen Shiel

The Five Sisters of Kintail are the mountain ridge on the north side of the Glen which are Munros, or mountains with peaks over 3,000 kilometers high. As we pulled over to take in this view, I remember seeing a pair of plastic gloves thrown on the ground. The first of a new type of trash of gloves and then facemasks that would litter the ground for the next two years.

Kiltain mountain ridge

Our final road stop was Invermoriston, a small village on the river Moriston as it flows into Loch Ness. The sun was just going behind the mountains and fog rolled in. We made plans that we would redo the photo excursion the following March.

Above Invermoriston

In Edinburgh, I met up with Caroline. We took a last walk through the now empty streets of the capitol city to the view at Calton Hill over to the Castle. The return trip for March 2021 was rescheduled to March 2022, and as Omicron spread, that too was cancelled. So this week, I again should be returning from Scotland. Hopefully, one day.

Sunset Edinburgh from Calton Hill