My father is renovating an old shop in the harbour of Raufarhöfn in the north-east of Iceland, to become a home and potentially a guesthouse. The village is just below the Arctic circle, but the vegetation around the village is already considered “Arctic tundra”. It is home to a few plants that I have also found in Siberia and Svalbard.

Old shelves of the former store. A stuffed common loon keeps watch as the coffee brews.
Driftwood along the coast
Dwarf birch (a species that I have worked with a lot in my research), bog bilberry, crowberry and common heather growing densely
A Cladonia lichen
The abandoned farm at Rifstangi
Sea kayaking in the harbour. Video by Ásdís Thoroddsen.

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