The Whale That Didn’t Get Away

Finally a whale lets me get close!

This is the skeleton of a long-finned pilot whale, floating eerily with a number of other whale skeletons in the attic space of the Whale Museum in Húsavik.  Most if not all of the whale skeletons were from strandings, though Iceland still does catch whales, some to sell to the Japanese, and some to feed to tourists.

We saw quite a number of restaurants that served whale, almost all of it bought by tourists along with smoked puffin and fermented shark.  I declined to be one of the visitors supporting the Icelandic whale fishery, nor did I eat puffin, as their populations have declined throughout the North Atlantic area.  And I certainly wasn’t about to eat fermented shark, which is apparently one of the worst things you can do to your taste buds short of gulping sulphuric acid.

I did have smoked reindeer and horse jerky, but at least I drew the line somewhere.