My apologies for thesilence. I’ve been too busy bicycling to blog. The Lofotens were spectacularand we were blessed with superb weather on all but one of the six days. Onewore layers as protection against the fiendish cold winds, the bicyclist’scurse. Except for the headwinds, the riding was fabulous—windy roads androlling terrain—what our leaders euphemistically called “rolling hills” whenthey were often small mountains. The islands were once a remote place where codwere harvested in winter, dried in spring and early summer, and then exportedin a trade that goes back to medieval times. Gadus morhua was the Norse beef jerky: we tried it and I loved it.The fishing villages still exist, but have been sanitized by modernity. Theweather beaten fishing cabins have now become summer homes and hotels—we sleptin bunk beds in modernized cabins that were simple, yet adequate enough to cooka feast for eight people. Despite the modernization, the cod industry is stillaround you. Gone are the small double-ended boats of yesteryear, but woodendiesel powered fishing craft are still commonplace. Stark, empty cod racksstand on exposed outcrops, ready for next year’s catch. And several museumstell the story of cod fishing, with techniques that are almost unchanged frommedieval times-except for the boats. They are wonderful rummage warehouses ofsimple technologies that survived until the middle of the last century,sometimes even later. We were able to go behind the scenes at the restoredfishing village of Nusafjord, wherewe saw piles of equipment abandoned from earlier times, also stacks of cod fromthis year’s harvest waiting to be shipped out. Everywhere sticklike carcasses,light as feathers that you could throw across the room without damage, gradedaccording to criteria set up centuries ago. It’s heartening to see theexpertise of the past still being used today.