Glacial Relationships

“It took me a while to realize what these rivers were,” says Chris Burkard, the 30-year-old San Luis Obispo-based surf photographer who built his name (and a successful TED Talk) by ferreting out cold-weather surf destinations across the globe. He first visited Iceland in 2010 on a surf trip with Josh Mulcoy, Sam Hammer, and Timmy Turner in search of unridden waves. But it wasn’t until he took to the air the following year to photograph the Arctic island’s rivers—which emerge from glaciers and run hundreds of miles across braided flood plains to the ocean—that he realized he was witnessing the repeated formation and destruction of one of surfing’s most elusive wave types: the rivermouth sandbar. 

Under normal conditions, rivers need the right mix of flow, volume, and sediment to produce a sandbar, but in the Arctic that recipe is complicated by the fact that the rivers spend more than half the year encased in ice. That is, except for during the spring and summer months when, swollen by rain and relatively high temperatures, the ice cap belches out a pulverized mix of fine silt called glacial flour. Depending on the mix of agriculture and other blooming flora on the tundra at the time, the water can take on eerie blue, green, and gray hues as the sediment is pushed toward the ocean. 

It’s this kaleidoscopic slurry that produces such amazing aerial photographs. Burkard has spent the last six years—roughly 30 days of flying—documenting the country’s longest river, the Thjorsa, and one of its major tributaries, the Tungnaá, from glacier to mouth. 

Iceland is still in its geologic infancy, having literally erupted from the diverging Eurasian and North American plates only 15 to 18 million years ago. (North America by contrast is at least 200 million years old.) Iceland’s most recent addition, the volcanic island of Surtsey, emerged from the North Atlantic less than 50 years ago. The entire zone is a constant reminder that geological time includes the present moment, with new land rising up from the Earth’s crust before being eroded and sent downstream into the ocean. In most places, geology is a boring staid affair, but from the air above Iceland, it’s practically an extreme sport. 

“Since I’ve done this over the years, I’ve been able to see how they change, seasonally—how the rivers adjust,” says Burkard. “The times when the most sand is moving and the times when there’s barely a trickle.”

Flying conditions in Iceland are rarely ideal. The perfect weather is windless and slightly overcast, which cuts the sun’s glare off the water. On a typical day, Burkard and pilot Haraldur Diego will rent a red Cessna 182 in Reykjavik, take off before dawn, and head inland to the Landmannalaugar or central highlands, where the Thjorsa emerges from the Hofsjökull Glacier before running 143 miles south to the ocean. From there, they circle between 2,000 and 5,000 feet above the ground in a series of tight, right-hand banking turns that cause the small plane’s side window to flap open allowing Burkard an unobstructed view of the earth below. 

“I’ve pissed in bottles in the plane because we’ve been up there so long,” says Burkard, who shot most of the project using a Sony A7R2 and a 24-70mm lens, shutter speeds between 1/500th and 1/1200th, and a medium aperture of roughly f5.6–f8. “Usually we stop and grab gas and lunch and try to shoot early and late in the day.” 

Iceland has been on the world surf radar for more than a decade now, but the island still holds plenty of unexplored coastline. Spotting one of the ephemeral rivermouth breaks is one thing, but actually surfing the setup is another. Even when a sandbar does form—sometimes only for a few tide cycles and other times for weeks on end—there’s no guarantee that it will produce a rideable wave. On the occasions when there is a good wave, reaching it could require hours by boat or a long trek over rough volcanic coastline. “The access to them is almost impossible,” says Burkard. “You almost couldn’t get to them if you tried. They’re on these long, long stretches of beach that don’t provide access.”

Which is, of course, why he doesn’t mind saying where they are. 

“A lot of them go unsurfed.”