Sustainable Samsø
This past weekend was quite the adventure!
DIS offers short trips called "DIScovery tours" throughout the semester, and I decided to sign up for one titled "Sustainable Samsø." Samsø is an island between Jylland (the piece of Denmark that connects to Germany/mainland Europe) and Sjælland (the large island which contains Copenhagen), and is one of the most eco-friendly islands on the planet!
Those of you who know me know that I am studying gender and sociology; however, I was interested in the Samsø trip because I have become increasingly interested in living a minimal-waste lifestyle. I also know that the US is the biggest producer of waste in the world, and was excited to visit a place where many creative measures have been taken to become carbon-neutral.
So, off I went!
I was part of a group of six students and two DIS staff; four of the students were environmental studies majors (or some equivalent), and two of us were just along for the ride :) I liked being in a small group because it was easy to get to know everybody quickly.
On Friday evening, we rode the Oresundtåg to Kalundborg, a town on the east side of Sjælland, and then boarded a ferry to Samsø. It was completely dark when we arrived, so we didn't see much until the next day.
We woke up on Saturday morning, packed our lunches, and biked a couple of miles through rolling farmland to visit the Samsø Energy Academy. The academy is designed to look like two viking long-houses connected to one another; it is insulated with newspaper and salt, and the high ceilings produce a "chimney effect" to further regulate the temperature. The electricity comes from the building's solar roof (any extra power goes to the grid), and water is obtained through a rainwater collection system.
The academy exists to educate people about the importance of creating an ecologically sustainable future, and the possible methods of doing so. It receives about 4,000 "energy tourists" a year -- that's more tourists than people who live on the island year-round! The efforts the academy promotes include reducing and burning waste; investing in organic farming; building and maintaining more wind farms; and construction of a bio gas plant on the island (they eventually want to power the ferry through bio gas, as opposed to fossil fuels). These may seem like some lofty goals for an island municipality with only about 3,500 citizens, half of whom are over the age of 60; however, when you find out that their homes already run on renewable energy and that many of the cars on the island are electric, it's clear that this is a communal priority.
The representative from the energy academy actually showed us one of the island's district heating plants. The one we visited was powered by finely chopped and boiled straw from a number of local farms, but other district plants utilized wind and solar power. Fossil fuels are currently only used in emergencies, which don't occur often; we were told that the current plants are extremely reliable.
That afternoon, we visited the farm of Jørgen Tranberg, a middle-aged man who keeps highland cows, dairy cows, pigs, and a wind turbine on his land. He was interviewed by CBS and the New Yorker a few years ago for a segment on ecologically friendly islands, and gives tours to DIS students each semester. After saying hello to all of the cute animals, we biked with him through the fields to his wind turbine. He built it about 10 years ago and expects it to last at least another 15. When we asked him what made him choose to invest in a wind turbine, he was very matter-of-fact; it was simply a no-brainer to him. He had the money and he felt it was the right thing to do -- so he joined the island-wide effort to power his municipality through sustainable resources.
Some of my groupmates chose to climb the turbine with Jørgen. This meant climbing eight ladders, each six meters in height, with metal platforms in between.
I decided that climbing to the top would be a bit too much, haha :) My arms and legs were tired after the first ladder, and to be honest, the idea of falling even a few meters was dizzying. So I waited at the bottom with one of my groupmates, enjoying the view of the rolling hills outside.
Everybody made it out in one piece, and that night, the staff leader introduced us to snobrød (rolled bread). It's basically the Danish version of roasting marshmallows around a campfire... but, as with marshmallows, you usually do it in the summer. So a few Danes at our hostel gave us some funny looks when they saw us trekking out of the restaurant with supplies :) Anyhow, it was really good, and the fire kept us from shivering too much! One of the group members is really into survivalist camping, which was helpful in starting the fire because everything was damp from the fog. We rolled our dough onto sticks, watched them expand and brown in the heat of the fire, and dipped the snobrød in strawberry jam. Yum!!!
The next morning, we made our way through the fog to the Samsø's northern hills, with a few stops on the way to get a closer look at the solar charging stations for electric cars; a cooperatively-owned grocery store run completely on an honor system; and our bus driver's favorite fishing spot. The fog made everything look ethereal -- take a peek at my gallery to see what I mean! It started to clear up as we reached the hills, which was great because the scenery was amazing. When we made it to the top of one of the hills, we could see forever! There weren't very many other hikers around and, save for a few sheep baa-ing at the foot of the hills, it was incredibly quiet. After taking a gazillion pictures, we headed down to the beach (petting some sheep on the way, of course).
What I find interesting about the Danish beaches I've visited so far are how many intact shells line them. I could have filled bags with whole snail shells if I wanted to. I'm not used to seeing whole shells like that -- even the ones emptied by seagulls don't seem to be cracked on the edges. I wonder why that is?
As we meandered down the beach, two of my groupmates decided that this was their once-in-a-lifetime chance to go swimming. So they stripped down to their swim suits -- yes, they had been wearing their swim suits under their clothes just in case -- and ran right in! I don't know how they survived that; it was maybe 35 degrees out and I was freezing in my sweater and two jackets. But nobody got frostbite, so I guess it was worth it :)
After our hike, we wandered around Nordby, a town of about 100 people near the hills. We ate lunch at a family-run brewery-by-winter, farm-by-summer and had delicious organic food. It was fantastic, but the portion sizes were so big that they were impossible to finish. The woman serving us seemed pleased and amused when I put my leftovers in my little lunch container (it ended up being my dinner on Monday night).
Finally, before heading back to Copenhagen, we visited the Samsø Labyrinth. I'd compare it to the corn mazes we enjoy in the Midwest, but fashioned from trees. Instead of a map, we were given international trivia; depending upon which answer we chose to each question, the trivia sheet would tell us whether to turn left or right at each fork in the path. Looking back, we probably should have chosen the Harry Potter trivia, but it was a good challenge :) After many wrong turns, some surprises (did you know that the Eiffel Tower is painted every seven years), and lots of laughing, we made it to the goal! I think I added a few years to my life with all the giggling my group did :)
And that was my weekend! It was an awesome experience and I enjoyed the group I was with. I would definitely recommend the DIScovery trips to other DIS students. I learned a lot, had a ton of fun, and tried some amazing food. Definitely a weekend trip for the books :)
That's all for now! Thank you for reading! And don't forget to check out the gallery page.
