We have a long driving day tomorrow. Just a few words tonight, then the pictures, so I can get some shuteye.
We drove from our home town of Stykkisholmur on the northeast corner of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, along the north coast to the westernmost tip and back to Stykkisholmur, a loop that took us the better part of eight hours 10 AM to 6 PM. Lots of neat things to see, including the most beautiful mountain in Iceland, Kirkjufell – it says so in all the guide books. It’s not hard to look at, that’s for sure.
We were told that while the peninsula has tons of moss-covered lava flows and craters, there hasn’t been an eruption for “thousands of years,” according to one local who we talked with at lunchtime in Hellnar. “We’ve drifted off the shelf divide and so we’re not likely to have another eruption,” he said. Famous last words?
We found the memorial honoring Guoriour Porbjarnardottir, the first “white” (that’s what the sign said) woman to give birth to a child on North America. She sailed to Newfoundland from Greenland with Leif Erickson. She had the baby by some other guy. Guoriour made eight ocean voyages and traveled overland to Rome twice. The memorial is placed near her birthplace.
And we found a roadside plaque commemorating Vestarr, the first settler to the peninsula. Being lazy, I’m going to quote directly from the sign:
Vestarr, the first settler in this area, built his farm at Eyri (Öndverdareyri), after which the saga is named. The descendants of Vestarr play a leading role in Eyrbyggja Saga as troublemakers, showing gross disrespect at Thórsnes meetings. Viking ruins from those times can still be seen at Öndverdareyri. A church was erected on the site during the early days of Christianity. Thórdur Sturluson, brother of the principal author of the sagas Snorri Sturluson, was buried in in the churchyard in 1237.
And in case you haven’t been keeping up with your Saga studies, here’s an excerpt, again from the roadside sign:
“Then Steinthór ran across and threw his shield over Thórdur just as Thorleifur aimed a blow at him, and with the other hand he thrust at Thorleifur Kimbi, severing his leg below the knee. While that was happening, Freysteinn Rascal thrust at Steinthór, aiming at his middle. Steinthór saw it coming and leapt high into the air, and the thrust went between his legs. These three things that we have just described, he did in the same instant.”
Why the Sagas haven’t been made into a Netflix miniseries is beyond me. Maybe they have and I’ve been binge watching Ted Lasso and For All Mankind too much.
Tomorrow we’re off to Lake Myvatn. Myvatn, several people have told me, including Diana yesterday at the Eider shop, is Icelandic for “Mosquito.” We’ll see.
Driving from Reykjavik this morning toward the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, I began to have my doubts. The scenery was nothing like we’ve seen for the past week. Flat, rolling hills, hidden by fog and moderately heavy rain, only one small moss-covered lava field. And frankly, we hadn’t done much planning beyond booking a hotel in Stykkisholmur, a fishing town on the north side of the peninsula. My fondest hope was for early checkin at the hotel and an afternoon nap.
We hit town around 12:30 and by 4 my fears had been proven wrong. It’s fun to travel with pros like Thor and Sage but it’s equally satisfying to do it yourself and fall into something really special.
We found the hotel but rather than checking in we drove around town, a two-minute exercise from the church on a hill overlooking the village, a tour of downtown and ending at the waterfront pier. There we found a sign for Seatours.
“Do you have any tours this afternoon?”
“We have a tour of the islands leaving in 25 minutes,”
“Any puffins?”
“At the first island.”
“Sign us up.”
By two o’clock we were 20 meters from the island, named after a mermaid, I think, and sure enough, there were the puffins, a million of them. They were perching on rocks, flying to and fro and sitting on the water. We didn’t see any in nests but I’ll bet they were there, hidden perhaps. There were also Northern Fulmurs, Black-legged Kittiwakes and a Cormorant or two. Jackpot!
Next stop was a pyramid-shaped island, the tallest of the bunch in Stykkisholmur’s harbor which, from a different angle, had two peaks. “The remains of an ancient lady who died and fell on her back. The two peaks are all that remain.” A typical boat tour line.
The captain took us to a nearby cove, the spot where Eric the Red holed up after he was chased off his farm at Dalabyggd by neighbors upset over the murders he allegedly committed. The islands at the time were covered with trees, which he used to prepare his boats for his trip to populate Greenland, from whence his son Leif sailed to discover North America 500 years before the Italian kid.
But that’s not all. The crew threw overboard a trawling net and, after a 15 minute drag, pulled up an amazing haul of sea creatures from the ocean floor, including a large number of scallops. Judy and I love scallops but we’ve never had any so fresh as those they shucked and gave to us to sample. Fifteen minutes from seabed to gullet with no heat applied in between. They had the same flavor as cooked scallops, but infinitely fresher.
Yet another bonus: as we walked down the gangplank to leave the ship, a crew was unloading containers of lumpfish, a local species that is processed for their roe to produce Icelandic caviar. Lumpfish have an appearance only a mother could love, and these were all mothers-to-be since the males of the species don’t offer up much in the way of roe.
OK, that was great, but now let’s do the Eider Museum just up the hill from the wharf. The museum was dedicated to the down from the Eider duck, the ones we saw the other day when looking for Puffins. Remember? Black and white and kinda plump? Thor told us farmers steal a third of the feathers from their nest and wait for the duck to replenish what was taken. Here on the islands around Stykkisholmur, feathers are harvested and processed into clothing and duvets. Interesting, but maybe a 20-minute visit if you watch the video.
I found a web site – 11 things to do on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. For Stykkisholmur they recommended “Meet the Locals.” And, without meaning to, that’s exactly what we did. The attendant at the museum was Diana. She’s from Germany, moved to Stykkisholmur a few months ago after spending time in London. So not exactly a local, but a really nice person who gave us a lot more information about eider down and about herself.
Then, a friend of hers walked into the museum for a cup of espresso. Her name was Renata and she’s from Brazil. Renata gives private language lessons in English, Portuguese and Japanese. She’s learning Icelandic. She’s married to a local fisherman and has a three-year-old son who’s cuter than a puffin chick.
Renata reads Bible verses every day and records them in English and Portuguese for posting on a blog. She told us that this morning she prayed for an angle to come and help her with the enormous job facing her to clean up the yard around her house. She approached a man walking in her neighborhood, offered to pay him, only to have him do it for free. Prayer answered.
I guess you could say our prayer was answered too. A great day in an unknown land. Even a 180 degree rainbow viewed from our hotel room when we got home. And a pretty good dinner of mussels and wolffish to boot.
Tomorrow the weather’s supposed to be rain free for our tour of the peninsula.
Oh, and by the way, Jessica sent me some Blue Lagoon pictures, the two subjects of which might be confused with Lumpfish after tonight’s dinner.
Before we came to Iceland, everyone would ask us, “Has the volcano caused your trip to be canceled?” “No, we would answer, the volcano is far away from where we’ll be going so there’s no worry. We may not be able to visit the Blue Lagoon, but that’s the only potential problem.”
Today, on our way to the Blue Lagoon, we crossed over the smoldering lava fields from the current eruption. We passed a stone’s throw away from the town of Grindavik that’s been evacuated and three houses have burned. We saw the 15 and 20-foot high walls of dirt that have been erected in an attempt to divert the flow of lava from the town, the Blue Lagoon and the nearby geothermal power plant. We saw steam in the distance where fire crews were drenching molten lava with water to solidify it and create a barrier. We could smell the sulfur-laden odor from the volcano.
Eruptions have been going on on the Reykjanes Peninsula since March of 2021 and there have been five eruptions since last December. The most recent started on March 29 of this year and is ongoing, although it seems to be slowing. Before this sequence, the peninsula has been quiet for 800 years. We drove through fields of 800-year old lava and craters. But the fresh lava flows are overrunning the old flows.
The Blue Lagoon itself is a large swimming pool, maybe four feet deep and filled with warm (100 degree) blue salt water that has come up from the ground. There’s a wet bar and a place where you can get a mud, mineral or algae mask to apply to your face. A mask is supposed to make you radiant and to stop the aging process. Beats me while an old person would want to stop the aging process; all the damage has already been done. And I believe that something like that does you good only if you believe it will. I didn’t do a mask, even though it was included in my admission. Judy did, though.
The drive to the Blue Lagoon from the 360 Boutique Hotel took longer than planned because the direct costal route was closed due to the volcano. But that gave Thor more time for more stories. I’ll try to recount some here and to catch up on some I missed from earlier days.
Here are a few topics Thor talked about today and yesterday.
The Icelandic language is closely related to ancient Nordic spoken by the Vikings. Old English, and hence modern English, is derived from the same source. It’s a language difficult for foreigners to learn, however, since it is highly complex. There are three genders observed: masculine, feminine and neuter. There are four declinations for each noun. Adjectives must agree with the declinanted noun. Hence there can be as many as 24 versions of an adjective. And let’s not get started on verbs!
There is an app for Icelanders to use to determine their family tree relationship to other people. It’s a small place, and every Icelander is related somehow to every other Icelander. People with common grandparents can’t marry. Extended families, aunts, uncles, etc., operate as one big family.
Beer was outlawed in Iceland until 1987, following Denmark’s lead where drunkenness was a problem. Thor says that many Icelanders don’t drink during the week but on the weekends they drink to a state of altered reality – total blotto drunkenness.
Icelanders are quite liberal when it comes to relationships. A recent survey found that 70% of Icelanders think it’s OK to have sex on a first date.
The Icelandic coat of arms has an interesting story as related by Thor. The shield features four guardian spirits as defined by a legend. Back in the 10th century, the King of Norway and Denmark, Harald “Bluetooth” Gormason, decided to subjugate Iceland to be part of his empire. Observing that diplomacy had failed other kings, Harald opted to use armed force. But before doing so, he hired a shaman from Finland to scope the situation out. The shaman, taking the form of a whale (that’s what Scandinavian shamans do), swam to Iceland. He found that each side of the island was protected by a spirit: a bull, serpents, great birds and a dragon. Harald, receiving the shaman’s report, abandoned his plan to invade. So today, based on a 13th century retelling of the story, the Iceland’s coat of arms features these protective spirits.
Toward the end of our time together, Thor touched on the subject of Icelandic politics. One hot button topic is whether or not Iceland should join the European Union. They do have a trade agreement with the EU but the Krona is still the independent currency, rather than the Euro. One problem with that is the Krona fluctuates in value. But bank loans, say a house mortgage, is based on Euros or some other external currency. Icelandic loans can vary not only in interest rates as conditions change, but the principle amount of the loan can increase.
Some oppose joining the EU. Thor believes, I think, that those opposed have some personal interest that might be harmed, including politicians and those who hold fishing rights in Icelandic waters. Iceland is a wealthy country, based on its fishing industry especially, but that wealth doesn’t translate into wealth for the common citizen. It’s held by a small group of the super rich. Thor has lost confidence in the ability of the government to live up to its promises and provide for the welfare of the country’s citizens.
So our trip with Sage and Thor is over. Sage, Barrs and Holly had us over to their apartment for dinner tonight – spaghetti and salad. A perfect ending to a wonderful trip. Judy and I walked the mile or so over and back in a light drizzle. So now we’re back in our hotel room. Tomorrow we head for Snaefellsnes.
Disclaimer: I’m writing this after a long, relaxing soak in our hotel’s geothermal hot tubs and after the Farewell Dinner, including two (or more) glasses of Champaign, a glass of red wine, and a dinner of celery soup, Arctic Char and chocolate cake, so anything I say should be taken with more than the usual grain of salt.
Thor pointed out that I quite erroneously implied in my early posting that modern-day worshipers of the Viking gods practiced animal sacrifice. He said that nothing could be further from the truth. He is friends with a number of such practitioners, including high priests, and they would be horrified to think that we were going away with that impression.
Today’s beliefs and practices span a range from humanism to reconstructionism, from viewing the gods as metaphorical constructs to approaching them as distinct beings. Deities venerated in Ásatrú include Odin, Thor, and Freya, but respect is paid to a large number of figures. Ásatrú is a world-accepting religion; emphasis is placed on right action in this life rather than on expectation of an otherworldly afterlife. Practitioners assert that “we are our deeds,” meaning that the sum of one’s actions is of primary importance.
Offerings are typically done in the form of alcohol. The religion is recognized officially by the Icelandic government as well as the U.S. government.
The highlight of the day, expedition wise, was a trip up into the highlands of Iceland. Iceland is a country where people live on the periphery with the interior being ice-covered glaciers and volcano-generated mountains. Hardly anyone lives there. Thor drove our 30-passenger bus, disguised as a four-wheel drive all-terrain jeep, over mountainous dirt roads to the Pakgil campground at the end of maybe a 15-mile road. The scenery was spectacular, reminiscent of the Game of Thrones, since the area was used to film that series. Check out the pictures. The day was cold, windy and rainy, which made the driving challenging but added to the feeling of mystery and wonder of the glacial features.
The cultural highlight of the day was a visit to the home of Valborg Őlafsdóttir in her country house just off the Ring Road on our way westbound from Vik. Valborg’s home is the former parsonage of a Lutheran church, actually two churches that were located next door. One burned down and the other blew down in a strong wind. All that’s left is her home, a fixer-upper barn and a small cemetery in the yard.
Valborg grew up in the big city of Reykjavik, finds herself today a sheep farmer with a herd of 120 animals (three times that number in lambing season), an accomplished singer-song writer and the mother of two adorable kids. She teaches music, as does her husband, who is also the local sheep shearer. And she makes some pretty amazing cakes too, which we enjoyed while she entertained us with stories of her life and played some of her music on guitar and piano.
In the fall, all the sheep farmers, their border collies and a drone or two go up into the hills to shepherd the sheep back to the barn for the winter. The lambs, less than six months old, are destined to become various cuts of meat and their parents are sheared to keep them cool for the long winter cooped up in the barn. In the spring, the lambs are born, the parents are sheared again and off they go for the summer in the highlands.
Yet another volcano was visible on our travels: Hekla, which in the medieval days was called the Gateway to Hell, ranking right up there with Mt Vesuvius in Italy. Thor says he’s climbed Hekla maybe 15 times. But he wouldn’t go up it today because it’s overdue for another eruption. It’s one of the most active of Iceland’s volcanoes and frequently erupts with violent outbursts of large quantities of lava. The last eruption was in 2000.
Thor is a bottomless storehouse of stories. Today, Sage’s daughter Beatrice called out, “Tell us another story!” So Thor told us about Christmas in Iceland. It’s the biggest holiday of the year and, being Lutherans, they celebrate on Christmas Eve, as is the case of many of our Minnesota friends.
In Iceland, the Nordic traditional holiday of Yule, celebrated on the winter solstice, predates Christian Christmas and has merged with it. In the Yule tradition, thirteen characters drawn from Nordic tradition, appear one day at a time leading up to Christmas Day, leaving each day gifts for children in the shoes they have left on their window sills. Thor frequently performs as one of the characters for the kiddos, usually Þvörusleikir (Spoon-Licker) who steals spoons to lick them. Knowing Thor, the kids have a real treat.
Our hotel tonight is the 360 Boutique Hotel, so named because it has a panoramic view of 360 degrees. We can clearly see Hekla and the other big glacier I mentioned the other day, Eyeforgetmyyogurt. They have a series of geothermal-fed hot tubs outdoors that we all used to sooth our weary bones from a week of really great experiences in Iceland.
Tomorrow it’s the Blue Lagoon, volcanic conditions permitting. Then it’s home for some and for us, the rental car and on to the north country. Without Thor, I don’t know how we’ll manage. One things for sure, I won’t have as many neat stories to tell!
“What is there for us to see today? We saw Antarctic Glaciers just last January. It’s going to be tough to top that!” Judy and I said to each other this morning. But the Vatnajokull Glacier, the largest (by volume) in Europe, and especially the drive to and from it, was special and worth the trip even for jaded glacier wonks like us.
Vatnajokull has five active volcanoes under its ice sheet. They erupt periodically, emitting large quantities of water, ash and toxic gases. We saw evidence of volcanic activity all day long. For example, the 1918 eruption near Vik extended the Icelandic shoreline two miles out into the ocean.
Arguably the most deadly eruption, the so called Saftárelder (Fires of Skaftá) in 1783, created a crater 18 miles long. The impact was extensive and widespread.
– The volcano ejected lava, of course, the results of which we saw today in the form of lava fields and mini craters 28 miles from the epicenter: large areas of rock covered today with a thick layer of moss. With time, plants and eventually tress will grow where the moss has prepared the way. But judging from the 260-odd years of moss growth, we’ve got a few more centuries (millennia?) to wait.
– The volcano also ejected ash and toxic gasses that caused teeth of man and beast to fall out. Seventy five percent of Iceland’s cattle and 22% of the population died. The economy of Iceland, already poverty stricken, was made even worse.
– The ash cloud spread over Europe. Unlike the 2010 event, this one had thin lightweight ash particles that remained suspended over Europe for years. Poverty and starvation ensued. The citizenry of France, already less-than thrilled with the monarchy, started the French Revolution.
Thor told the story of the Starla, the wanderer, who came to live with a family in this area. He had a premonition of a 17th century eruption. The parents ignored him but one night he took the kids to the top of a nearby hill. Sure enough, the eruption occurred, the waters came and engulfed the hill on which he and the kids were standing. An iceberg floated by. Starla jumped on with the kids, a cow, some sheep and a horse. He returned to rebuild the farm and live happily ever after. Kinda tough on the parents, though.
Thor regaled us with several legends and stories drawn from Nordic mythology. Some revolved around the striking similarities between human and seal physiology. Both have internal bone structures and enchanting eyes. One man, in the 1980s, I believe, had two layers of dark fat, just like a seal. He survived hours in frigid waters that killed his companions in minutes. About this time of year it is said that seals shed their skins for a day and take on a human form. And so on.
We saw in the distance the island where the first Viking settler landed. Seems he was anxious to chose a settlement site pleasing to the gods. So he took his two totem poles, lashed them together and threw them in the sea, asking the gods to show him the way. It took him several years, but he eventually found them near present day Reykjavik and that’s where he set up shop. Reykjavik’s symbol is two poles crossed by ocean waves.
We drove today to Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, about three hour’s drive from our hotel in Vik. Along the way we saw one outlet glacier after another. Imagine a giant ice sheet sitting atop a mountain range (really a range of volcanos with intervening lakes beneath the surface of the ice). The pressure of the ice causes the ice to flow downward wherever there is a valley between volcano peaks. These tongues of the main glacier eventually reach lower elevations and flow towards the sea. Those are Vatnajokull’s outlet glaciers.
The Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon started forming in 1934 as Vatnajokull started to recede, as is happening to many glaciers around the world. Today the lagoon is 11 square miles in size and over 800 feet deep. It is expanding at the rate of almost 1,000 feet each year. It’s home to a number of enchanting icebergs, which have calved off from Vatnajokull.
The lagoon is close enough to the ocean and low enough in elevation so that tidal waters flow in during high tides and the fresh water flows out at low time. The lagoon therefore has fish from the ocean and where there’s fish, there are inevitably seals. Check out the pictures to see the icebergs.
While these icebergs are no where near the size of what we saw in Antarctica, they have their own appeal and we enjoyed our up close and personal view of them from the Duck Boat very much.
On the way back we stopped at a roadside stop where we could view the moss-covered lava field up close. Judy, a Maine moss lover, was especially pleased to get up close and personal with Icelandic moss.
Just outside of Vik we stopped at the Black Beach. This beach has really black sand, created by the volcanic fallout. It also has striking vertical pillars of solidified lava. Puffins nest in the grass on the hillside and while we saw a number in the air we didn’t see any perched for us to view. We’ll keep trying. And while we didn’t see any Puffins close up, we did see numerous Arctic Skuas, the same birds we saw in Antarctica in January. They nest here in the spring and migrate south in the fall.
Dinner was at the Black Crust Pizzeria. The crust looked just like the sand at the beach but tasted OK as did the date-pesto-somethingorother topping.
More scenery and some music tomorrow, our last full day of touring with Sage.
