What do you do with all those industrial plastic fish bins after they have been used to empty out the sea?
Egilsstaðir
You make a beach, that’s what you do — into a lake that is now severely compromised by hydroelectric dam run-off, and then you sell it.
Something’s Fishy
I love Egilsstaðir, truly, precisely because it is not romantic.
Ruins in other countries don’t look…
…well, so alive!
But, that’s what building with the earth will do for you!
Lagarfljót.
If you wander out of Gunnar’s house to the bottom of the lake, a pleasant 20 minute walk in the right light, you will see birds taking wing above the Hallormstadaskogur, the great National Forest of Iceland.
In any other light, they’d be the outlines of cliffs breaking out into the April sun, but on a day like this, they’re birds, for sure.
It’s in the East.
Across the lake from Hallormsstaðir. I wonder if Gunnar would have stayed at the end of the lake if he’d had neighbours like this.
On the face of the Austurfell just west of the old monastery at Skriðuklaustur, and at the feet of the Ogre’s Staircase, the trolls are thick. And not just trolls. Have a look:
See them? Here are some hints:
Above: A Family of Fish Trolls Looking Much like a Fish Egg With a Skull for an Eye (or the Moon)
Above: Fat-Bellied SeatedTroll, Waving
Above: Musical Monks
Above: A Skull On A Post
Above: Lovers Embracing
Below: Troll With Runes and Spilled Treasure. Beware!
Below the Fell, the land runs with blood in the spring.
Well, yeah.
In Langadalur, you can find a country where humans can only exist as the companions of elemental powers. To walk here is to be utterly naked in the universe. To do so with a community of people is no help. You must enter with a community of things, and live within them until you have crossed. What the Icelanders have learned in 1100 years is that when the boat doesn’t come, you had better be good at making a new community of things.
You must halter yourself to the Earth, lest you are blown away. You could say that Gunnar returned to Iceland in 1939 because he loved his land, which is true, that he was romantic, which is also true, that he was afraid, which was reasonable in 1939, and you could say that this fold east of Bifrost is an instance of creativity, which is also true, but those are just words. You pick up the Earth one stone at a time, and move them to create a body that shelters you. It is your companion. It is yourself. From their to haunting is not far.
If you stay in Reykjavik, vodka’s the thing. Drink that stuff and you might forget where you are.
But if you go halfway to the complete opposite end of the country, the water speaks at last, not with a bottle but with the words that grow still on the very bottom edge of the sky:
Lagarfljót, April
Your choice, between a bar full of travellers and the voices of trolls. Flights to Egilstaðir are cheap. Just $120 return. You could drop three times that much, just having dinner and drinks with a friend in town. Off you go.
Here is Gunnar’s corner of Iceland. Snæfell in the distance calls the water out of the air, then sheds it and fills the valley floor with its watery self. The lake is the mountain.
And it is here in the spring, when you stand on the shore, you can hear the mountain talk to you through the ice as it is lifted and set down by the waves lifted and set down by the breath of the mountain. It sounds like a flock of joyous birds. Really. You should go. It’s worth the trip to hear it through the birch trees, to keep walking as it grows louder and louder, and then, well, to be right inside it.
Snæfell, the great mountain of East Iceland (not to be confused with Snæfell, the great mountain of West Iceland), is rarely seen. She cloaks herself in weather.
Gunnar’s House is just above lake level (and just past the lake), pretty much in the centre of the image.
She is always present, however, not just in the cloud she gathers to herself out of the living air but also in the Lagarfljót, the lake that fills the valley below her. There you can walk along the shore of the water she collects out of the sky. Snæfell is one of the great transformers — much like a great white raven, really.
Well, you can go to Gullfoss …
…with the crowds.
Or you can go to Gilsáfoss. It’s not so large, but it has spirit, and an ice troll, if you go in April.
Gilsáfoss
Easy to get to, too. Drive east from the airport for 8 hours, turn left at Egilstadir, follow the lake through Hallomrstadir, and then, 30 minutes later, if you don’t stop to let the reindeer pass along the way, which is a fine reason to stop, for sure …
You’ll find it at the end of the lake, just upstream from the old bridge in the middle of this image. It’s the last stream before you cross the lake to the north side. Have a nice trip! The ice troll is waiting. Gulfoss will thank you.
A Farm in Iceland 