Never romanticize Iceland.
Bildudalur Harbour
But if you do, it will wrench you back to your senses quickly enough.
The End of a Whale in Arnarfjörður
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Tag Archives: Iceland
The Edge of the World
Humans travel by the millions to Iceland every year, to stand at the edge of the Earth and look into the abyss.
The Last of the Glaciers Melts in the Jökulsárlón
Notice how it looks back without blinking.
Logging in Iceland
Old growth timber gets logged in Iceland.
And stacked up beside the road outside Hallormstaðir. Hawthorn City.
Count the rings. I count 23 years.
Back before the Millenia, in Old Iceland, this was a tourist place.
The tourists were Icelanders. In Modern Iceland, men brought in the heavy farm equipment.
And got at it.
When Gumnar lived at the end of the lake, just a few minutes away by car or the length of a saga by foot, there were no trees here at all. Modernity, it seems, is a return to the old world, with fun equipment along the way.
Not Post Modern But Post Herring
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.
What Iceland Can Teach About the 1970s
In the 1970s, A-Frame housing, cheap and easy to build, was all the rage in Canada. We were being very modern and Scandinavian back in those years, two things we’ve given up. We also soon grew tired of living at a slant and having half our floor space unusable (not to mention bonking our heads). I lived in a house like the one below for two years.
After that, we all gave it up and invented the 1980s, which was all about rectangular solids painted to look like California, with Tudor trim. In Egilsstaðir, however, the 1970s are still alive and well, because, well, it’s Scandinavia and, also, they couldn’t afford to throw anything away. And it’s still modern! A lesson for us all.
Woodworking in Iceland
Forests are a new thing in Iceland, and must all be planted by hand, just as this group of Siberian larch at Gunnar’s birthplace above the Jokulsá.
And no-one’s quite sure what to do with them. At the moment, they are chopped up into that staple of all harbour cities, shipping palettes, and then reassembled in familiar forms from there. It’s a little wobbly, but all shipping palette construction is.
But there’s definitely a keen-ness in the air. All the tools of the trade are readily available for working out the kinks at home or in the woods.
You did spot Thor’s battle axe there on the wall, right?
The Wild West in Iceland?
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.
The Trolls of Baejarhjalli
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.
What Happens When You Leave the Path
Hraunfosser
Don’t leave the path.
South East Iceland
East
South
Breiðabólsstaðarlón
(Time your trip to arrive at sunset.)
A Farm in Iceland 