Episode 6 (16th August 2007)

Episode 6 (16th August 2007)
We drove on round the coast to the West Fjords area, it is that north-westerly area that sort of looks as if it has been tacked on to the rest of the island as an afterthought. It is a quite remote area with plenty of gravel roads and somewhere between 8000 and 9000 people.
First along the south coast, well its really the north coast of the Breidafjordur, along a wide coastal plain with lots of little farms bordered by the deep blue sea of the one side and running back into scree slopes topped with sheer cliffs of high mountains on the other. There are many small fields of pasture with bales of silage dotted about or stacked up beside barns. Mainly sheep are raised on these places but occasionally there are some dairy cows. There must be plenty of dairy cows about the country as there is plenty of milk, cheese and yogurt, all made in Iceland.
The place we were making for first is the most westerly point of Europe even though it’s in Iceland and on the North American tectonic plate. It is the bird cliffs of Latrabjarg, on the peninsular of the same name. These cliffs are famous because of the 1,000,000 or so birds that nest here each summer. Along the way to this cliff we passed an old steel boat beached on a remote shore rusting away. A sign said it was the oldest steel ship in Iceland built in 1912 and beached here in 1981, just why it was beached here it did not say.
In places the road passes around a cliff face fairly high up with an almost vertical drop into the fjord on the one side, it was narrow and gravel and we were quite pleased that no other traffic came along as we negotiated this stretch. There are some lovely light golden sandy beaches too, all you need is the palm trees and the water 15˚C warmer, and you’d have a lovely tropical beach. There are more little farms: Along one of the beaches we could see the remains of stone houses that were built by fishermen centuries ago and abandoned in the 17th century. They used to live here and catch and dry cat fish.
I had expected a lot of tourists here but there were only 4 other cars in the carpark and a couple of bicycles when we arrived. These cliffs are 14k’s long, up to 441m high and cover 35 sq kilometres. There are about 10 species of birds that nest here, these are the ones I remember; Guillemot, Brunnicks guillemot, razorbilled auk, puffin, fulmar and kittiwakes.
The local people used to hunt these birds to supplement their mainly fish diet. In 1926 36000 birds were caught and around 44000 eggs taken. This hunt came at a price though, in that year 2 men were killed while hunting. These people used to either rappel down the cliffs or climb up from the bottom and believe me, though cliffs are vertical. This skill at rappelling proved very useful though as 2 trawlers have been wrecked on the rocks below the cliffs and both times the locals have rescued the crews using this method. Hunting now is very rare but some locals still practice the rappelling so the skill is not lost.
Off we headed along the track that led up the grassy meadow that finished at the cliff edge. The very first bird we came to was a puffin sitting on a tiny rock ledge 100m above the sea and almost in reaching distance for those of us who lay down and crawled towards the edge. He (the puffin) was quite tame and just stood and looked at us for the most part. It had a burrow just by the ledge and every now and again it would get bored of looking at us and disappear down its burrow for a while. We walked on and came to more puffins doing much the same thing. A great number of guillmots are nesting here too and they are very noisy. The chicks are about ready to leave now but some are still being fed by their parents. Among these birds there was a great deal of activity with goings and comings, while the puffins just sat and watched the proceeding in a detached sort of way. The smell was a bit overpowering too if you got down wind, and that wind was blowing a gale. We carried on up along the path but there was not more birds, all those further along seemed to have left for the season. Maybe much further along there was still some area occupied but we didn’t go a long way, but instead coming back to watch those birds we’d seen.
We did consider camping nearby but with that wind blowing our poor little tent would have been blown away I fear, maybe with us in it. Just picture it, Lyn tent flying over the north Atlantic:
We crossed the Glama moors, a high windswept moorland covered with tundra and some patches of snow. Snowmelt lakes abound and appear smooth despite the wind. No-one seems to live up here and there is no agriculture, only some gravel pits and attendant workmen.
On a bright sunny morning we came to the Dynjandi waterfall. This is quite a spectacular falls as it tumbles over the escarpment in one long drop, then cascades down the rocks below. A 20min hike up hill brought us to the base of the main falls and into the spray from them. The water wasn’t as cold as I had expected despite the bleak tundra covered moors it came off. It was a bright sunny morning and the sun shone through the water just where it came over the top, it was very pretty, shinning like a halo.
There are several small villages around the fjords, they used to depend on fishing for their livelihoods but since the introduction of fishing quotas in the early 90’s most are struggling to survive. Talk to anyone in this country about the fishing quotas and they will tell you it’s an absolute mess. The small boat fishermen that do have a quota make more money renting their quotas out to the big companies than to go out fishing themselves: Whereas before there used to be fish processing works in most towns now the big companies only have them and only in the really big places, so there is no work for the people in the villages. Some have turned to tourist based industries but there are really only 3 months of the year when there are a lot of tourists about. Fishing licences for tourists for just a day can cost anywhere from $200 aud to $4000 aud, that’s an expensive fish dinner. Also I have read that even with the quota system the waters around here are over fished and many species are in short supply.
The little town of Þingeyri is one such town where very little happens. The lady in the tourist info office is the daughter of a fisherman. Her family had spent 4 years in Namibia where her father was working as a trawler captain and now he is in Newfoundland. The little office was filled with craftwork, mostly woollen items knitted with the local wool in the traditional colours of varying greys to white and in traditional patterns. It is quite expensive, a pair of gloves similar to that which I bought a little over a year ago in Ecuador and cost me $2 US are for sale here for around $30 US; mine were made of Alpaca wool too.
On another fjord is the town of Flateyri, it has a high earthen wall built between it and the mountain behind as some years ago a big avalanche came down that mountain and wiped out part of the town. The earthen wall forms a bowl in which the camp site is placed, it’s just as well there is no snow to make avalanches in summer or the campers might be wiped out. The town sits on a gravel spit jutting out into the fjord and is only about 1metre above sea level; hope global warming does not cause the sea to rise too much here.
Outside the town is an old brick chimney and rusting metal boiler; the only remains of a whaling station that was here. Bit further along and there are some fish drying racks. Just made of wood and there was some fish hung up drying too. Several types of fish both small and large: In bins beside the rack are the bones and heads of countless fish, we wondered if these are taken and used to make fertilizer.
Further on we came to the much bigger town of Isafjordur. Here we saw two cruise ships in port. One was an expedition ship, so the sign said and probably had 300 to 400 passengers, the other was a much larger cruise ship with anything up to about 600 passengers. There was only a few walking about the town, where everyone else was I have no idea. Perhaps they were on a bus trip some place but we had passed no busses on our way into the town and the only other road led up the fjord, the way the ships had come.
We had a bit of a look around this town but again there is not a great deal to see. Some nicely painted houses, all of a similar style and probably from about the 1950-60 period, not real old. The large cultural centre was of the same style on a much larger scale. It had an exhibition of some modern art but judging from what was on show outside we decided that a visit inside would not really interest us.
From here we wound our way around numerous fjords past farms and pastures and around cliff edges, over more moorland. We camped one night beside a stream and there was an area dense with blueberry bushes. I think something had eaten most of the ripe berries but I did manage to find enough for a good snack. They were very plump and juicy and sweeter than I remember the Alaskan ones to be. The bushes are beginning to turn that lovely russet colour they get in Autumn. I did wonder what animal might have eaten them as there are no bears here. Perhaps it is the sheep, there are plenty of them. The little black round berry that grows on a ferny leaf plant is abundant here too, this berry is ok to eat. These are crow berries
On the Standir coast we drove right up to the geothermal pool at Krossnes, the end of the road. The pool is quite warm about 33C and there is a hot tub about 38C. The pools are fed from a thermal spring beside the road; you can see the steam rising from it. The pool is down on the black pebble beach. It just works on an honesty box system about $5ea AUD. Not enough people venture here to have someone in attendance all the time I expect. A couple were just leaving when we arrived and some more arrived after us, we all left about the same time and passed no more cars heading in that direction. There is a very pretty waterfall behind the almost deserted town of Djupavik. It falls over the cliff then cascades down the very steep scree slope. I did consider walking up to it but David didn’t feel up to it so I gave it a miss. Perhaps if it hadn’t been threatening to tip with rain I might have been more inclined to do the climb.
In the town of Holmavik we visited a witchcraft museum. It was most interesting as it is not something I have ever seen before. Witchcraft was widely practiced in Iceland in the 17th century; this coincides with its popularity in Europe. There are quite a few differences though. Here it was mainly men that practiced it and there were no broomsticks involved. Symbols and signs (runes) were common and some of the farmers used to paint one of these on the sheep to keep away the arctic foxes. Wonder if they could come up with one to keep dingos away from sheep and cattle.
During this period there were 21 people burned at the stake for witchcraft, all except one were men. In Europe, especially Germany there was a huge number burned but they were mostly women. Here, the main accusers were priests it seems but some of them also practiced it. Also on display were the recipes for potions to make yourself invisible, and other for raising the dead or putting a curse on someone. All involved precise amounts of blood from various parts of the body as well as that from certain animals taken at certain times of the year like Christmas, Easter or Whitsun.
One particularly gruesome item was the necrotrouses. These were taken from a dead body from the waist down. The body was skinned from the waist down, including penis and scrotum and the toenails on the feet. No holes or nicks in the skin either. A sorcerer would do this at Christmas, Easter or Whitsun, and then he would wear the pants, but he must also steal a coin from a poor widow in the dead of night and wear that coin in the scrotum, it was suppose to attract many more coins to the wearer. Bet this fellow was always having a scratch. Then he must make sure he didn’t die wearing the trousers, if he did that then all sorts of dire things would happen to his body (what the hell did that matter!). Anyway, he had to pass the trousers onto the next fellow one leg at a time in a strict order. The trousers would last for several generations that way.
Not a great deal has survived from that time as the priests and sheriffs destroyed all that they could find but there were still quite a good display. Runes on skins and leather, a few old wooden items used and a stone bowl found not long ago: It was found when a house was being renovated that stands where there once was a pagan temple. Minute traces of animal and human blood were found on it but scientists won’t commit themselves as it was brought to them not left in the ground and they brought to it. Still it is an interesting find.
Around one peninsular we saw two or three seal colonies. The seals were just lying on the beach doing very little which is what seals tend to do most of the time. Some of these were very light in colour, some were grey and white and some a dark grey. I have seen no signs to say exactly which type of seal they are. A few were in the water swimming but mostly they were just lying on there backs barely moving a muscle. We could not get nearer than about 50m to them. Some were on a lovely black sand beach but others were on little rocky islands covered in seaweed. In some places there is a massive amount of seaweed on the beach. Later found out that these are harbour seals.
A rocky hill top was once a fortress. The natural rock on the top forms a wide wall all around with just a narrow gap for an entrance and a depression in the centre, the gap was walled up with stone. The wall is several metres wide so easy to walk around and it commanded a wonderful view over the farm lands below. It looks just like a castle wall. There is no documental evidence of its existence only mention of it in the sagas. Traces of a well still exist.
One of the best museums we have visited is the turf houses at Glambær. The houses here actually date for the 18th and 19th centuries but are typical of the style that was the main form of building in this country. Turf house building like all other constructions have evolved over the centuries:
The turf in Iceland is especially good for building these houses as the grass grows thickly with a mass of roots that holds the sod together. The sods are cut in squares and are laid like stone work, either horizontally or vertically. They look very neat. The roof must have just the right degree of slope, too steep and the sods dry out in dry spells, they then crack and the roof leaks, or too flat and they get too wet when it rains and they leak. However they are very warm when a fire is going inside. The fires were often fueled by peat that is found in the marshes near here.
The rooms were laid out as they would have been in the 18th century with items from that period. One room was a blacksmiths shop with his bellows made of cow hide and his forge. There were some storage room and then the main living quarter had several rooms. One was a guest room with the best furniture and china, there was an upstairs room with a spinning jenny on which several threads could be spun at the same time. Another room was the dairy. Not where the cows were milked but where the milk was kept and the butter, cheese and curd was made. A storeroom that could be locked was where the salted meat and fish was kept so hungry work people could not raid it between meals. There was the main sleeping area divided into three areas. All the workers shared the one long bedroom divided into two with a curtain and with bunk beds. The bunks were short but a pair of socks I saw would have fitted a giant’s feet. There was some clothes laid out that might have been worn at the time. They were mostly made from wool or horse hair, even the wool was quite coarse, the horse hair was even more coarse but I don’t think it was used to make clothes. One bedroom was separate and that was for a family with a tiny bunk above the bigger one, the tiny one being for a baby.
A church next to this house is early 20th century but has some interesting old icons around the walls, and it also has a very modern organ made entirely of wood, keys and all, it was made in England. There has been a church on this site since the 11th century. This area is among the first settled in Iceland by the Nordic people.
Sorri, the first European born in North America 1003 is buried around here. His family were with Leif Erikson when he landed in Vinland (North America) and then they returned to Iceland when that new settlement failed. No one seems to know why it failed. Sorri’s mother Gudridur was a very widely travelled woman for her time; she had crossed Europe twice by foot and made 8 ocean voyages.
In another place not far from this house we saw an old turf church 1834. When we arrived a man from the house next door rushed over with the key then wanted about $4 each entrance fee. Inside it was quite small but lovely, it is all lined with wood. An altar piece dates from 1616 and is a painting of the last supper. The pulpit has some very old paintings, it is from a much earlier church, but the paintings are quite damaged.
In the year 1000 Christianity was accepted as the national religion of Iceland, then around 1550 the reformation took place, instigated by the King of Denmark, that was when the Catholic Church was outed and replaced by the Lutheran. Most Icelanders are still Lutheran; there are only a handful of churches that belong to other religions.
©Lynette Regan 21st August 2007