Iceland Redux, Redux, Redux

Time is not a river. It is a jungle.”‘(from the TV series Legion, 2019). What once was dominant and formidable now exists only as bleached bones, while tender ideas and insubstantial feelings that sought out secret niches have remained hidden from the hungry jaws of change.  My experience of Iceland has become just such a jungle. I’ve visited Iceland several times: first in 1989, then again in 1993, and finally in 2012. Volcanoes and global warming have changed  parts of the countryside, but when I stood in the middle of an Icelandic lava field in 2012 the old feelings of isolation and spirituality from previous times started to flow through me again. Reykjavik, on the other hand, had changed much more dramatically since I had first visited it, and I was unsure how these changes made me feel. I’m still unsure. In 1989 few tourists were interested in Iceland, beer had just been declared legal, and accommodations were sparse on the ground. The 1989 trip was my first attempt to travel off the beaten track. It was my first step onto the road less traveled. In 1989 fishing and agriculture formed the bedrock of the country’s economy. Since then tourism and aluminum smelting has joined fishing and pushed aside agriculture in importance.The weather is still cool, wet, and windy, in other words, bracing.The countryside exhibits very little litter, and the air remains clear and fresh. During the summer months an unusual aura of thin light radiates down from the atmosphere onto the landscape, and walking through this clean pure light still feels special. For these reasons I continue to like Iceland very much, even though it is no longer the place I first visited. Today it is flooded with tourists. In a country with a total population of 338,349 (2017), 291,344 tourists visited Iceland in one month alone, (August 2018). Today there are many new hotels in Reykjavik along with numerous restaurants, museums, and special events intended to keep the mob of tourists entertained. The Blue Lagoon (see below), an outgrowth of Reykjavik’s geothermal electric plant is one such tourist magnet.

The crowds, sight seeing buses, and tourist hustles has changed the atmosphere of Reykjavik greatly. What once appeared to be informal and local has become glitzy and corporate looking. The two pictures below describe the difference. They were both taken outside the same restaurant on one of Reykjavik’s main squares.

Why so many tourists? First, more US citizens are traveling overseas than ever before. In the 1980’s less than 10% of US citizens held a passport. The number with passports has increased significantly since then. Secondly, Iceland allows Americans to visit a fairly obscure and exotic place that is also easy to reach. It is only about 5 hours from Boston by air. I have mixed feelings about this influx. I’m happy about the prosperity it is bringing Iceland, but I dislike crowds, and the rude Americans who mingle in with those crowds. I have to admit, however, that in the 1980’s and 90’s Reykjavik was much more sad and lonely than it is today.

The Golden Circle Tour was operating in 1989 as it is now, but back then the tour bus was a van, and there were only 5 other people who took the tour with me. We visited the original Geyser, Gulfoss waterfall, Thingvellir, a small farm where we had lunch, a green house where they were using geothermal heat to try to grow bananas, and a church camp.

From an Icelander’s point of view, the most important attraction of the golden Circle Tour is Thingvellir. The vikings established Thingvellir as Europe’s first “parliament” at a time when kings and warlords ruled the rest of Europe, (930A.D.). To be honest, the parliament they created wasn’t much like the parliaments that currently function around the world. It was a wild and woolly assemblage of clans that tried to use the gathering to promote their individual and clan interests. (On second thought, maybe it wasn’t so different after all.) There was no central authority that enforced the group’s decisions. Instead the clans would have to agree or at least appear to agree on decisions that they would follow only as long as it was in their best interests to do so. Sometimes these agreements lasted until the following year, and sometimes they didn’t. This type of democracy was riddled with violent blood feuds and bad faith which the Icelandic Sagas document. They did establish some permanent sounding rules, however. For example, people couldn’t haphazardly murder anyone they wanted. Such a murderer could expect to be outlawed and hunted down. Except, heh, if the murder occurred on a little island that sits in the stream that runs past Thingvellir. Conflicts that couldn’t be solved by the group could be solved much more directly on the island. This form of conflict resolution could legally occur after both litigants publicly agreed to meet on the island for a duel. Spectators and friends were supposed to stay on the other side of the stream. There is a story where a spectator shot arrows at the combatants from the far side of the stream, but that was considered a dishonorable foul. Today Icelanders revere Thingvellir as their national birthplace. This historic site includes a cemetery where Iceland’s poets are buried. The entire population of Iceland is about the same as Wichita, Kansas, yet the only other American in the van saw fit to point out that there hadn’t been many Icelandic poets when we visited the 5 or 6 graves located there. Our guide just stared at her in stunned silence. I swore at that moment to never again travel with a tourist group, and for the most part I have maintained my vow.

In 1993 I did not spend much time in Reykjavik, but instead took a local flight to Akureyri in northern Iceland. I later took a bus to Lake Myvatn. This is a bizarre volcanic region that is meant to be photographed. This was also the trip where I became serious about photography. As a result, I can only post a sample of the gigabytes of photos from this trip that I’ve archived on my hard drive. I hope I’ve chosen well. Akureyri is a small town that is just large enough to have a domestic airport and a few stores where you can stock up on any provisions you might need to trek around the countryside.

Akureyri does possess one “must see” location. The Akureyri Botanical Garden surprises with a plethora of flowers growing so far north. It was also one of the few places in Iceland where trees grew. (There have been  a number of reforestation projects since then, particularly in the east of the country). I’ve previously posted pictures of this garden on Facebook, but I believe this is one you’ve never seen before.

The bus ride from Akureyri to the Lake Myvatn area offered up some spectacular views. One of the best was the Godafoss waterfall. Legend claims that when the Althing Parliament decided that Iceland should officially become a Christian country, one of the advocates for Christianity threw many of the pagan temple idols over this waterfalls. The decision to become Christian was, in typically Icelandic fashion, a pragmatic rather than a religious one. It was decided that since much of Scandinavia was becoming Christian, Iceland should also claim the religion in order to not create conflicts with its trading partners. While the pagan temples were closed or turned into churches, Icelanders were allowed to privately worship the old gods at home. The old religion has recently resurfaced into public life.

The tiny village of Reykjahlia sits on the shore of Lake Myvatn. Lake Myvatn, or Lake “midge”, provides plenty of insect life to feed fish and it is one of the best fishing sites in Iceland. If you come to Iceland to fish, carefully research where you plan to fish before you arrive. The cost of a fishing license in Iceland varies from one stream or lake to another, and the licenses are valid only for short periods of time, ( three days to one week is normal). All the different location and duration licenses are very expensive. The Laxa river which flows from Lake Myvatn harbors magnificent salmon and brown trout, but a license costs over $1000 to fish for three days. There is no charge to take pictures of the beautiful lake, however. 🙂

In 1993 the tiny village of Reykjahlia offered only two places to stay. I stayed in a house that was labelled a “hotel” and was operated by an older lady who told me I had to leave my boots by the door whenever I came back from a hike. When I recently viewed the village on Google Earth it appeared that there had been quite a bit of new construction including a Blue Lagoon-like facility, and I imagine that there are several other lodging choices. Back in 1993 I found the village itself to be very photographic. It sat near the Hverfjall crater which was one of the top hiking destinations near Reykjahlia. I took several of the above pictures of Lake Myvatn from the top of the crater. I have heard that recently so many people were climbing the crater that the Government is considering limiting tourist access to it. I’m glad I climbed it when I did!

Back in 1993 the diatomaceous earth factory probably provided most of the  jobs in Reykjahlia. Near the plant, There was an in ground oven that used Geo-thermal heat to bake bread sold at the local general store. That has probably all changed with tourism bringing in most of the area’s income today.

The American and European tectonic plates have been pulling apart in a line that cuts through the middle of Iceland for thousands of years. The stream that runs past Thingvellir sits in this seam, but the most obvious evidence of this tearing, occurs just outside of Reykjahlia.

Each year this gap becomes a tiny bit larger. The separating plates are allowing hot magma to seep up close to the surface. This volcanic movement has molded most of the landscape found in and around Reykjahlia, and has caused dozens of volcanic eruptions since Iceland was settled. In one eruption the locals gathered in the village church to pray, and as if by a miracle the lava separated when it reached the church and flowed around it, saving all inside. Just beyond the gap pictured above I photographed a huge geothermal field with steam vents, and mud bubblers which are also caused by the separating plates.

Tumbled lava and craters cover the landscape for miles outside of Reykjahlia. If you like to hike and seek stunning and unique landscapes, few places on earth can rival this area.

About 40 kilometers east of Lake Myvatn lies the Vatnajokull National Park which contains Iceland’s answer to our Grand Canyon, the Jokulsargljufur. It was formed over time by melting glaciers with the sudden help of a jokulhlaup. A jokulhlaup occurs when a volcano erupts under a glacier. A bubble of hot water grows larger and larger under the ice until it breaks through with a sudden rush of millions of gallons of water.

If you follow the river further toward the sea, it dumps over another waterfalls onto a broad plain that contains long high boxlike plateaus. Floods have washed the looser volcanic ash from around the more durable plateaus. This area is called Asbyrgi and provided me with lots of nice photos.

If you continue to travel north-west from Asbyrgi for a few kilometers you will come to the North Sea and the fishing village of Husavik.

I looked around Husavik a bit in 1993 and couldn’t see where there was much to do there except work. Icelandic fishermen find this acceptable because they were and still are well paid for their hard work and boring hours on shore. In 2009 when the banking crisis closed many of Iceland’s banks and financial institutions, several unemployed bankers bought boats and began fishing in order to maintain their lifestyle. By the time of my final trip to Iceland in 2012 I had switched from film to digital photography for most of my travel photos. (I continue to use a Mamiya 645, and a Calumet 4″by 5″film camera for any fine art work I want to blow up to poster size). A lot of film photographers look down their nose at digital photographers because they claim that digital is “too easy”. They feel you can take a mediocre shot and quickly turn it into an interesting one in Photoshop or some other editing program. I don’t believe this is true. Digital photography still requires hours of trial and error editing, and an eye for an unique setting or concept. I do admit that digital photography is a lot cheaper than film because you are able to take and then throw away a lot more bad shots. But I have other reasons for liking digital photography. I honestly like the digital “look” over that of film. I like the detail and saturated colors I can create with digital that is impossible otherwise. Yes, film can produce a softer, more muted image than digital that many customers like, and if I ever find myself in a softer, more muted mood I will certainly shoot with film again… but don’t hold your breath.

I traveled to Thorsmark, a valley that contains some of Iceland’s rare trees, in 1989 and again during my last trip in 2012. You can note below the change in tone and color between the two visits. I think the change of cameras makes most of the difference, but perhaps my attitude toward the countryside also changed a tiny bit. I leave it up to you to decide.

What have I learned from my multiple visits to Iceland? I can now see that time and truth weave themselves together in such a way that time sometimes blots out the truth and truth sometimes overwhelms time. When I started this chapter I easily remembered some facts and felt some emotions from the past, but I was also certain I had permanently forgotten others. The photos I found for this blog brought some of these forgotten moments back to life, and reversed some changes that time had cast upon me. Yet, this reversal didn’t leave me as I once was, but changed me in new ways. Will I clearly remember what I was like before these recent changes, or how different I was before I started writing this sentence? Probably not. Change produces resistance to change, which. in turn, produces new changes, and life continues on, unstoppable, forever.