Home

10%

OVEGUR

unroad

By Bri Vos

November 4^th, 2014

Óvegur: Unroad

I visited Iceland for the first time in 2008 and the country has held a power over me ever since. I used to believe I wanted to explore the whole world but instead it may take me my whole life to experience all that Iceland is. It’s supernatural landscape seems to breathe and be alive. Óvegur is an invitation to warm yourself on the edge of Lake Mývatn, to taste the salty air of Dyrhólaey and to lay your ear against the moss covered lava rocks near Skaftárhreppur and hear the heartbeat of this land.

SUÐURSVEIT

“But once people have had a huge glut of progress, they’ll get bored. They’ll start talking to the wind and flowers and stones again and listening to the song of the stars.” -”The Hymn about the Flower”, Þórbergur Þórðarson

One of my favourite things about Iceland is that it is steeped in story, in saga both through oral tradition and literature. On our most recent trip to Iceland, we came across the work of Þórbergur Þórðarson, a more modern voice in the history of Icelandic literature, but a truly beautiful one. The Þórbergur Centre in Suðursveit is one of the most interesting and beautiful museums I’ve ever been to and well worth the stop. You can see a photo of it here Really, who wouldn’t want to stop at a giant bookshelf along the side of the highway in the middle of “nowhere”?!

Þórbergur was born into a farming family at Hali, near Suðursveit in the late 19th century. He wasn’t adept at farm work but he loved literature and history. Suðursveit, was very isolated place to grow up. It wasn’t until 1974, the year of Þórbergur’s death, that road construction through the area made it possible to travel by vehicle from Suðursveit in the south east to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital in the west. Until then, the only route was to trek over glaciers to get there. Not even ships were a possible mode of transport because the coast at Suðursveit is miles and miles of harbourless, wave-beaten sand. The only contact Þórbergur had with the outside world, were the French sailing ships that would come fish off the coast of Iceland in the spring. Even those were only ever seen from afar. However, at the age of 16 Þórbergur crossed the glaciers and made the trek to Reykjavik in search of adventure and a different life.

After failing in a number of jobs in Reykjavik, Þórbergur began attending the University of Iceland. There he excelled. He began writing and collecting Icelandic vocabulary but because his rural upbringing didn’t allow him a formal education and therefore no high school diploma, he was denied his degree on this technicality. (He later received an honorary doctorate)

In 1924, when he published his work “Letters to Lara” he became famous overnight. By the end of his life, he was a master of theosophy and yoga, a champion of Esperanto, the protector of the Icelandic language and the reason it persists in common culture today.

On one of his last birthdays, students from the University of Reykjavik walked across the city en masse to his house to hold candles and sing him ‘Happy Birthday’ while he stood on his balcony.

I love a country that loves and celebrates their literary figures so deeply and openly.

Mývatn

Spring hadn’t quite reached northern Iceland when we traveled through this May. We drove through breathtaking mountains of snow and ice on roads that sometimes were so covered with snow, there were only a few feet visible. The experience was amazing, the camping, not so much. Armed only with a 3-season tent, Patrick and I struggled to find a place to set up camp in the 4 foot deep snow and ended up driving most the northern stretch of Iceland from daylight until dusk when we rolled into the Mývatn area. You should note that in May, dusk in northern Iceland lasts most the night. It was 9pm when we arrived at the Mývatn nature baths (which you can check out HERE). Cold and tired, we decided to pay for a dip in the hot springs. We came out an hour later beautifully warmed, even more tired and still without a place to sleep.

The wonderful thing about the Mývatn area is that it’s basically a geothermal valley. We hadn’t seen bare ground in 400km, but as we descended into the Mývatn valley all around us was free running, bubbling water and columns of steam rising from the ground, like something straight out of Lord of the Rings. This warm, bare ground was great news for us because Iceland is fairly lax in their camping laws. You are allowed to wild camp as long as there are less than three tents, staying for only one night, you leave no trace behind and no open campground is nearby.

We had heard about a little known local geothermal cave in the area and decided to find our way there on the back roads in the fading light. As we pulled up to the cave, there were warnings stating, in true Icelandic fashion: “Caution: Rocks have fallen from the roof of the cave and not for the last time.”

We set up camp on a lava field near the mouth of the cave, close enough that the hot wind coming from it melted the falling snowflakes before they landed on our tent. In the morning, we threw caution to the wind and squirmed through the cave opening. The water was as hot as it could be without burning us and so clear you could see deep down to the iridescent blue rock bottom. We never wanted to leave.

If you’re heading to Iceland anytime soon, give me a shout and maybe I’ll give you a few hints on how to find this incredible place.

Djúpivogur

Tucked into the Eastern fjords of Iceland is the small town of Djúpivogur. The place is famous for two things: highest recorded temperature in Iceland (30.5 degrees Celcius in 1939) and it’s beautiful, pyramid shaped mountain, Búlandstindur, which is rumoured to have cosmic power.

Apparently the first man to settle in Iceland, settled here and later the Irish monks that brought Christianity to the country came to live on the island of Papey, just off the coast. Djúpivogur’s history is full of interesting tidbits, like when the north Africans attacked in the 1600′s and took most the town as slaves, or when the British used it to survey the Atlantic during WWII.

I like Djúpivogur for a few different reasons. The first is hotel Framtíð. It’s a gorgeous wood building that looks as though it’s been sitting on the edge of the harbour since time began. The second is that it is well-known as a bird watcher’s paradise and to celebrate that attraction, Icelandic artist Sigurður Guðmundsson, created the Eggs of Gleðivík (Merry Bay). It’s basically 34 large scale egg replicas representing 34 bird species found in the area.

It is all at once very beautiful and very strange.

Hveragerði

Hveragerði is a pretty small but pretty wonderful town. It’s nestled in the middle of a 5,000 year old lava field and is best known for its geothermal hot springs. I mean, Iceland as a country is pretty well known for its geothermal hot springs, so for Hveragerði to be considered exceptional within Iceland is a pretty big deal. I’ve been through this town twice at night and it is beautiful because of the multitudes of greenhouses lit up on these hills. These greenhouses are heated by water running in from volcanic hot springs and are capable of growing anything from flowers to cucumbers to bananas. But let me say this one more time so it really sinks in… they’re heated by water boiled in a volcano. Seriously.

That’s not the only thing they do with all this geothermal energy though. The local delicacy is black bread, which is baked by using a hole in the ground as an oven. In fact, whole restaurants use just geothermal heat for their kitchens. One of the most common things tourists can do in the “geothermal park” is to grab an egg from the chickens who roam the park, boil it in the hot springs and then enjoy it on a warm piece of black bread baked in the earth before or after you take your own dip in the hot springs.

What a place.

Hemmi og Valdi

Spring in Iceland is beautiful: the smells, the flowers, the days that stretch forever. In May the city of Reykjavik is alive with energy. The warm sun takes the edge off the cold wind coming in from the harbour and makes you feel like you’ve got everything to live for. Around 9pm as the sun is beginning to go all golden, lighting up every piece of glass and metal in sight it’s a great time to find a side street cafe that is lit up by the reflected glow off the buildings around it. One of my favourite places to grab a pint at this time of day is Hemmi og Valdi. All wood plank floors and ceilings, deep old comfy couches, microbrews on tap and a happy hour that lasts from noon until 8pm, this place is like home to me.

Though we only had a couple days in Reykjavik on this last trip, Patrick and I spent a whole evening and night curled up on these couches reading and drinking and drawing… well, I did the reading and Patrick did the drawing.

Stokksnes

Stokksnes was a wonderful surprise to me on this most recent trip to Iceland. I’d never followed the winding roads along the coast near Höfn before and what we found blew my mind. Somewhere out on a narrow spit of black sand that stretches into the north sea towards Stokksness these mountains rise up along the coast called Vestrahorn. There are no foothills, no lulling into the landscape… just black sand beach and towering cliffs. We didn’t stay nearly long enough as I would have liked, but we sat for an hour or so listening to the waves rake back the sand and watching the clouds catch on the mountain tops. The mountains that jut out into the coast are made of unstratified plutonic rock (I’m not really sure what that means, but it sounds awesome so I threw that little fact in there for you).

One of the first farm settlements in Iceland was built here by Hrollaugur, a true viking and Earl of Møre in Norway. It remained a working farm for centuries and was finally abandoned in 1984. I don’t know why… I could see myself living there for the rest of my life.

There’s not much on the horn at Stokksnes other than the Viking Cafe, some buildings left over from a WWII British army base and a small radar station set up by NATO. There is really nothing here to distract you from the incredible beauty of the land.

This image is one of my favourite pieces in the Óvegur show and if you look very carefully at it, you’ll understand why. Yes the mountains and beach and sea are all very stunning, but it’s not until you see the small outline of another wandering traveller out walking on the beach that you understand the full scope of the image. I love that detail. See if you can find him for yourself!

Breiðdalsvík

Round about the time Iceland’s HWY 1 ring road turns to gravel and you haven’t seen a gas station for hours, you begin to dip back into the Berufjörður area. We wanted to take the 939 exit off hwy 1 to check out the Öxi shortcut, but because the east was still fairly locked in winter’s grip, we chose to drive the road that was visible and stayed on HWY 1 around through Breiðdalsvík. I’m so glad we did.

Somewhere in the unending fjords around Breiðdalsvík full of waterfalls and reindeer, we stumbled upon one of the most eerie and beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. On the side of the hill was an enormous drying rack full of fish swinging in the wind. While we were there, walking in silence between the rows of fish, another vehicle drove up. We hadn’t seen another car for about 4 hours so to have one drive up now felt strange and out of place.

A couple in their mid-50′s got out and began to talk with Patrick. Turns out, they were from the same area of Ontario and as I wandered out from between the drying racks the man was shouting to his wife, “This young man is from Stirling! Wouldn’t you know!”

I was kind of annoyed by the couple’s interruption of the beautiful feeling of surreal isolation we had been enjoying that day so I turned the corner ready to ignore them. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I looked up.

The man was dressed as Santa. Entirely. Boots, pants, belt, shirt, hat and beard.

I think in the shock of the moment, we didn’t really know what to do so we just didn’t ask. We carried on a short but normal conversation with them, got into our car and followed the fjords towards Djúpivogur, stopping as needed to let herds of reindeer cross the road.

Surreal.

Eyrabakki

Iceland is well known for being one of the safest, happiest countries. In fact, it has the lowest violent crime rate in the world. When you look through their 2012 Crime and Safety report you’ll see that their biggest issues when it comes to crime are a few car break ins and a bit of a recent upturn in domestic marijuana use. And while you may be concerned that drug crime is on the rise now that Iceland has established a separate drug police and drug court, roughly 90% of all cases are settled with a fine.

Knowing these stats, we were caught off guard when we rolled into the small town of Eyrabakki and came face to face with the only maximum security prison in Iceland. This little town is nestled right on the south coast and it seemed like all the buildings in town, including the prison, had a beautiful view of the ocean. What really surprised me was the small size of the prison and the way it was integrated right into the town.

Since then, I’ve been doing a little side research on the Icelandic prison system. As it turns out, there are only 6 prisons in all of Iceland. Not only that, the largest of these prisons only has a 87 prisoner capacity. In fact, almost all prisons hold less than 20 prisoners. In total then, these 6 prisons hold 175 inmates. Given that Iceland’s population is around 320,000, that means the inmate population is roughly 0.00054%. And we thought Canada was doing okay at 0.13%.

Iceland has often been used as a case study for how to deal with violent crime and rising crime in other areas of the world and a lot of it has to do with how they treat their prisoners and how they approach those members of society who do break the law. Looks like human decency and a healthy attitude towards rehabilitation goes a long way in creating a safe society. Prisoners are paid for the work they do inside the prison and are expected to use that money to buy their own groceries and personal items. In almost all Iceland prisons, inmates cook their own meals. They are allowed to use their own personal cell phones, computers and televisions. After three months into their sentence they’re often given leave to attend funerals, births and other family functions. Now before you go all, tough on crime, on me, know that most of these inmates are not incarcerated for violent crimes. The Icelandic government take a proactive rather than reactive approach to crime and as such, has been able to manage a social climate that doesn’t foster criminal activity… and all this with a police force that isn’t allowed to carry fire arms.

North America, we have some things to learn.

Skaftárhreppur

For me, one of the most quintessential landscapes of Iceland is the endless fields of moss covered lava rock. And when I say moss covered, I don’t mean a little dusting. In some places on these rocks, the moss can be over a foot deep. One of my favourite things about these lava fields is that with moss that thick, you can walk across the rocks without making a sound and in that silence, you can hear everything else: you can hear the birds on the never far away shoreline, you can hear your heart beat pacing your steps, you can hear the clouds being swept into arcs by the wind miles away. Exploring these fields with people I love are some of my favourite memories. On my first trip to Iceland years ago, Jamie and I got caught in a hailstorm on one of these fields. I have never felt more epic before or since that day.

While Patrick and I didn’t get caught in any crazy storms this time around, encountering this landscape is always a breathtaking experience. After stopping for many a nap in fields along the way, we decided on our last night of camping that we’d like to set up the tent in the middle of one of these fields. We spent hours hunting for just the right place. When we finally found what looked to be ideal, the sun was just about set. We should have been excited to set out our tent and get ready for a night on the best memory foam mattress you could ask for. Instead, we stood there almost paralyzed by a supernatural feeling. Now, before I go too far here, you should know something about the people of Iceland, or rather you should know something about the Huldufólk (hidden people) of Iceland.

In recent years, the Huldufólk have become a great tourist draw and stories about the Huldufólk are starting to pervade the international media. These Huldufólk would be similar to what north Americans would call elves or fairies. The difference is that Iceland takes the Huldufólk very seriously. Recent studies have shown that over 50% of the population believe that the existence of the Huldufólk is possible, probable or even a certainty. You may have heard this week about a road construction project outside the capital of Reykjavik that is currently on hold while they work out a solution that serves both the need for infrastructure in the area and yet does not disturb the sacred sites of the Huldufólk. In fact, the government of Iceland is very careful when it comes to dealing with the Huldufólk and belief in them. They say that belief in the Huldufólk is a very personal matter and the government is not prepared to approve or deny their existence.

Most Icelanders say they’ve never actually seen any of the Huldufólk, though they’re reputed to be anywhere from 1-4 ft high and usually blue or green in colour. Those who claim belief in them usual say they have ‘felt’ their presence. Now, I know what you’re thinking: this is crazy. I thought that too for a while. I couldn’t believe that such an educated, modern population could think that the Huldufólk were even possible. That was before I had my own supernatural experiences in Iceland. To begin with, the landscape is something out of an opiate induced dream. It’s not a stretch to look at the rocks, hills, fields, volcanoes, beaches and waterfalls of Iceland and believe that there is something alive in them. Now fast forward to Patrick and I standing in a moss covered lava field at dusk getting ready to set up our tent. We had enjoyed exploring many lava fields before, and while we both knew that this was the perfect place to spend the night, neither of us were able to make a move towards setting up camp. Instead, we both separately felt the presence of what I can best describe as a heavy emotion and we knew we were trying to set ourselves up in a place we shouldn’t be, a place we were not welcome. We got in the car, turned towards Reykjavik and spent the night in the city.

What I love about the way Iceland deals with the Huldufólk is that they actively engage with the idea that there is something spiritual about the land they live on, that it is powerful and that it should not be dealt with lightly. Once again, we have so much to learn from them. Believe what you will about the Huldufólk, but there is something alive in Iceland – a spirit, a presence – that cannot be fully processed by human senses. I have felt it strengthen and energize me and I have felt it shake me to the core. And just maybe, when you stand in a lava field at dusk, you may feel it too.

Námafjall

As we traveled through Northern Iceland, we found ourselves searching for a place to sleep for the night. You can read the story of our search that night on the Mývatn post above.

When you drive around Mývatn you’ll notice that on any given hillside, steam will be rising from the earth. Just straight out of the earth! You really start to realize how much energy is wound up just below the surface in Iceland. While searching for a tent site, we drove past Námafjall and decided to stop and see it for ourselves. At the base of the Krafla volcano is an incredible number of boiling mud pits and steaming fumaroles all blue and black and red and shooting columns of sulphurous steam into the air. This place is not for the faint of heart, the smells and gas can overwhelm you, but if you’re able to brave it it’s one of the most surreal places in Iceland. There are no trees, no grass, no plants… nothing can grow here. It’s simply a seething, rumbling, spitting, volatile, vibrant piece of earth.

It’s difficult to explain in words how intense the colours and steam can be.

Goðafoss

Iceland has innumerable waterfalls. I actually think it would be impossible to try to count them. Some are big and important like Dettifoss, the largest waterfall in Europe in terms of volume. Some have a unique feature, like being able to walk behind Seljalandsfoss. Some are known for their beauty, like Svartifoss with it’s black basalt columns. And some namelessly cascade down random hillsides whenever the weather decides to warm up the glaciers.

It’s difficult to pick what my favourite waterfall in Iceland would be but if I had to choose, near the top of my list would be Goðafoss. Not because it’s tall or wide or beautiful (though it is all of those things), but because of it’s story. As you’ve probably been able to tell by now, I’m a total sucker for story. The name Goðafoss means, ‘waterfall of the gods’. It got it’s name because around year 1000, Christianity was made the official religion of Iceland when Þorgeir ljósvetningagoðim threw the statues of the old Norse gods into the waterfall.

Let’s backtrack because this came about for a few reasons. First of all, in recent history (say the past 2500 years or so), Iceland has been ruled by a variety of other countries. The most important one for this story is Norway. In the late 900s when the very Christian Olaf Tryggvason became King of Norway, he was intent on pressuring Iceland into converting to Christianity. Before this time, the vast majority of Icelanders worshipped the Norse gods and were pagan. Now Olaf was so committed to converting his Icelandic subjects that he not only closed Norwegian ports to Icelandic sailors and took Icelanders living in Norway as hostages, but he also sent a converted Icelander back to Iceland to change the minds of the masses. Turns out this missionary’s work was only partly successful. He violently destroyed pagan sanctuaries and while this converted a couple of chieftains, the fact that he killed a couple people in the process really became a stumbling block for spreading the good word. Olaf was devastated by this failure and decided that to really turn up the heat, he’d threatened to kill his Icelandic hostages (some of which were family members of prominent Icelanders) unless Iceland chose Christianity. With Norway being Iceland’s primary trading partner, this pressure was really able to set the scene for a countrywide conversion in the name of economics and national security.

The problem was that, like many other nations before them, the division between Christians and Pagans in Iceland grew so intense that civil war began to threaten the country. What happened next is amazing. In order to prevent all out war, the Alþing (Iceland’s parliament… pronounced something like, all-thing-y) set about figuring out a solution that would suit everyone. Þorgeir ljósvetningagoðim, a law speaker in the Alþing, was chosen to be the mediator between sides since both opinions trusted him and agreed to abide by his decisions. He accepted the responsibility and spent a day and a night curled up under a fur blanket just thinking about the situation. Seriously. The next day he came out, announced that Iceland would now become Christian but that some old laws and private pagan worship would be permitted. (In case it piqued your interest, the “old laws” he said would stick around was that people could still eat horse meat, despite the Christian church frowning upon it and if you had a “surplus” of children, you could leave some exposed to the elements since everyone believed the island could only support a small number of people and having too many kids would bring disaster upon everyone)

So Þorgeir ljósvetningagoðim made his proclamation and unlike many nations, the Icelanders put aside their religious differences, chose to formally adopt Christianity peacefully and were baptized after Þorgeir, himself a pagan priest, dumped his Norse statues into Goðafoss.

Those crazy, peace-loving Icelanders.

Vestmannaeyjar

The Vestmannaeyjar (or Westman Islands), the “Pompei of the North”, is some of the most recently formed land on earth. In fact, most of the world knew almost nothing about this chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland until the 1963 and 1973 eruptions. The first lasted for four years (FOUR YEARS!) and when it was done, the island of Surtsey was born. Now Surtsey isn’t just a blip on the map of Vestmannaeyjar, it’s the second largest of the 10 islands that make up the chain. Then ten years later when Eldfell volcano erupted up through the middle of a meadow on Heimaey, the only inhabited island, it forced a full evacuation for months and left in it’s wake a 200m high mountain in place of the meadow. In this eruption Heimaey not only gained a mountain but 2.1 square km of coastline.

Vestmannaeyjar originally got it’s name from the Irish slaves that the Vikings brought to Iceland with them. Early in Iceland’s settlement (late 800s) a Viking settler was killed by the Irish (or West Men) that he brought with him. His brother then decided it would be fair to track them down to where they were hiding at Vestmannaeyjar and kill them all in retaliation. From that point onward, these islands were known as Vestmannaeyjar.

Iceland, though isolated and considered remote by many, has often fallen victim to foreign aggressors. In the mid-1600s Vestmannaeyjar was invaded by Algerian pirates from the Ottoman Empire. They only stayed three days but when they left, they took 234 Icelanders with them as slaves. Nine years later Iceland paid the Ottomans a ransom and had 34 prisoners returned to them.

Arnarstapi

What was once a thriving and important port town is now the small fishing village and local resort of Arnarstapi on the south side of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. However, thanks to Jules Verne, many people already know about Arnarstapi whether or not they think they do. In Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, this town is the last stop before the characters climb into a crater in a nearby volcanic glacier and enter the interior of the earth. When you’re on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, you see why Jule Verne set his story here, it’s so easy to believe something surreal is going on just beneath the surface. Cliffs of all random shapes and sizes rise up out of otherwise smooth sloped beaches along the North Atlantic and pretty much everywhere you look, you can see the crater of a now inactive volcano and to top it off, in the middle of all this, rising high above sea level on this thin spit of land, is the Snæfellsjökull (Snæfellsnes glacier). You can see this glacier spilling out all black and blue and silver between orange and red and green mountains and cliffs. Though it is the smallest of Iceland’s major glaciers, these colour combinations make this area look as though you’re in another world. And if you were to think that, you wouldn’t be the only one. Many people believe that the Mt. Snaefellsjokull (the mountain the glacier tops) has supernatural energy radiating from it. In fact, every summer people from all over the world come to Arnarstapi to be close to this mountain so they can take advantage of this energy and either recharge themselves or their rock crystals with it’s power. This is partly due to the legend that a half human/half ogre lived in a hole in the side of this mountain. The Bárðr saga tells the story of this ogre and I’d highly recommend taking a read through of it.

It has all the makings of a good story: children pushing each other out on ice flows and finding lovers in Greenland, a helpful ogre that wears a walrus hide and of course a beheading and a conversion.

Snæfellsbær

The Snæfellsbær peninsula is rich with story. The surrounding area is the setting for most of the Icelandic Sagas. These sagas are the best known of all Icelandic literature and are a bit of an anomaly of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. No one really knows who wrote the sagas, but they are all historical legends of events that took places in the 10th & 11th centuries in Iceland. The word saga is native Icelandic and the meaning we draw from it today comes directly out of association with these stories. If you want, you can read them here, at the Icelandic Saga Database.

One of my favourite stories to come out of this Snæfellsbær saga-land, is that of Berserkjahraun from the Eyrbyggja Saga. This saga is apparently the most complex in all Icelandic literature and four monuments connected to this story have been preserved in the Snæfellsbær peninsula.

Legend has it that two Swedish berserks – Halli and Leinknir – were brought to Iceland by a farmer in the late 900s. The farmer’s brother – Styr – was a powerful man in that area of the country and when the farmer found he couldn’t keep the berserks busy enough, he begged his brother Styr to take the men off his hands. Styr agreed… poor move number one. Halli, fell in love with Styr’s daughter and asked for her hand in marriage. Styr didn’t know what to do so he went to his chieftain and asked for advice. This was poor move #2 since the chieftain also wanted Styr’s daughter. On his advice, Styr told Halli he would give him his blessing if he could clear a path through the nearby lava field and while he was at it, put in a boundary fence and sheep pen. This would have been next to impossible for most men, but then again most men are not Swedish berserks. Turns out Halli and Leiknir completed this in no time and returned for Halli’s reward. Styr then freaked out. Neither he, nor the chieftain wanted his daughter to marry Halli so instead Styr decided to trick the berserks. He made an underground sauna… which in geothermal rich Iceland you can imagine would really only take you digging a small pit in the ground. He invited Halli and Leinknir to relax in the sauna after all their hard work. They accepted, Styr closed the sauna and poured enough water onto the rocks below that the sauna became unbearably hot. Though the berserks managed to smash their way out of the hole, they were so tired and weak they couldn’t defend themselves. Styr killed them both, buried them near the path they cut through the field and married off his daughter to the chieftain.

To this day you can still see the path, the boundary fence, the sheep pen and the Berserks’ burial mound in the lava field on Snæfellsbær peninsula.

Pretty freakin’ amazing.

Berufjörður

In a pretty isolated area of south east iceland is Berufjörður. The fjord itself is about 20km long and ranges from 2-5km wide. It’s fairly typical Icelandic coastline in that you spend most of your drive time zigzagging in and out of the fjords. Berufjörður isn’t far from Djúpivogur and before those north African pirates sailed into Djúpivogur in 1627 (see above) but sometime after they took slaves from the Vestmannaeyjar (also above), they landed at Berufjörður and decimated the place. There was a farm here and rather than take on more slaves they simply killed everyone and burned the place to the ground.

This isn’t the only historical tragedy to befall this place though. Legend has it that the fjord got it’s name from an ancient settler named Bera. She and her husband and family were out at a party at the neighbours (many kilometres away) and on their way home, they were caught in a terrible snowstorm. Everyone else died in the storm but Bera allowed her horse to lead them back and so she made it safely to the farm. However, when the horse saw the farm buildings he was so overjoyed that he galloped through the stable doors and in doing so broke Bera’s neck. Bad luck.

Vík í Mýrdal

Vík has to be one of my favourite places in Iceland. It has black sand beaches, black pebble beaches, hills to climb, views to swoon over and rock formations that will blow your mind. Oddly enough, I’ve had some of my least enjoyable Icelandic moments in Vík. (That’s a testament to how incredible the place is.) The first time I was in Iceland, my friend Jamie and I set up our tent in their campground, just a few 100 metres from the shoreline. We found Vík to be a very quiet town and only found one restaurant to eat at. We shared a meal and conversation with an overly interested, maybe a little lonely, Swedish watch maker at Hotel Puffin. I had lamb that tasted like a wet wool sweater and Jamie had the only vegetarian option on the menu… potatoes. The wind was picking up as we returned to our tent but we were tired and didn’t give it much thought. 5 hours later, it was all consuming. We didn’t learn until later but that night, hurricane Ike had blustered it’s way up the North Eastern Atlantic and hit Vík with a vengeance. On top of it all, Jamie spent most of the night sitting up in the tent (which was being blown down on top of her by the wind and rain) rocking back and forth with a bad case of food poisoning. There was literally nothing between the us and the Atlantic and while Jamie claims I managed to sleep like a baby through the worst of the storm, I will never forget that night.

This spring, Patrick and I had another terrible sleep by the sea but before that we spent some time enjoying a bit busier Vík. There were multiple restaurants now (my favourite being Halldorskaffi) and we learned a little more about the place. In the 1920s, a Vík farmer hiked into the nearby mountains and built his own hot spring fed pool out of turf and rocks few miles west of Vík. This Seljavallalaug isn’t the easiest to find as there are no directional signs. You drive your car up a road into the hills until it stops, then you get out and walk about a kilometre and hope you’re in the right valley. We were. By the time we got there it had begun to drizzle a cold rain and it was around 11pm and almost dark. We thought this was perfect! We would have the pool to ourselves. Forgoing our swimsuits, we jumped in to warm up after our walk. It was a beautiful night with the fog rolling in down the hills (this picture will help you imagine it). We were enjoying the silence and the rain while we made our way to the far end of the pool. No sooner had we got there than three people walked up the path, around the corner and to the rustic change room at the other end. The two guys were obviously going to come in for a dip but the girl wasn’t convinced. While the guys changed into their suits, she unknowingly planted herself down on the bench directly between us and our clothes. We were trapped. We hovered at the end of the pool staying as low below the water as possible while we decided what to do next. Obviously not in the best of moods, the girl eventually got frustrated with her friends splashing her and went for a walk. It was now or never. We couldn’t help but flash the guys, but if she came back while we were making a dash for it, she would get the full package deal. We waded down the length of the pool as fast as we could manage and jumped out and into the change room, the hoots and hollers of the guys following us the whole way. The worst part was that after we changed, we had to walk back the length of the pool to get back to the path. We strode out confident and waved good night while they died with laughter that carried far down the path home.

Oh Vík.

Dyrhólaey

Dyrhólaey is known mostly for it’s amazing rock formations and the hundreds of puffins that nest on it’s cliffs each summer. It’s not far from Vík and the according to legend, the series of rocks protruding from the beach, (the Reynisdrangar needles) were formed when two trolls were trying to drag a three-masted ship to land. When daylight broke they turned to stone. All of this is very cool, but what really drew me in was it’s sand. There was something special about the way the waves beat down on the land at Dyrhólaey. The coloured rock and creeping tide pools made this place magical. We spent an afternoon on the shore there, climbing on the basalt columns near the sea and for a while I sat, just out of the tide’s reach above the waves and watched them crash against the sand. Although people have actually surfed in this area, the tides and strong and dangerous and there is nothing quite so impressive as watching them crest (nearly 10 ft tall) only a few dozen feet from the shore.

Öxi

In the depths of the Berufjörður is the Öxi pass. I was hoping to drive it this year but the weather didn’t work in our favour. Instead we took Highway 1 looping in and out of the Berufjörður on our way into Djúpivogur. The point where the fjord reaches furthest inland is where the highway meets the Öxi pass. We were there in the mid afternoon after driving for hours through deep snow and a world of white. When we emerged onto the coast, the early spring oranges and yellows were stunning. The fog was rolling in and dipping low between hills, so thick that it felt like nothing existed past what our eyes could see. We got out of the car and walked along the water’s edge. The shoreline was long and wide as the tide was rolling out and we were the only footprints on the sand.

What was most remarkable about the beach was that it was absolutely covered in bright blue mussel shells of all sizes. After the wind had blown us around for a while we made our way back to the car. I had a handful of shells I liked best and eventually chose just two to carry with me: one the size of a dime, the other the length of my palm. I carefully wrapped the tiny one in a kleenex and put it in a safe place with my cameras. The large one looked a bit tougher so I laid it in the car so we could enjoy it’s beauty for the rest of the drive. I found the perfect spot for it beside a cup holder, just tucked under the park brake. The divot was deep enough that the brake handle, even when completely lowered, would rest a centimetre or so above the shell.

It wasn’t until later that I realized this wasn’t a perfect place to keep it. I put in the clutch, put the car in gear and when I took the park brake off, my fingers, in a fist around the handle, went smashing through the centimetre buffer space and the shell turning it into a fine, blue, sandy powder.