One Foot in the Arctic by Jonathan Begg
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The last house in the street has something odd about it. No window-panes and rather a lot of black dust, like a coal-hole. A peep indoors reveals nothing less than the side of a volcano, slicing through the building at 45 degrees.
This was Vestmannaeyjar, the only town in the little group of islands of the same name, and witness to a recent eruption that devoured more than half the streets and would have closed the harbour, had not the islanders sprayed five million tons of water on the advancing lava-flow. Having saved their boats and then won the Cod War, these fishermen now drive you around in Cadillacs, occasionally letting you walk on the still steaming mountain if your boots are up to it.
There is a lot of Iceland in that little cameo. A titanic struggle between fire and ice, heroic deeds by a nation of survivors, and then a new and unheard-of prosperity.
For example, a stone’s throw from that very spot lies Surtsey, the youngest island on earth, same age as the last Miss World, herself a charming and popular Icelander. And Surtsey could be Iceland in microcosm. For it doesn’t need a geologist to see that all that fire and ice indicates something nascent on the earth’s crust. Nowhere else can you hire an air-taxi and see glaciers, volcanoes, fjords, giant waterfalls, vast mountain lakes and bubbling mud pools all in a morning. Iceland is still an excited child.
True to the legends, many of these great natural phenomena have a habit of forming themselves into mirrors of the human face or those of cherished animals. In spring, I have seen an outcrop of ice under the falls at Gullfoss clearly pretending to be a bull’s head. Elsewhere noble Eskimo brows and chins are commonplace among the cliffs. Dimmuborgir is different again. Up here, some fierce volcanic convulsion has thrown up a strange cathedral of rock, apparently frozen into Gothic carved masonry while still high in the air. The religious atmosphere is impossible to miss, and even young people walk softly on Dimmuborgir.
Just down the mountain from there is Lake Myvatn. No writer or artist has ever failed to be fascinated by this wide, fertile water, sometimes called the book of creation. Some trick of greenery and crystal light gives it a glow of wonder, and you can lie all day among the wild flowers, gazing out over its calm surface. Not even the clouds of midges seem to matter.
Another enchanted lake is Thingvallavatn, site of the world’s first parliament, now a National Park where it is a penal offence to drop litter. And you can see why, as the greylag geese swoop down to the water, glaciers one side, rolling blue hills stretching away for ever on the other. To spoil that scene would indeed be a crime.
It is at these moments that you experience the elusive sensation of true ‘foreignness’ - something that even lifelong travellers privately seek in vain. It is not that Iceland is all so exotic. Much of it looks like Lancashire. But, something in the wind, the bright Arctic air, makes it unique among islands. It may be that very quality of youth itself, sharp as the lava-crystals, innocent as the snows of Vatnajokull. Iceland is young in another way too, having experienced a glorious re-birth through a favourable change in Arctic weather patterns. Not long ago, it was every bit as cold and grim as its name suggests. The superb climate it knows today only dates from about 1920. So, Iceland is in every way young.
Too young to drink, for example. Prohibition was total until just the other year, and the drunkenness, when you do occasionally see it, is a sinister sight indeed, a glaring, menacing stupor, as though some evil Norse God has been reawakened. Beer would probably help, but alas it is still outlawed in favour of vodka and Brennevin (local Schnapps, known as the Black Death, but on a level with the best of the Danish light brandies.)
Food? Well, I arrived in Reykjavik just in time for a big Icelandic food jamboree and sampled plenty of the exhibits. Not surprisingly, trout and salmon were delicious, but I notice they didn’t offer the famous buried shark, which I am told is an acquired taste anyway. They’re proud of their lamb all right, and I enjoyed it well enough straight from the barbecue. Reindeerburger was a bit of fun too. All the same, I cannot call Iceland a gourmet nation.
In fact, it must be said that Iceland is not the place for urban holidays at all. In Akureyri, the second city, you can’t even find anywhere open for coffee at noon on an August Saturday. And Reykjavik is not the playful mini-Copenhagen that some may fancy. To the stranger, it can quickly present the stony look of the chess champions whose capital it has mysteriously become. (To the non-stranger, however, it can be wonderfully welcoming, and whenever you make friends with Icelanders, stay in touch with them.) What you will not get is the expected city-break mix of fine architecture and interesting food and drink. At best, Reykjavik is just nice and refreshing with its multi-coloured roofs and quaint little corrugated-iron churches. Yes, the National Museum has got some good old kayaks and harpoons in the basement. And it can be fun to see the sagas being acted in English under the midnight sun. Nor should we overlook its excellent law-abiding record or the cleanness of its atmosphere, unmatched in any city.
But, as you stroll near the harbour, you will get a strong sensation that this was a seaport for a thousand years before it was a tourist destination. And, you will itch to move on.
For it is campers, climbers, hikers, anglers and bird-watchers who squeeze the best out of Iceland. Gigantic open spaces invite the most ambitious camping expeditions, especially between Myvatn and the Eastern Highlands, while the far-flung Western fjords are more suited to those nice cheap minibus tours where you doss down in village schools. The fishing must be something special, for at least two members of a certain family go there when they’ve exhausted the streams of Balmoral. I have heard a figure of £480 a day quoted for a stretch of the river Laxa where a friend of mine caught 113 salmon before dusk. But in Iceland there is plenty of room for all comers. As for bird life, the very map of Iceland, showing endless fjords and islets, means good news to an ornithologist. Sparse forestry may limit the number of breeding species, but get near the cliffs and you will see puffins, guillemots and kittiwakes in their thousands. Grimsey island, on the Arctic Circle, is a major bird sanctuary, housing the only Little Auks south of Spitzbergen. Those two legendary figures, the Gyrfalcon and the White-tailed Eagle, are fairly scarce and tend to keep their distance, as do the shovelers and tufted ducks on Lake Myvatn. But Arctic Terns actually breed in central Reykjavik, and it is a pleasing novelty to wander in a president’s garden at midnight, surrounded by whimbrels and Brent Geese instead of bodyguards.
I would love to report more about our feathered friends, but someone up there - probably that Norse God again - wants to keep me away from them. In Vestmannaeyjar, I joined a team of Dutch ornithologists for a boat tour of the famous puffin-cliffs, but we clanked to a halt in the bay. Next I found that the much-advertised hydrofoil to Grimsey wasn’t ready yet. (Go to your room, Icelandair.) But, still undeterred, I took a small plane out there, only to find the island shrouded in a little cake of mist on an otherwise perfect horizon. And even the Reykjavik bird museum was closed for relocation.
I hope you’re luckier, because wildlife and natural wonders are the whole point of Iceland, and those who do not feel excited by the thunder of a towering waterfall or the warm flanks of a slumbering volcano will never get their money’s worth from this coolly seductive young island with one foot in the Arctic.