Icelandic Winds

Iceland is a land of ghosts and ghouls, sea monsters, and an earth that howls. It is an island of volcanoes and fjords, endless flat petrified lava fields, green valleys, black, white, and grey mountains, outdoor swimming pools, and salted fish. It is also a land of housing shortages and inflation that make life difficult for ordinary Icelanders and immigrants recruited to work in the burgeoning tourist industry.

A dear friend whose time in Iceland intersected with ours picked us up at the airport. We viewed the burning volcano from a safe distance and then visited the Blue Lagoon, sitting in warm turquoise water with our faces caked with clay masks, reminiscing across decades.

I got super sick for 36 hours, and it brought up all the fears about being away from the United States when we fall ill. But when I felt better I pushed them all away. Illness meant we canceled our pricy circle-tour bus tickets.  After the Blue Lagoon, our Icelandic adventure was a Reykjavik one. We were there ten days: not a month, but enough time to have a designated grocery store and a coffee shop we visited more than once. When the weather was inclement, or I was ill, we still had enough days to roam and get a feel of a place.

We stayed on the ninth floor of a building, atop a hill. From miles away, we could find our way home by scanning the horizon. The one-bedroom apartment is home for the owner. Her bookshelf—Icelandic folktales, Cuban and Eastern European literature, illustrated cookbooks and photographic coffee table wonders made blustery days welcome. One window faced the harbor where trucks piled like children’s blocks were moved by blue cranes: Icelandic cod on its way to global markets. Behind the harbor were several ranges of mountains, sometimes hidden under clouds. From another window, we viewed every iconic building on Reykjavik’s skyline.

Iceland fought and claimed its independence from Denmark in 1918 and with finality, in 1944.  Britain and the United States controlled Iceland during World War II, building military bases and establishing a post-independence influence that would endure. Writers call those years a watershed moment, but since Icelandic society was a watershed economy, it would be more fitting to call it a concrete high-rise moment. It transformed the southwest corner into a metropolitan area. Buildings were built to fulfill military needs, including the monstrosity that now houses the art museum.

On the waterfront is a monument celebrating the US/Iceland “partnership.” The bilateral relationship has been a source of internal political debate since US troops landed in 1941. Allied troops doubled the population and toppled the gender balance during the war, creating predictable friction and children.  The US wanted payment for the airport they built. Iceland said forget that, go ahead and tear it down if you want to.

Iceland became a member of NATO  in 1949, but there has always been a strong dissent from people who thought they should remain independent in their foreign policy. Peace activists are still arguing for Iceland to leave NATO. In 2010 Iceland recognized Palestinian statehood. Today the Solidarity Chorus for Free Palestine is pushing the Icelandic Parliament to join the  International Court of Justice lawsuit spearheaded by South Africa, charging Israel with genocide.

In 1940 the population of Reykjavik was 30,000. Today it has 140,000 people. We spent days walking the circumference of the Capitol, visiting the Art, National History, and Maritime Museums. We skipped the Phallic Museum which is a block away from Parliament. (The New York Times reports that atop the museum,  a nefarious internet privacy company harbors illicit, fraudulent, and far-right internet sites.

The existence of the penis gallery did transform the way our eyes perceived other points of interest.

The Reykjavik Art Museum is an ugly building that sits on a beautiful spot on the waterfront. Built to house Allied troops during World War II, it looks like a prison outside and in. Current exhibits fit the building. One simulated the center of a volcano, another an Icelandic storm on a winter night, and a third, what it feels like to have Seasonal Affective Disorder. The museum store sold t-shirts with a map of Iceland and the words: Cold, Wet, and Expensive.

On the wall of the Maritime Museum are prayers to Cod on highest.  In the not-so-distant yesteryear, the supply of cod seemed enough to feed the people and trade for everything else in perpetuity.  Salting cod was a community project. Wall-to-wall photos depict vast fields covered in crusted white fish carcasses. We learned of the arduousness of deep sea angler’s life, six hours off, eighteen on, dried food, cramped quarters, cold, and danger. Today’s conditions are palatial in comparison, but the industry is in danger. Cod are disappearing. Sustainable fishing is hard to enforce. Like any capitalist industry, the profit motive does not encourage self-regulation  The museum suggests we reduce, reuse, and “vote right” to save the oceans and ourselves.

At the National Museum, I got a hint of the tenant/migrant farmer system that the Icelandic majority endured for centuries— a feudal system of huge landholdings, Danish landlords forced workers to migrate from farm to farm yearly. Because of this historic migrant worker system, no regional dialects developed in Iceland.

We swam at one of the outdoor pools.  The lifeguard wore a winter coat. The attendant asked if we had ever been to an Icelandic pool. “We have some rules. You must take a naked shower…” The frigid walk to the heated water was something else.  It took courage to get out and walk back to the locker room.

I have never experienced anything like the Icelandic wind. I’ve been in places when the mph was higher, but Icelandic gales seem to come up from the earth. They have a unique song. They haunt buildings. They make seas leap, drenching us as we walk the waterway. In Iceland, the winds rule.

In Iceland, the winds rule.