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 on September 9, 2024.  Together we viewed the smoldering 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 very sick for a few days. My illness meant we had to cancel our circle-tour bus tickets.  So, after the Blue Lagoon, our ten-day Icelandic adventure was in Reykjavik.

We stayed on the ninth floor of an apartment building, atop a hill. It was hard to get lost. We could see our home from miles away. The one-bedroom apartment was the owner’s home. Her bookshelf full of Icelandic folktales, Cuban, and Eastern European literature made blustery days welcome. One window faced the harbor where we could watch blue cranes pick up trucks like they were children’s blocks: 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 and the Great Powers

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 is a watershed economy, it would be more fitting to call it a concrete high-rise moment. It transformed the southwest corner of the island into a metropolitan area. Some of the enduring structures 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. In 1940, the population of Reykjavik was 30,000. Today it has 140,000 people. The US wanted payment for the airport it 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 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. We spent a morning circling the Parliament building looking for the weekly vigil of the Solidarity Chorus for Free Palestine.  Their goal was to push the Icelandic Parliamentarians to join the  International Court of Justice lawsuit spearheaded by South Africa, charging Israel with genocide. We never found them. Later, at a coffee shop, we saw a woman with a keffiyeh and asked her if she knew about the protest. She told us they went inside this week to visit the offices.

While looking for the solidarity activists, we found two intriguing statues, both celebrating resistance. The first looked like so many statues, an individual leader of the movement for Independence from Denmark. At the bottom were frescos of masses on the march. The leader did not work alone. The other statue was starkly different. No humans, just a black cone splitting a rock, and no particular human struggle, but a general celebration of the power of civil disobedience.

 

We visited 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.

Cod Colonialism 

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 migrant worker system, no regional dialects developed in Iceland.

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 anglers’ lives, 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.

 

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.  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.  A multisensory experience.

The museum’s dare-you-to-visit vibe was echoed at one of Reykjavik’s many outdoor city pools.  The attendant asked if we had ever been to an Icelandic pool. “We have rules.”  One of those rules was to shower naked before entering the pool. Have you ever tried to put on a one-piece suit over a wet body? The frigid walk to the heated water was something else. The lifeguard wore a winter coat. We had to lean on our inner Minnesotan to find the courage to get out and walk back to the locker room.

It was clear that the pools were warm, social places for Icelanders. From the larger swimming pool, we watched groups gather in the outdoor steam baths, enjoying each other’s company as much as the Albanians do in their coffee shops. Such camaraderie must be a bulwark against the gales of Iceland.

I have never experienced anything like an Icelandic wind. I  biked across the Texas desert.  I’ve been in places where the mph was higher, but Icelandic winds come up from the earth. They have a unique song. They haunt buildings. They make the sea leap, drenching you as you walk the waterway.

In Iceland, the winds rule.