By Corey Sandler

So the story of the world’s largest island and its close neighbor is something like this: Greenland is Ice, and Iceland is Green.

That’s what happens when real estate developers get involved: they sometimes (always?) bend reality in the pursuit of commerce or personal interest.

Strictly shorthand, but it apparently has a kernel of truth.

Erik the Red, on the lam (from Old Norse lemja) from Iceland because of a murder, apparently your basic argument with the neighbors, sailed west about the year 980 and found a massive snow and ice-covered island. The Icelandic Sagas report that he named the place Greenland because he thought it would encourage people to visit since it had a good name.

Just for the record, the other island’s name does not mean what it appears: Iceland, as we call it, is presented as Ísland in the country’s language Íslenska, and it means what it looks like in English: Island.

We were on the lam in the other direction, from west to east, and sailed through the Denmark Strait from the bottom of Greenland to the west coast of Iceland. The country is experiencing a tremendous growth in tourism, accelerated at least in part by a combination of exciting but thus far non-catastrophic volcanic eruptions plus a series of recent movies and television series that use its spectacular landscape as backdrops.

We were happy to be coming early in the season, and we saw many more birds, horses, sheep, and goats than we did tourists. Another thing absent across nearly the entirety of the country are trees of significant height. A favored tour guide joke: “What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up.”

Ísafjörður: Void of the Ring

The town of Ísafjörður (Icy Strait) is in the West Fjords, which is a section of Iceland that is not on the famed Ring Road that circles much of the nation.

There’s not a whole lot going on there, but it gives a good sense of what Iceland is like without tourists in town. Fishing boats old and new were all about, along with Iceland’s high-tech Unicorn, the headquarters of a company that has found a new application for an old product: cleaned and dried fish skin for use in wound care.

Akureyri: Fire, Ice, and Water

Akureyri is Iceland’s second-largest town, far behind the capital city of Reykjavik and its surrounding suburbs. But they have a university, a surprisingly verdant botanical garden, and connections on the Ring Road to some of the country’s most spectacular geological sights.

We went first to the Dimmuborgir lava fields, created about two thousand years ago by the massive eruption of a volcano. Today it is mostly quiet, but the startling landscape feels like a visit to Mars.

Some call the place the “Dark Fortress.”

According to legend–and Iceland is well-possessed of magical tales–Dimmuborgir is the home to the Yule Lads, mischievous trolls who are in charge of rewarding or scolding children at Christmas.

There are said to be no less than 13 Santas in Iceland. When the season arrives, they emerge from the lava formations of Dimmuborgir for 13 days of mischief and sometimes celebration.

Boys and girls who misbehave receive a potato in their shoe. Potatoes are actually among the few crops that can be grown in Iceland. There is no coal.

The Dark Fortress at Dimmuborgir, east of Myvatn Lake in Iceland. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

From there we proceeded to Námaskarð, an active geothermal region on the mountain Námafjall.

A barren plain sits atop the remains of the Krafla volcano, and the area is punctuated with solfataras (also known as fumaroles) which are vents for the emergence of gases let off by cooling lava. There are also many hot springs and mud pots.

The land beneath our feet was red from iron, yellow from sulphur, and green from copper. It’s all perfumed with the lovely aroma of sulphur.

Between the gases, the minerals, and the heat almost no vegetation grows in the region.

And then there was the waterfall, one of Iceland’s grandest.

Goðafoss is a drive-up waterfall, just off the Ring Road. The Skjálfandafljót river drops about 40 feet. A series of trails leads to near its 100-foot-wide face on both sides.

Now about its name. In today’s language, the name can be taken to mean either “waterfall of the goð (gods)” or “waterfall of the goði (chieftain).”

Most tour guides will go with the first origin story, saying that when Iceland essentially converted from pagan beliefs to Christianity about the year 1000, the speaker of the Icelandic parliament Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði threw his idols into the waterfall.

That appears to be a relatively modern fabrication, published in Denmark in the 1880s. A window in the cathedral at Akureyri portrays that story.

The alternate explanation says that two crags on the rocky falls resemble pagan idols, and the falls were named for that reason.

Bottom line, though: quite a dramatic water park.

Goðafoss up close. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

Heimaey: The Control of Nature

Our penultimate call in Iceland was at Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago on the south coast.

It is hard for me to justify picking any one place in Iceland as my favorite, so I will say this: Heimaey is, to me, like the volume control in “Spinal Tap”: 11 on a scale of 10.

It was here in January of 1973 that a previously quiescent volcano unexpectedly let off and nearly consumed the entire town: an Icelandic version of Pompeii.

Nearly all of the residents were evacuated, but a small crew of workers stayed behind to try to–as New Yorker writer John McPhee put it–control nature.

Over the course of several months they managed to save the island’s only harbor by spraying tons of salt water on the advancing lava. Today, the entrance to the port is a narrow bend between black rock walls.

Again, this is a place we have visited many times. But on this day–an unusually spectacular blue sky day in June–we walked around to the other side of the narrowed horseshoe harbor. We were on our own, in a landscape unlike any other.

Heimaey’s other side, facing the mainland of Iceland. Photo by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

Return to Smoky Bay

The second of three cruises on this contract came to an end in Reykjavik (Smoky Bay).

Once again I set out alone in search of places less-visited. I ended up at the lighthouse near the tiny ferry that crosses over to Viðey island, which includes some old houses, hiking trails with spectacular views of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, and a Beatles connection.

It is on Viðey that Yoko Ono, widow of John Lennon, chose to place the “Imagine Peace Tower” in 2007. Fifteen beams of bright light are projected from a white stone monument that has the words “Imagine Peace” carved into it in 24 languages.

The reference is to Lennon’s great song, “Imagine.”

Of course, there’s not a whole lot of darkness in Iceland in the summer. And so the tower comes to life each year from October 9 (Lennon’s birthday) until December 8 (the day he was killed in New York.)

There are also special illuminations around New Year’s week. And in February 2022 the tower lit to show solidarity with Ukraine, imaging peace in the face of brutal aggression and political ineptitude.

All text and photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. To obtain a copy of a photo please contact me through the form on this blog website.

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