OK, so there are reasons that traveling to Iceland in what they call the “shoulder season” is cheaper. Yet another day at 2 C (40 F), with wind and light snow. The locals shrug and say “It’s Iceland”.
So, we passed on the offered sea-kayaking, hiking, or historical walking tours around town, and drove off to see what we could see from the warmth of the car. We started in town with the Maritime Museum in the original part of town. The buildings date from the late 1700s:
In the first building is the museum…note the open door, inside which sits a young lady selling tickets, well-bundled up and with a heater nearby. The museum deals with the fishing industry from the time of six-oared boats up to today’s freezer-trawlers. There was a documentary-type film showing the lives of fishermen using methods not much different from those of the early settlers. The time-setting of the film is not specified, but seems to be around 1900. Small teams of 7 men (plus one female housekeeper) spent much of the winter in small cottages near the sea, putting out in open rowboats and baiting and laying long-lines. Sometime after 1900, they began using sailing vessels, and eventually motorized boats and nets instead of lines. The film, called “Give Us This Day…”, is a stark rendition of one day in the lives of these people, who used fishing to supplement their income from farming. In order to have a fishing boat, you had to be a landowner. Fishing rights came with the land, and most fishing was carried out over the winter, when you couldn’t farm.
Going north out of town, toward Bolungarvík, through a tunnel and immediately right onto the pre-tunnel road brought us to Ósvör Folk Museum, a restored/reconstructed “fishing station” that was actually built for the film. Of course, it wasn’t open…we could have called, and made some poor schmo dress up in oilskins and come out and give us the tour, but we just wandered around briefly and hopped back in the wind-proof car.
The last two pictures show a shed for drying fish at the fishing station. Modern fisheries still dry fish on racks, though they’ve kind of done away with the shed. You can buy dried fish everywhere, like jerky. Haven’t tried it yet… We saw these racks on our drive, in Flateyri village. The black object in the last photo is a dead raven, hung up to keep other ravens away from the fish-feast. Not sure how well it works, as we saw several ravens on the roofs of just about every drying-shed we passed.
Farther along the old road, past the fishing station, we saw a lighthouse, and more proof that when the Icelandic Highway Department closes a road, it’s for good and prudent reasons:
We continued on into Bolungarvík, a somewhat unprepossessing fishing village of maybe 300 people. We nosed around for awhile, drove out a side road in search of as-yet-unseen birds, where we got some nice pics of a Black-tailed Godwit, then went back to town for a coffee and a little something to eat. Found quite a nice place, a café in an old house. They have plays in the dining room sometimes, and tonight were going to show a film…”Give Us This Day…”—which we had seen most of just this morning.
Then we drove back to Ísafjörður and out the other direction, through yet another tunnel. Except this one contains….an intersection! We’ll be taking the left fork tomorrow, so we took the right fork. And came out into quite the little snowstorm. There had been light snow all day, but this was blowing and swirling, and the road had icy, slushy spots. Until we got down lower. The town of Suðereyri wasn’t much to see, so we drove back to the tunnel and took the other fork. Because why not?
Flateyri was much like the other fishing villages, with one exception. In 1995, a snow avalanche took out 29 houses, killing 20 people. A similar snow avalanche occurred at Suðavik, killing about 14 people, also in this part of Iceland. Small fishing villages at the base of steep, high ridges are at the mercy of infrequent, large snow avalanches, whenever winter snowstorms pile a large amount of unstable snow on these slopes. As a result, Flateyri built an impressive V-shaped avalanche-diversion wall:
Coming back from Flateyri was the first time we had the right-of-way through one of the tunnels. It’s a bit disconcerting. You just have to wait and hope the other guy is going to get to a pull-out on time….it’s a bit like playing “Chicken”, except in the dark.
We ended our day with dinner at the same nameless restaurant in the Ísafjörður community center…the lamb chops were almost as good as yesterday, and the pile of grilled veggies a nice surprise.
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