On Thursday we took a bus tour along the south coast to the village of Vik. (A “vik” is where a small river flows into the sea. In old Scandinavia, people who lived along the viks were called Vikings.) Vik has a beach of jet black sand, up against a cliff where a rapidly cooling basalt flow has produced spectacular pentagonal shaped vertical columns. Just before we got to Vik, we drove right past Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano, which was quiet the week we were there. But the peak was shrouded in mist that day, so we could not actually see it. (Eyjafjallajokull is pronounced: Aya-fyaht-la-yoe-kut-la, usually shortened to Aya-fyaht-la-yok’t. Remember, in Icelandic, “J” is pronounced like “Y” and a double “L” is sometimes “L-T” or “T-L,” depending on context. Here, it is pronounced as “T-L,” but in Gullfoss, it is pronounced “L-T,” which is why Gullfoss comes out “Goolt-foss.”)
On the way back from Vik, we drove through some of Iceland’s best grazing land, with sheep, cattle, and horses (hross), grazing on both sides of the road. A narrow coastal plain, nearly at sea level, starts out flat and then, as it nears the mountain, has its incline steepen in a hyperbolic curve till it’s nearly vertical at 6 or 7 hundred feet. The sheep graze as far up the slope as they are comfortable, which is nearly vertical. I’ve always thought that these little beasts must have shorter legs on one side. We stopped along the road to get pictures of some horses. As soon as we stopped, the horses came right up to the fence and waited to have their picture taken. And then the horses on the other side of the road got jealous and crowded up to the fence too.
The Icelandic horse is extremely friendly. They don’t bite you or kick you, they are strong, and are comfortable to ride on rough terrain, since they have an extra gate not found in any other horse. Iceland has been exporting live horses for many years now, and this trade is an important part of the economy. There are now more Icelandic horses outside of Iceland than inside, and there are over 90,000 inside. For a country of 300,000 people, that’s a lot of horses. Some horses are owned by townsfolk who board them in the countryside and drive up on weekends to ride them. Some are rented to tourists. And some are raised for export. But as the world economy has collapsed and fewer people can afford to spend money on imported horses, more will have to be culled out for slaughter. Remember, Iceland is an island and it isn’t getting any bigger. Almost none of the land is tillable, and of the small portion that can be grazed, all of it is in use—and has been in use for a thousand years. There is only so much pasture, and there will never be any more.
This fixed constraint affects not only livestock production, but all aspects of life, and all Icelanders understand this. At no time since the original settlement have they encouraged immigration. While they encourage tourism, as this has become a significant part of the economy, even marrying an Icelander does not automatically guarantee you a permit to live there.
On Friday morning we walked up to Hallgrimskirkja, a beautiful fairly new church on a hilltop in Reykjavik, and an object of great civic pride. Like all other buildings, it is made of reinforced concrete. This town has almost continuous small earthquakes, and occasionally fairly large ones, so no other kind of construction is practical. Yet the church is tall, thin, and has a light, airy feel to it. Typical structures here are made of poured concrete, and then either stucco covered, or sheeted in corrugated steel, which is often painted bright colors. All buildings are well built, well maintained, and the whole town is immaculately clean. There are no slums or blighted areas.
The Icelanders, besides being tall, healthy, and friendly, are the most educated on earth. Education from age 6 to 16 is provided by the local community. Upon graduation, every Islander who cannot find a job is given a stipend. And all are entitled to attend Iceland University, or study abroad---all at government expense. Thirty percent of all Icelanders have college degrees. In the age group from 25 to 45, nearly 100 % have at least a BA. Most Icelanders in this age group speak fluent English as well as Icelandic, and many also speak an additional language, such as German, Danish, or French. And Icelanders write, publish, purchase, and read more books per capita than any people anywhere. And these friendly, independent, egalitarian, and freedom-loving people also have the oldest democracy on Earth.
This is the last regular post that attempts to detail my day to day adventures in Iceland, but I will soon begin to post a few comments about this country’s geology, economics, history, and current political culture. Being an economic determinist, I believe that economics determines history, and history determines politics. But I also believe that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ecology, which is constrained by the geology. So I will begin, in a day or two, discussing Iceland’s unique geology, and discuss how this has constrained its economy and thereby determined its history and the political and social system which comes out of the history. I don’t actually know that much about geology, but the island’s most striking geological features are not especially subtle. A retarded gerbil could see that there’s no damn place like Iceland.
(One minor correction-- double /l/ is always /tl/, except where it's not, but it's never /lt/.)
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