Idun – Page 9 – ToBatheOrNotToBathe

Inisheer

Inisheer has an airport, but we recommend arriving by boat either from Galway via Inishmore, or from Doolin, County Clare. In the summer season, up to 1,000 day-trippers come ashore here every morning at 11 am.

The name Inisheer means ‘The Easternmost Island’, it is also the smallest of the three Aran Islands. Smallest and nicest, we think! The island is approximately circular, with a circumference of 12 km. This is a wonderful place to be! The winds are strong and the weather is steadily unstable, but the village by the harbour is cosy, warm and friendly with myriads of stone fences, green grass and ancient monuments.

The stone fences date partly from the Bronze Age, when the first soil was made from seaweed, kelp and sand. Further subdivision into very small fields came with population growth and potato cultivation some 3000 years later. Nevertheless, it is the remains of ancient graves, forts and churches that make the biggest impression on this island.

Cnoc Raithní. The lowest layers are dated 2500-1500 BC. The light mast is of a slightly more recent date.

The Bronze Age tomb of Cnoc Raithní was well hidden and forgotten until the sand suddenly blew away during a storm in 1885. Excavations revealed urns with cremated bones and a bronze awl. The upper parts were built by early Christian islanders around 500-800 AD.

Cultural landscape, Inisheer. In the background to the right, Inishmaan (the middle Aran Island) can be seen.

The highest point on Inishmore is dominated by O’Brien’s Castle (Irish: Caisleán Uí Bhriain). Today’s ruins date from the early 15th century, erected by Clann Teiges, from a branch of the O’Brien family. The castle was taken in 1582 by ‘the O’Flahertys of Connemara‘ and again in 1652 by Oliver Cromwell. O’Brien’s Castle has remained in ruins ever since. But it is beautiful, in all its decline!

Today, there are 260 people living at Inisheer, divided into only 6 surnames. As a result, first names and nicknames are often descriptive, so here you should stay average, not to be ‘doomed by the name‘!

Time moves slowly on Inisheer. Reliable electricity became a fact as late as 1997 (!), and ATMs do not exist (they take credit cards, so there is no crisis without cash). Despite the small population, there are actually several pubs at Inisheer. And Knut was very excited indeed about this one, equipped as it is with a flag quiz in the ceiling:

Flaherty’s pub, Inisheer. A flag quiz is always just right!

The first thing that greets you when you arrive in Inisheer is the beach (An Trá), which we highly recommend. Here we had a really nice Easter bath, and it is perfect also for swimming. At lunchtime you will even have the beach all to yourself, and that’s fine too.

Dún Aonghasa

At Inishmore, human remains have been found as far back as the Stone Age, and some of these remains are very easy to spot. The most impressive monument of them all is Dún Aonghasa, a Bronze Age fortress that was constructed around 1100 BC.

There are two explanations for the name. One is that it originates from the God Aengus, who plays a central role in 5 myths in Irish folklore. Aengus was associated with youth, love, summer and poetry. The other explanation is that the fort was built by King Aonghus Mac Úmhór, who led his people to the shores of Galway Bay and onto Inishmore after losing the war against Clann Chuian.

The walls have been restored several times, and the retaining walls are of recent date.

The fort consists of three sets of ring walls. The two outermost walls form a semicircle against the cliffs to the west. Between the two outermost walls a field of upright stones is planted, called ‘Chevaux de frise’, as a protection against invasion. The area is difficult to pass even today.

The innermost wall on the left. In the background to the right, outside the middle wall, is a glimse of Dún Aonghasa’s ‘Chevaux de frise’.

The innermost (and thickest) wall is believed to have been circular when it was first built, and also when it was restored some 1,500 years later (in the early Middle Ages). After collapsing into the sea, also the inner wall appears semi-circular today.

The innermost wall was restored in 1884-85.

Dún Aonghasa was investigated archaeologically in 1992-95, and a number of interesting findings were made, including house foundations and Bronze Age graves. These islanders cultivated barley and oats. Compared to other Bronze Age settlements, the Aran population had more sheep and less cattle and pigs. The latter probably because the pig’s tendency to dig in the soil is not sustainable on islands with almost no soil at all. The menu was otherwise based on fish, shellfish and birds, especially guillemot, but great auk bones have also been found (extinct in Ireland some 3,000 years later, in 1835 and in the rest of the world some years later).

The podium in the center has an unknown function, but may have been some kind of a stage.

After a visit to Dún Aonghasa, time will be just right for both shopping, lunch and bathing.

Knut has found a café with a thatched roof. It is mostly the tourism industry that builds such houses today.

This far into ‘County Wool‘, we were sure to find woolen hats and clothes to buy. But since Idun knits quite a lot herself, it is not interesting to buy knitted sweaters, and it doesn’t help that they are very, very, very beautiful. In these islands, each family has its own patterns, and ‘Aran knitting‘ is popular throughout all of Ireland. The typical ‘Aran Sweather’ dates from around 1900, and it used to be offwhite with textured pattern all over. This time tweed was what tempted us the most, and Idun found herself a nice hat, she thought. Knut, on the other hand – completely overwhelmed by the selection, didn’t find any new sixpence this time.

Finally we were ready for a bath, and Kilmurvey Beach a couple of km below Dún Aonghasa is absolutely perfect, also for swimming.

Kilmurvey Beach, Inishmore. Bathing temperature at Easter time: approx. 8 degrees Celcius.

Here you will find fine, white sand, a bench to put your clothes on, and great swells that are fun to fight with, but not dangerous. A great bath!

The Grave Headland

In the summer of 2019, Idun’s older sister Jorunn had another big birthday to celebrate. The celebration was a cruise with ‘Hurtigruten’ from Longyearbyen to the island of Moffen, 80 degrees north.

The Lønnech glacier seen from the ship ‘Nordstjernen’ (the North Star).

On day 2 of the cruise, we entered the Magdalene fjord north of Ny-Ålesund. Here it is wild and beautiful, and you can admire glaciers surrounded by pointed mountains.

Presumably this is where the name ‘Spitsbergen’ comes from. The fjord’s name is from the 18th century, named after the biblical Mary Magdalene.

Gully bay. Can nature be more beautiful than this?

On the south side of the Magdalene fjord is a headland with a fine sandy beach, one of the few places in the area where it is possible to a) disembark
b) bury corpses
c) have a bath

An English whaling station was built here in the 17th century.

One of four blubber oven foundations at Magdalenefjorden.

During 200 years of whaling, many people were buried here, and the place is today called Gravneset (the Grave Headland) with Gravnesodden at the end. 130 graves have been found, many of them long after the whale station itself had closed down. The sailors preferred to bury the dead here, where it was possible to dig holes for bodies, instead of throwing the corpses into the sea. The graves are English, Dutch, but also many Basques are buried at Gravneset, they were skilled whalers. In the 1970s, you could still find bone remains in the area, dug up by foxes, polar bears and souvenir-chasing tourists. Today, Gravneset is protected, and large parts are fenced off to avoid wear and tear of the cultural heritage.

The guides had insisted for two days, that it was compulsory to have a bath at Gravnesodden, imaging that maybe 2-3 people would take the bait and actually have a dip. But that was a severe underestimation of the Løwø family. We ended up with 17 bathers from the ‘Birthday group’ – a new record!

This is how it looks like when 17 people go swimming at 79°33′ north. Photo: Berner Hestø

And the bath itself? Absolutely gorgeous! A white sandy beach, crystal clear water decorated by ice cubes – and 3 degrees celsius.

Swimming in the Magdalena Fjord, perhaps the most beautiful fjord in the world. Photo: Karina Løwø.

In addition to the buried people, there was also an arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) who wanted to see us leave Gravneset:

… so then we did. And as ice bathers on a cruise, this time we got physical proof of the bathing madness:

Kings Bay

The Kings Bay (Kongsfjord) in the northwestern part of Spitsbergen is one of the most beautiful fjords in Svalbard. On the south side of the fjord you will find the researcher town Ny-Ålesund with the previous coal producing ‘Kings Bay Kull Company’, and on the north side you find ‘Ny-London’, a disused marble mining village.

Blomstrandøya. ‘Nothing less than an island made of pure marble’ (quote: Ernest Mansfield).

The marble deposits on Blomstrandøya were discovered in 1906. Development of the site began in 1911 and was carried out by the English company ‘Northern Exploration Company Ltd’. The head of the project was Ernest Mansfield. Of the buildings that were erected here (they were supposed to house 70 men), some have been moved to Ny-Ålesund where they are still in use. But some houses remain, partly deserted and partly in use as cabins for the researchers in Ny-Ålesund.

New London in Kongsfjorden, also called Camp Mansfield.

The appetite for investments in the early 20th century was sky high. The best of the technical devices of the time were installed, including railways, steam engines, marble cutting machines and cranes.

Nicely riveted processing plant from the early 20th century.

Mobile crane manufactured by Taylor & Hubbard, Leicester.

The appetite for investments was continuously increasing throughout the First World War, and the share capital rose to over a million pounds. There were many people who made good money during WWI, and they needed something to spend their money on. The adventure in New London ended in the world’s first stock market bubble, which burst in 1920. Large amounts of money had been invested – without anybody knowing what the marble was actually worth.

Yes, marble can be very valuable, as blocks. But as gravel?

When the first small cargo of marble arrived in England, 1912, it turned out that the large, beautiful marble blocks had been transformed into marble gravel due to frost bursting. There was no value whatsoever in the marble from Kongsfjorden. However, this did not stop the investments! Expectations of quick returns overshadowed common sense. Mansfield was fired, and the growth continued. The value was NOK 18 million in 1919. The following year it was 0, and the plant was abandoned.

After so much history teaching, time was just right for a bath, and in New London the bathing conditions are chilly, but excellent!

Our bathing beach east of the old unloading facility, 78°58′ north.

Here we found just the perfect type of sand, and not too shallow, either.

Nice drive south towards Ny Ålesund! Arne and Kjerstin were tobatheornottobathe standins for Knut on this trip.

If we swam far? No, we did not swim across Kongsfjorden.

Pyramid Bath

In the summer of 2017, we traveled to Svalbard. The purpose of the trip was for Knut’s mother to experience her daughter-in-law Idun’s place of upbringing.

The ‘Million City’ in Lia circa 1968. Idun grew up in house number two from the left. Photographer: Unknown.

After a few days in Longyearbyen, we booked a boat trip to the Russian ghost town of Pyramiden, which is located by Billefjorden, a fjord branch in the innermost part of the bigger Isfjorden.

The Pyramid Mountain, not at it’s most splendid.

The Pyramid City is named after the pyramid-shaped mountain of the same name. The town was founded by Sweden in 1910. Test drilling revealed coal deposits, but also difficult conditions due to faults in the bedrock. The Swedes therefore chose to concentrate on the Svea mine, and Pyramiden City was sold to the Soviet Union in 1927.

During the Soviet era, the town was developed into a model community with most facilities: Cultural center, swimming pool, library, school, kindergarten and cinema. Pyramiden also had both barns and greenhouses. At the most, some 1,000 people lived here.

The houses in Pyramiden were built with a desire for good aesthetics. The buildings (both wooden and brick houses) have nice details both outside and inside.

Idun thinks that she has probably played solo accordion on a cultural exchange trip to Pyramiden around 1980. But for sure? … no.

Pyramiden was suddenly abandoned in 1998. This happened during a period of economic downturn in Russia. But it was also connected to the aftermath of the plane crash in Mount Opera near Longyearbyen in 1996, where 141 people died. Many of these were Ukrainian miners working in Pyramiden.

Today, Pyramiden again has a permanent settlement, but the population is slightly reduced – to around 10 people. Hotel Tulipan started up in 2015, and guided tours are organized from Longyearbyen by boat in the summer and snowmobile during winter time.

And the bath? Knut grabbed the chance to do his northernmost bath to date: 78°39′ north. In order not to stress the guide unnecessarily, it was a dip in the harbour. When Pyramiden was built, a distinction was made between the technical installations and the housing. The bath in the harbor therefore did not take place in an idyllic Soviet living- and bathing area.

Cold and blurry, but certainly refreshing water!

And after the bath? Then it was just a matter of standing in line to enter the gangway.

Knut in classic sightseeing outfit 78°39′ north.

The highlight of the return trip was the visit in front of the Nordenskiöld glacier, and the many beluga whales that were swimming in the foreground.

Belugas in front of the Nordenskiöld glacier.

With this sight, it doesn’t matter if the weather is foggy!

Kapp Laila

In 1999, Idun’s older sister Jorunn celebrated her birthday at Spitsbergen, where the 5 ‘Løwø Children’ grew up.

The first part of the program was a guided bus tour in Longyearbyen, where the guides were ‘The Løwø children’ themselves.

The Løwø Children anno 1999. Photo: Svalbardposten

The birthday dinner took place at ‘Huset’, and the following day we went to the cabin at Kapp Laila. For many years our mum Kari and dad Fridtjof had a cabin in Adventdalen (below Operafjellet), but it was inaccessible all summer because of the big rivers. In 1982, they took over a working barrack from Birger Pedersen, and this was to become the new cabin – at Kapp Laila, midway between Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. The cabin was therefore ok. But how to move it from Longyearbyen to Kapp Laila?

Cabin on the move in ‘Isfjorden’, 1982. Photographer: Unknown.

The answer was: On a raft! After all, they had a 16-foot boat called ‘Hårek’ with a 50-horsepower engine in the back. No problem, right? Extra muscle power was hired via their youngest son, Frode. However, he was tired after working double shift in mine 3, and needed rest. And he got that – on the coach in the cabin while it was on tour. The towing took 24 hours. Conveniently enough, there was a wood stove in the cabin, so they could even make coffee on the way.

Kapp Laila is accessible both summer and winter, but there is a ‘but’ during summer season. The cabin is located by a lagoon, which is so shallow that you have to plan arrival and departure times according to the tides.

The Kapp Laila lagoon at high tide. The dog club’s cabin in the background.

We stayed and celebrated our sister at Kapp Laila for a whole week, and it was splendid weather every single day. So we rigged some driftwood as benches, and barbecued by the sea every afternoon. Fabulous! The first night we were so many guests that there wasn’t room for everyone indoors (Jorunn had also rented two neighboring cabins). Idun and Knut therefore slept in tents outside, as Idun’s eldest brother Asgaut also did. ‘What about the polar bear risk?‘ Knut asked. ‘There’s no risk‘, Idun replied: ‘The Løwø family never sees any polar bear‘. And with some red wine in the body, it was easy to fall asleep in the midnight sun… and just as suddenly wake up the next morning to outside noises. Idun jumped up and picked up the rifle that was hidden under the sleeping bag. Was it actually a polar bear? The zipper in the tent was carefully pulled down, and Idun looked out: ‘What’s going on?‘ It was Asgaut who had crawled out of his tent: ‘I don’t know if I’m most afraid of polar bears or lying on top of a gun – there will be no more sleep anyway!‘ The next night we moved into ‘Bikkjebu’, the dog club’s cabin , and felt safe there.

Polar bear visit by the Kapp Laila neighbours 2021. Photographer: Svenn Are Johansen

One night after playing ‘Mattis’ (card game) for hours (in traditional student way, the looser (‘Mattis’) from the previous round had to wear a funny headgear, read: a sleeping bag cover), we found out that time was just right to swim in the lagoon. It was a wonderful midnight sun night. What could go wrong? Well, the tide could obviously be of the wrong type… This night water was definitely low, and we realized that at low tide the lagoon consisted of equal parts (15 cm / 15 cm) water and mud. We had a dip, but this bath is not really recommended by ‘Tobatheornottobathe’. But sunbathing in the midnight sun? Yes, that is something we will recommend! Doesn’t do much for the tan, though…

And the polar bear? A bear mother with two cubs attacked the fridge (= a tub with food under the balcony at the north wall) one week later. Tobatheornottobathe had left Svalbard by then, but those relatives remaining are still talking about the incident.

Bear flap made by the polar bear itself (but not in 1999). Photo: Svenn Are Johansen

Depending on the mood, it doesn’t need a door either, the polar bear can just as well punch itself through the wall. And why does it do that? In search of food, of course. The polar bears are very fond of chocolate, but not all kinds of food are appreciated, as you can see in the next photo (also from the cabin at Kapp Laila, but not in 1999).

Uncooked rice or pasta isn’t the first choise for polar bears. Photo: Svenn Are Johansen

In 1999 the three bears broke into cabin after cabin, but were shot as they arrived Barentsburg. The Russians don’t let the bears rule their lives.

Jorunn’s birthday celebration some 20 years later. The lagoon in the back left.

Fardagafoss

In the Icelandic region of Austurland, the river Miðhúsaá flows west towards Egilsstaðir and then finally ends up in Lagarfljót. Except during the snow melting period, this is not a big river, more like a stream. But in the spring, on the other hand, it is much larger. Miðhúsaá is worth a short detour, because there you can enjoy the view of two different waterfalls: Fardagafoss and Gufufoss.

View towards Lagarfljót with Egilsstaðir on the right behind the hill.

3-400 meters uphill from the car park, the first waterfall appears, the so-called Gufufoss (the Steam Waterfall). According to tradition, a female troll lived in the cave behind Fardagafoss further up. She had a pot of gold hanging in Gufufoss, on the ledge between the two Gufufoss waterfalls. Can you see it? It’s hard to spot, and that’s why no one has ever gotten hold of it.

Pedagogic waterfall midway. But as a bathing place, Gufufoss was a little too much climbing for us this time, even though the two pools looked nice.

In ancient times, you were bound for 6 months or a year if you took work on a farm or a house as a servant. It was only allowed to leave during a period of 3-4 specific days in the spring or autumn to take a job elsewhere. These days were called ‘Fardagar’ (travel days). The spring travel days used to be around the 1^st of May. Everyone who did not own land had a responsibility to have permanent work and a place to live. Vagrancy was forbidden and could be punished with fines.

In Norway, we used to have similar laws. The 14^th of April was travel day, i.e. the day when you could end leases and employment agreements. The term travel day is still used in Norway when it comes to leasing land or farms. Also Scotland did indeed have the same tradition in ancient times. Can ‘làithean siubhail‘ be a tradition from the Viking era?

Well, what does this have to do with the Miðhúsaá waterfall? That’s when Fardaga waterfall is at its most splendid! In the spring, the travel days will coincide with the snow melting and extended rivers.

There is a cave behind the Fardaga waterfall.

The cave behind Fardagafoss is reasonably large, but it used to be even larger in earlier times, before the river slowly started to fill it with stones. One day a cat disappeared behind the waterfall. It was later found again in another Gufufoss, at Seyðisfjörður. The conclusion is that there is a tunnel between Fardagafoss and the other Gufufoss (these kind of stories are known from many places). The distance between them is 19 km, so it’s quite a job done by the troll (or the cat), digging that tunnel.

According to Knut, one of his Icelandic colleagues once attended a wedding seremony behind Fardagafoss. That is something! …and this way you avoid interference from the older generation. It is steep down to the waterfall, and most people over 80 would probably let it be.

And the bath? Well, we weren’t there during the Fardagar days in the spring, and the river was practically a stream. It was not possible to bathe directly below the waterfall, we had to go further down. But otherwise a nice bath.

… and the two groups of drone pilots on the hill above us were luckily so busy flying that they didn’t even notice us (there were no signs prohibiting drones at Fardagafoss, and we managed – almost – not to get annoyed)…

Vök Bath

The meaning of the Icelandic word ‘vök‘ is ‘a place with open water in between an otherwise frozen sea or lake‘. In the old days, people used to wash their clothes in Urriðavatn (Lake Trout), because there was always open water, no matter how severe the winter was. The locals thought it was a sea monster, ‘Tuska’, that melted or broke the ice. Tusk means rag, i.e. Tuska was a Nixie with a shabby appearance. The cracks in the ice were called ‘Tuskuvakir’, and Tuska could come up there in winter. However, what kept the water open in winter turned out to be jarðhiti – ground heat. Lake Urriðavatn has its own hot spring inside itself!

Egilsstaðir on the south side and Fellabær on the north side of Lagarfljót. Behind a hill on the right of the picture lies Lake Urriða.

The very special bath called Vök is located 6 km from Egilsstaðir and was completed in 2019. Here they have built a beautiful facility based on the hot spring inside Urriðavatn. 76 degree Celsius water from the bottom of the lake is mixed with cold water from the lake to just the right temperature. On shore, there are changing rooms, hot and cold (!) steam baths, two larger pools with warm water and a submerged bar by the pool.

10 degrees Celsius in Urriðavatn and 40 degrees in the floating pool.

Two hexagonal pools of warm water float (!) in the cold water. The floating pools are made by the Finnish company ‘Bluet Floating Solutions’. If you want, you can enter the lake for a cold scalding, as there are ladders leading to the lake. Hot and cold alternately – that’s the very best. Try it!

We have visited Vök several times, including Easter 2021 – in the middle of the corona. All public baths in Iceland were closed and we really wondered what to do. How could we perform the daily bath when everything was either closed or frozen? It turned out to become a secret bath of the cold type. In Urriðavatn, it’s easy to swim even in the middle of winter – as there is always open water in between the ice! We changed onshore, jumped in for a dip and then returned to the car. As we were leaving the parking lot, a car drove in to check on unauthorized guests. Good then, that we just had a short bath next to the pools and didn’t try to get in for a longer session!

A bath in secret outside Vök, Easter 2021.

Stuðlagil

Egilsstaðir, with almost 3,000 inhabitants, is a natural starting point for several spectacular hiking and swimming experiences in the north-east of Iceland.

Mandatory ‘Gríma’ (face mask) in Egilsstaðir 2021.

One of the biggest ‘wow factors’ you can get is Stuðlagil. You drive through a long, gravelly valley, Jökulsdalur. This is a wasteland with a few farms and some sheep.

Some of the few inhabitants of Jökulsdalur.

It takes an hour to walk up to the gorge, a nice hike with a pedagocically well placed waterfall, Stuðlafoss, to enjoy about mid-way. Well, that’s if you keep to the east side of the river.

Alternatively, you can drive up to a stair access (239 steps) on the west side of Jökulsá, but we would not recommend that if you are fit enough for the east side, because:

From the vantage point on the west side, you cannot see the most beautiful basalt columns.

You can’t go down to the water.

Panorama view towards the panorama platform on the west side.

After the waterfall, basalt columns begin to appear by Jökulsá. The river is (large parts of the year) bright green! Here we are talking about glacial rivers with lots of particles in the water. The basalt columns are first brown, gradually gray. Most of them stand vertically, but in some places a bunch of them are twisted around and you can see the cross section of them instead.

Stuðlagil is one of the newest tourist attractions in Iceland. The gorge came to light when the water level in the river Jökulsá á Brú was lowered following the very controversial construction of the Kárahnjúkavirkjun hydroelectric plant in 2009. The plant was supposed to ensure power supply to the aluminum plant in Reyðarfjörður.

What you don’t see from the west side of the river: Nature’s cathedral.

Stuðlagil itself is like a cathedral with tall, beautiful columns. A wonder of Mother Nature! If you are careful, you can climb down to the river bank and sit on the basalt columns and just enjoy. We didn’t dare to do this on our first visit, it was in March; snow and ice everywhere. The second visit, however!

Stuðlagil is an absolutely magical place. However, be aware that the water level may rise if they let more water through from the power plant further up the valley. Because of this – and strong currents – we do not recommend swimming in Stuðlagil!

Bathing in Stuðlagil is generally not recommended…

We (as you might have guessed) couldn’t resist in the long run. But we think we did a thorough risk assessment, had secured ourselves with a tow rope and only swam in a backwater without current. But this is not the place to try ice bathing for the first time!

After the ravine visit, a bath is just right. At Egilsstaðir there are two obvious options for open-air swimming: the river Lagarfljót and Urriðavatn lake. Lagarfljót basically looked a bit dirty and unappealing. The sad white-grey color comes from the particles in the water. Urriðavatn, on the other hand, is fresh and blue and cold – except it’s hot spring interior. But that’s another story – Vök Bad.

Of lengi í örbirgð stóð
einangruð, stjórnlaus þjóð,
kúguð og köld.
Einokun opni hramm.
Iðnaður, verslun fram!
Fram! Temdu fossins gamm,
framfara öld.
(E. Benediktsson, made for the opening of the power plant)

Too long left in destitution,
isolated, stubborn nation,
downthrodden, cold.
Monopoly opens the door,
Industry, save the poor!
Forward! Waterfall pour,
till time grows old!”
(E. Benediktsson, translated by Tobatheornottobathe, with some help from Google Translate)

Avalanche

Despite all the other things Iceland has to deal with in form of geysirs, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and bad weather, it is avalanches that take the most lives. The first record of an avalanche is from the year 1118! In the ‘Sturlunga Saga’, it is mentioned that five people died in an avalanche, and thereafter more than 680 lives have been lost.

From ‘Torgils and Havlide’s saga’ (a part of ‘Sturlunga Saga’):

‘Måg-Snorre was a wealthy man, who had a house in Svinadal, at the place which is now called Snorrastad; he drowned in Sælingsdalså, at the place now called Snorravad. His brother-in-law Sighvat Ulvsson went out with four other men to search for the body, but they were buried under an avalanche and all perished.‘ (References)

‘Here one can safely say that ‘misfortunes never come singly‘.

Avalanche protections (up to the left of the city) at Siglufjörður, Norðausturland.

There has been a major investment in avalanche protection the recent years, and many settlements are secured with ‘fences’ high up in the mountainside. Other places, moraine-like ramparts have been built to lead the avalanches away from the city. One of the biggest avalanche accidents in recent times occurred in Neskaupstaður the December 20^th 1974, when 12 people died. On this day there were actually 8 avalanches here, two of them fatal. In addition, there were 13 people that were swept away by the slides, who survived after all. This was a terrible blow to the small settlement.

Neskaupstaður has approximately 1,500 inhabitants. The village runs along the fjord, actually it covers a length of 6 km in a width of only approximately 100 meters. What else is there to say about Neskaupstaður? Impressively, they have their own heavy metal festival, ‘Eistnaflug’ (in July). And one nearly extinct species of lichen: ‘Seltulauf’.

Peaceful easter atmosphere in Neskaupstaður.

We were in Neskaupstaður at Easter 2021, but we didn’t see a trace of neither lichen nor heavy rockers. It was winter, there was snow, there was a full moon and it was beautiful still weather. No avalanches in sight. It was just peaceful and wonderful, and we had a cold, but meditative bath below the road ‘Hafnarbraut’. Meditative because, when you step into freezing water, nothing else matters. It’s just you and the water and Mother Nature (and maybe a fellow bather). All worries disappear in seconds. Marvelous!