Lögberg-Heimskringla - 19.09.1963, Blaðsíða 7

LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 19. SEPTEMBER 1963
7
( Fish — The Big
Fish are the big thing in Ice-
land. Fish are plentiful there
— about 10,000 pounds per
year per head of population,
as a matter of fact. You can
get fish almost any place. At
any time. At any price. All
you have to do is bring your
own truck.
The people of this North
Atlantic island republic catch,
eat and sell more fish per
capita than other people now
or ever.
According to the Yearbook
of Fishery Statistics of the
Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation, Iceland in 1961 — the
latest year for which world
figures are available — had a
total fish catch of 703,000 tons.
There are only 170,000 people
in all of the country’s 40,000
square miles. That works out
to about four and half tons per
head or just under 18 tons per
square mile.
Luckily, the Icelanders like
fish. They eat more than any-
body anywhere — smoked,
fried, salted, baked, dried,
roasted, stewed, pickled, cas-
seroled, whole, halved, plain or
fancy. You name it. If the
Icelanders haven’t tried it that
way they’ll probably be happy,
delighted, to give it a go.
Iceland exports fish too —
about 99 per cent of all she
catches. That’s a lot of fish, a
lot of fine quality cold water
cod, haddock, herring, plaice,
halibut and redfish, an Ice-
landic specialty. In 1961 the
little nation earned $65,063,000
from her fisheries exports, a
neat 798,400,000 in Icelandic
kronur. In fact, in 1961 Iceland
ranked fourteenth in national
catch statistics and sixth in ex-
port earnings.
And Iceland’s annual fish
feat is accomplished with just
6,000 fishermen. But what
fishermen!
Iceland’s fishermen average
better than 115 tons per year
per man. United States and
West German fishermen aver-
age about 25 tons, the Norwe-
gian. eight, the Japanese five.
More than two million fisher-
men in Asia and Africa aver-
age only about one ton per
man per year.
The world. average per fish-
erman is at best three tons a
year. This means the Icelander
catches four to five times as
much as his closest European
competitor and some 30 to 40
times more than the world
average.
How can Iceland, a tiny na-
tion compared to literally all
the other fishing powers, main-
tain such a pace? First the
Icelanders have long been
leaders in testing new gear
and methods. Nowhere is big-
scale fishing more modern.
And nowhere is the fisherman
backed up so solidly. Behind
each of Iceland’s fishermen
stands at least $10,000 invest-
Thing In lceland
ment and 40 to 50 horsepower
in the world’s most rugged and
high powered fishing boats.
It is not surprising that next
to their having established the
world’s first parliament —
the “Althing,” set up in 930—
the Icelanders are most proud
of their fishing expertize. It is
also not surprising that Iceland
exports fishing talent as well
as fish.
Nine Icelanders have worked
or are working for FAO’s Fish-
eries Division: Messrs. Bergs,
Kvaran, Illugason, Jonsson,
Hermann and Jon Einarsson,
Kristjonsson, Gudmuudsson
and Saemundsson. Their work
in Argentina, Brazil, Ceylon,
East Parkistan, India, Peru,
Turkey and Uruguay has im-
pressed all hands.
Illugason five years ago cre-
ated a legend throughout India
when he caught a six-ton 32-
foot whale shark with only a
small gaff hook and 50 fathoms
of rope. That’s the biggest
fish ever caught in India. Last
year he sailed 1,300 miles from
Ceylon to Calcutta in an open
boat. Illugason has gone over
big with India’s fishermen.
They think he can catch any
fish in the sea. He teachés
them that they can take fish
galore, if they fish properly
and insist upon the right gear.
Hilmar Kristjonsson, with
FAO since 1952, heads the
United Nations agency’s fish-
ing gear section and will be
secretary for the important
Second FAO World Fishing
Gear Congress coming up in
London, May 25-31. Yet an-
other Icelander, Dr. Arni Frid-
riksson, is Secretary General
of the International Council
for the Exploration of the Sea.
Thus do the Icelanders ex-
port fish and fishing talent.
But how about imports? Does
Iceland also import fish? Not
a pound. It would be like
Brazil importing coffee, Libya
sand, or China people. And
guess what the Icelanders do
when they are not taking tons
of fish from the salty sea?
They go fishing, fresh water
fishing. The island’s rivers —
swift, cold, deep, unpolluted—
teem with some of the world’s
finest salmon and fattest trout.
ig and Trade News — Tokyo.
A 'Genius For Story-Telling
Young Chárlotte Bronte
could not do the sums set for
her by the teacher of her
new séhool. She got the geo-
graphy answers wrong, too,
and her grammar was far
from good.
But when she was given
pen and paper and told to
write, the tiny, timid, plain
little girl of 14 brightened up.
She covered page after page
with a story which she made
up herself as she went along.
Story writing was not hard
for Charlotte. She filled 22
notebooks with miscellaneous
writings in one year, 1829-30,
so great was her teeming im-
agination.
Tireless energy at wrlting,
determination to succeed in
spite of rejections of her early
work, showed the tenacity of
this English girl who was in
due course to become one of
the world’s great authors.
To an inborn genius for
story-telling she added an
acute sense of observation and
judgment of character, and
produced in her microscopic
handwriting the two celebrat-
ed novels “Jane Eyre” and
“Shirley.”
Her fame rests principally
on these two works, but she
wrote two other fine books as
well, “Villette” and “The Pro-
fessor.”
In the whole history of En-
glish literature there is noth-
ing more astonishing than
the story of Charlotte and her
sisters, Emily a n d A n n e ,
daughters of the stern and ec-
centric Reverend Patrick
Bronte, rector of the parish of
Haworth, high up on the bleak
moors of Yorkshire.
They were all writing nov-
els at the same time, and they
all had books published.
Emily’s masterpiece w a s
“Wuthering Heights.” Anne
wrote “Agnes Grey” and “The
Tenant of Windfell H^ll.”
They are all counted among
the classics.
“Jane Eyre” is acknowl-
edged to be one of the most
fascinating novels ever writ-
ten, full of power and passion,
even though its style is some-
what heavy-going by modern
standards.
The novel took Britain, and
America, by storm. It came
out under the name of “Currer
Bell,” and everyone thought
the author was a man.
What a sensation when “he”
was discovered to be a shy
spinster living in a bleak and
remote Yorkshire parsonage.
„■—Christian Science Monitor
VIÐ KVIÐSLITI
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lækning og vellíðan. Nýjustu að-
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ar af neinu tagi.
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History of lceland in a Nutshell
THE HEROIC AGE
Iceland’s early heroic age
is still the most remembered.
Here the cynie may smile.
“Your saga-heroes,” he may
mock, “were mere savages,
looming large through the
mists of time. With their fat-
uous blood feuds, their nasty
ways of spitting or splitting
one another without warning,
or roasting each other alive in
their houses, they were really
little different from A1 Ca-
pone„ Machine Gun Kelly or
Pretty Boy Floyd.
But this view seems over-
simple. Certainly the lOth and
llth Centuries committed hid-
eous brutalities; so has the
20th. But those who do not
know the sagas of Egil or
Gisli, of Njal, Grettir or the
Laxdalers, m i s s something
vividly u n i q u.e (Theodore
Roosevelt, for example, is said
to have gone back to them
When weary, and to have rear-
ed his children on them.)
These stories show often a
Homeric sense of loyalty,
chivalry and fortitude; a
Homeric sense of fate, that
sometimes lifts their disasters
to a tragic dignity. “No man
can live till evening, who is
doomed to die at morn.” But
this fate a man can meet well,
or less well. And this fatalism,
weakening to weaker minds,
could yet strengthen the
strong. At times it could teach
a deeper genérosity. Gisli’s
wife Auda, for example, has
let slip a heedless* speech that
will cost her brother’s and
her husband’s lives. “I do not
blame thee,” says Gisli. “For,
once things are doomed, some-
one must utter the words that
seem to make them come to
pass.” Illogical maybe; but not
ignoble. Whatever their faults,
these éharacters of the sagas
had character. And human
character remains, for some,
the deepest interest that there
is.
F. L. LUCAS
"Holiday" Magazine
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