Lögberg-Heimskringla - 20.10.1977, Blaðsíða 2

LOGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 20. OKTOBER 1977
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MANITOBA GEOGRAPHY TRAVELLERS
GRAND TOUR OF ICELAND
By Jeon M. Chorfrond
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Tuesday morning bright and
early saw Unnur, our guide and
Steindór Theodorsson, our driver,
complete with a forty-passenger
bus. After all our baggage was
towed away we started out, north
of Reykjavik, past a monument to
transportation — a pack horse. Ice-
land has no railroads, they went
straight automotive from the horse.
As we left Reykjavik’s paved high-
ways for the Western Fjords we
discovered that for the next fifteen
days we would be travelling on
dirt and gravel roads with curves,
steep gradients, and double hairpin
bends galore. The weather was
beautiful but cloud still covered
Mt. Esja as we travelled north-
wards. On the way we noticed
many sheep dotted here and there.

These sheep roam free all summer
and are rounded up in the fall. At
this time the shepherds on horse-
back, dogs and of course the pro-
verbial “crocks” have a merry time
bringing the sheep into the large
pens where they are sorted and
every farmer claims his own, for
all sheep are tattooed and tagged.
Our first stop was Thingvellir. It
was at the Hotel Valhöll that we
stopped for what our guide polite-
ly called a “Technical Stop” but
nobody paid much attention —
which was “konur” (women) and
“karlar” (men). This omission
caused some amusement later on,
when not remembering which was
which some women walked into a
men’s washroom and a man walk-
ed in on them. After leaving
Thingvellir we entered the desert
area of Kaldidalur. í
One beautiful sight that day was
Hraunfossar where many water-
falls came out of the lava, half way
down the cliff side. This sight was
a “must” for camera buffs. At
Reykholt we saw the statue of
Snorri Sturluson in front of the
school. Snorri, a great chieftain in
the 13th century was noted for
the Snorra-Edda, Heimskringla.
Further down the road we saw
the largest hot spring in the world,
Deildartunguhver. On the way to
the Snæfellsnes peninsula we saw
Snæfellsjökull towering in all its
majesty in the distance.
At Eldborg we stopped to see the
crater row and then wended our
way through the Old Witch’s Pass
and down into Stykkishólmur for
the night. When we toured the
docks we saw the fishing trawlers
preparing to leave and whilst
watching them we were surprised
to see jellyfish and starfish float-
ing in the water. As we looked
across Breiðafjörður we saw the
hundreds of islands which dotted
the fjord. Next morning we were
en route to Flókalundur on the
other side of Breiðafjörður. Our
first stop was Helgafell where
some climbed the holy mountain
in silence, made three wishes, came
down the mountain and never
looked back. As we passed through
Skógarströnd we were told that
this was the habitat of owls, ptar-
migans and Icelandic eagles but it
was not our luck to see them. Then
we saw the Drangar farm from
which Eric the Red left for Green-
land in 985 A.D.
The following day we headed
out to Látrabjarg. One fact about
this cliff is that the closest land
directly south of it is Antarctica.
This cliff is home to thousands of
puffins, guillemots, terns and gulls.
This was a beautiful scenic ride,
climbing steep slopes with the bus
and having a panoramic view of
the valley below. One thing we
noticed particularly was that the
roads which followed the edge of
the mountains had no guard rails.
On the way through this desolate
area we saw a statue made of lava
bricks. The road workers who built
it said it reminded them of their
foreman.
At Sauðlauksdalur, m the valley,
potatoes were first grown in Ice-
land in the middle of the 18th cen-
tury. The farms in the valley
were dairy farms with small hay
pastures surrounded by drainage
ditches. In this way there was a
possibility of having hay pastures.
The next day saw us heading for
Isafjörður, the main commercial
centre of the Western fjords. One
outstanding sight we saw was
Fjallfoss, where the water cas-
cades down from one basalt layer
to another. Then we stopped at
Hrafnseyri, which is the birthplace
of Jón Sigurðsson, the famous Ice-
landic hero of liberty. In Breið-
dalsheiði is to be found the oldest
rock in Iceland — over sixteen
million years old.
Between Skutulsfjörður and Alf-
tafjörður is a tunnel built in 1948,
one of three built in Iceland, In
fact, it ís hoilowcd out of the rock.
After going through the tunnel we
saw the fish drying rocks, of which
there are many in Iceland. Appar-
ently the dried fish is shipped to
Nigeria where it is considered a
delicacy. Nearby was a fish drying
plant, but this was in a building.
In this fjord was an inhabited
island where three generations of
one family lived. In the spring
they take their sheep to the main-
land and bring them back in the
fall. The other inhabited island had
sels basking in the sunshine. We
noticed the great enthusiasm for
salmon fishing in Iceland and
there seem to be a number of sal-
mon rivers there. We crossed one
river in the north, the Ögurá, and
saw the fish ladder built beside it.
The sixth day out from Reykja-
vik showed us a strange sight at
Vatnsdalshólar — rnany, many
piles dotted here and there on the
landscape. The explanation given
was a great rock slide which had
fallen on a glacial snout coming
from the highlands and when the
glacier melted the piles were left.
After lunch we saw two famous
islands in Skagafjörður—Drangey
and Malmey. Drangey is the site
of the famous Grettis-saga. From
there we went to Akureyri, sister
city of Gimli, Manitoba, where we
spent the evening and the next
morning. This is the main trade
and industrial centre of northern
Iceland and also a big tourist at-
traction. It is also a shipbuilding
centre. That night at dinner the
mayor of Akureyri, Helgi Bergs,
was our guest and he was bom-
barded with questions as to the
political, municipal and economic
conditions in the north. It was at
this gathering that the mayor was
presented with a bronze buffalo by
Jean Chartrand on behalf of the
Manitoba Social Sciences Teach-
ers’ Association. In return he pre-
sented the leader of the group
with a book about Akureyri.
After dinner many went sight-
seeing at the harbour, the botani-
cal gardens and the church. The
church has 110 steps to the front
door and at the bottom of the steps
is the shopping centre oí Akureyri.
Next morning was no exception to
the chance of buying some more
souvenirs and in some cases more
suitcases to carry the excess rocks
and souvenirs acquired during the
early part of the trip.
That afternoon we headed out of
Akureyri and saw the hanging val-
leys we had missed the previous
day. The roads we travelled on in
this area were 2,800 years old. As
we took the double “S” curves
down to the Fnjóská river we saw
a serpentine river and an old arc
bridge built in 1908. It was here
that we gained extra confidence in
Steindór, our driver. The bus was
a 40-passenger Mercedes-Benz, and
he turned it right around on the
narrow road.
(Continued next week)