Lögberg-Heimskringla - 09.09.2005, Blaðsíða 11

Lögberg-Heimskringla « Föstudagur 9. september 2005 • 11
THE PATH T O GIMU
PART ONE:
Leaving
Iceland
This past summer, The Path to Gimli commemo-
rated lcelandic emigration to Canada. Core riders
were Karl Ágúst Andrésson, Friöþjófur Ragnar
Friðþjófsson, Elín Ósk Þórisdóttir, Valur Gíslason
and Lauren Arnason. In this three-part series,
Project Manager Declan O’Driscoll reveals what
happened at key points in the journey.
We started off on the
right hoof, that’s for
sure. The day was
beautiful and sunny with a lusty
ocean breeze. We began our
ride at Steinskot (Karl’s farm in
Eyrarbakki) to the town’s post
office, where many people,
many horses and officials from
Iceland Post greeted us.
After we reached the post
office, the Canadian Ambas-
sador to Iceland, Richard Tétu,
arrived. He was duly greeted by
Karl and the other riders. We,
the riders, now numbering over
twenty, the horses numbering
close to forty, the ambassa-
dor and the spectators paraded
through town to Húsið á Eyr-
arbakka — the oldest building
standing in town (1765) where
the Wilhelm Wickmann letter
of 1870 arrived from Milwau-
kee and prompted the mass em-
igration to North America.
There the current director
Lýður Pálsson made a speech
and handed the mail over to
Kalli. We had invited Iceland-
ers to send mail to their friends
and family in North America
via the Path to Gimli post
horse. Ambassador Tétu spoke
enthusiastically, welcoming
our Icelanders to ride the path
to Canada.
I then made a speech with
a little laughter (thank God for
humour), the kids were hav-
ing great fun, jumping up and
down. Again, it was a grand day
and the weather was beautiful.
From Húsið we rode on to
the site of Bjarni Herjolfsson’s
farmstead, the first Icelander to
spot Newfoundland (986 AD).
Magnus, the former Mayor of
Eyrarbakki, spoke of Bjarni
and his fame. The town’s fin-
est restaurant, The Red House,
graciously brought their deli-
cious fish soup, homemade
cornbread and hummus for a
picnic out to this beautiful site
on the sea.
It was all smoóth leav-
ing Eyrarbakki, riding across
the sand, splashing through
the low tide, until we reached
“Eagles Cliff.” All of a sud-
den the weather took a tum for
the worse. Threatening clouds
swept in from over the hori-
zon, pelting us with heavy rain,
which didn’t let up for about
half an hour. And that’s not all.
Water was deep
As if we weren’t wet
enough, we then had to cross
an ocean estuary. Neither man
nor beast could ever guess how
deep the water might be at any
spot. At one point, to our great
surprise it tumed out to be very
deep — boom! in went a horse,
front first. The poor rider was
catapulted clear over the horse’s
head into the frosty cold ocean
pond. It was, indeed, a sight to
see as she surfaced gasping for
breath. She was not the only
rider to go down, everyone
went “wading” at least once.
That night we stopped in
Hveragerði. Slept and woke
bright and early, prepared for a
ten-hour ride through the moun-
tains. We started early and rode
all day, passing through spec-
tacular scenery, by geysers and
through steam. We ended up at
Þingvellir — the meeting place
of the European and North
American continental plates.
Valur and I rode together
into Þingvellir (Plains of Parlia-
ment) and had a good conversa-
tion about the lay of the land. He
pointed out various converging
riding trails from all directions
to this spot — from the north,
east, south and the west.
The trails that lead into
Þingvellir were carved out over
a thousand years ago when
Iceland became a civil state.
As many know, Alþingi is the
world’s oldest continuous par-
liament. It is the heart of Ice-
land in many ways as it was
here that the laws of the land
were first established.
Some of the earth’s newest
landmasses have been formed
in this place. Iceland is part of
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where
the European and North Ameri-
can continental plates diverge.
Due to tectonic forces, mol-
ten magma rises out from the
earth’s core onto the sea floor,
building up into subterranean
mountain ranges. Iceland is one
spot where this volcanic mate-
rial reaches above sea level. At
Þingvellir land separation in ei-
ther direction can be seen.
All this crossed my mind
as Valur spoke. Together, on
horseback we shared a bottle
of Irish whiskey and looked out
over some of the most beautiful
landscape I have ever seen.
Pelting rain
The weather was beautiful
all day for our ride to Þingvel-
lir. The skies were clear and
benign as we celebrated the
first days of our pilgrimage.
Frey, the spirit of peace and
plenty, smiled upon us; the
weather continued to be friend-
ly when we awoke. It wasn’t
until we were about to leave
that the northeast wind blew,
and brought with' it cold pelt-
ing rain — all the world turned
grey. We had to round up the
horses in intense wind and rain.
Only two Gimli riders fared the
ride to Mosfellsdalur, that was
Auður and Jakob, they saddled
up together and between the
two of them ponied seven hors-
es. It was quite a sight, two rid-
ers and nine horsesTieading off
into the mountains blasted by
the cold wind and rain. It takes
some up to eight hours to ride
from Þingvellir to Mosfellsda-
lur — They rode it in four!
The next day was beauti-
ful and. sunny; we set off for
Reykjavík. We were met by a
well-dressed police officer who
escorted us on his motorbike
through the city. The Path to
Gimli rode into the centre of
Reykjavík and were greeted
in the city centre by the city
mayor Steinunn Valdís Óskars-
dóttir. She invited us into the
post office to stamp the mail.
The mail we canied to Gimli
got stamped with the postal
franking stamp of each place
we passed through. Our mail
was stamped by Reykjavík’s
postmaster, Edda. After that
we were then led by Steinunn
along pleasant streets of Reyk-
javík to the City Hall.
One of the things that
stands out from that day is
how much the public loves the
Icelandic horse. In downtown
Reykjavfk the public were in-
trigued with what we were do-
ing and stopped to watch when-
ever we halted. Both Icelanders
and tourists came up to pet the
horses.
We captured wonderful
shots for the book and the film
in Iceland. Everyone is very ex-
cited to arrive in Canada. The
Path to Gimli is being made
into a film and documented in a
book. The book will come com-
plete with pictures of the whole
trip, the mythical connotations
and a focused look into history
at the Icelandic version of the
“new world” story.
Continued next issue.
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