Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.03.2005, Page 35

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“We Are Not the
Enemies of the Seal”
OUTSIDE REYKJAVÍK
The people of Húsavík attracted
the seals with smoke. They hunted
the seal in nets and had a box of
old grass (moð) at each end of their
camping location. Around noon they
lit the old grass, producing smoke.
The harp seal soon saw the smoke,
swam toward it and got caught in
the net. Every possible part of the
seal was used for various things and
was a great help for many.
A Pound of Fat is Equal to a Pot
of Milk
The most common products were
the fat, the meat, the head and the
skin. Seal fat was eaten and was
for a long time as valuable as dried
fish. The older and greener it was,
the better it tasted. Around 1900
the pound of fat was equal to a
pot of milk in Húsavík. The meat
was eaten fresh, salted, boiled and
smoked and also boiled for soup.
The head, flippers and tail were
soured.
At the turn of the 20th Century,
Helgi’s father and grandfathers
practiced subsistence hunting and
farming. After the hunt the meat
was often shared and sometimes
given to those who had the biggest
household.
Reading the Sky
Helgi talks about changes he
has detected in the ecosystem in
Skjálfandaflói. He has noticed
changes in the weather, seaweeds
and ocean currents as well as in the
wildlife, and how the disappearance
of the krill affects the ecosystem.
After the disappearance of what he
calls the ´red-krill´ the white birds
are not much seen.
The changes in weather have
affected the way the ocean freezes,
for example the bay does not ice up
as it used to do in the early days.
That, Helgi says, is because the
weather is not as still as it used to be
and it is not as cold. He then tells of
how he reads the sky for changes in
weather. He can always see the wind
direction by the way the clouds bank
up in the heavens.
Connection Made Sacred
Helgi’s stories and observations are
a part of The Akureyri Oral History
Project at the University of Akureyri.
The main objective of the project
is to record the traditional, local
knowledge of rural Iceland, using
the techniques of oral history and
applied social science. The aim is to
preserve this knowledge and to make
it available to researchers, students
and the public as a scientific,
cultural, educational and practical
resource. More importantly, we are
trying to bring knowledge of the
landscape, seascape and nature back
into daily use. The stories of Helgi
and his colleagues who carry the old
culture sing in harmony with the
Icelandic landscape and the ocean,
much like the music of Sigur Rós
does. Language and landscape are in
connection with one another, which
makes them sacred.
Tero Mustonen is a Finnish poet and a
fisherman who manages Snowchange,
a project to collect local observations of
change across the Arctic. He teaches at
the University of Akureyri.
by Tero Mustonen
Seal Hunting in Húsavík
Helgi Héðinsson was born in Húsavík in 1928 and still lives
there. His ancestors were farmers, and he’s has been fishing and
hunting just about everything the sea gives, fish, birds, whale and
seal, from 14 years of age. He says that the most common method of
hunting the seals was by shooting. In the olden times nets were used.
Seal was both eaten and used as bait but in recent years it has mostly
been used as shark bait.