Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.06.2011, Blaðsíða 19

Farmer Erlendur Björnsson and his
wife Þórunn Júlíusdóttir were in
Reykjavík celebrating their son’s
high school graduation when the
subglacial volcano Grímsvötn be-
gan erupting on Saturday evening.
“We were eating dinner when we
got the message and we simply
thought, ‘Grímsvötn, that’s noth-
ing. It has erupted over the last few
decades and we’ve never had any
ash’”.
While Grímsvötn is Iceland’s most ac-
tive volcano, its eruptions have typically
been small and short-lived. Not overly
concerned, Erlendur and Þórunn left
Reykjavík just after midnight, got back
to their farm Seglbúðir at 3:30 AM, and
went to sleep. In retrospect they said
they were fortunate to get back that
night while it was still possible to see
through the ash.
The eruption turned out to be ten
times larger than the 2004 Grímsvötn
eruption, and it produced more ash in
the first 24 hours than the entire forty
day long Eyjafjallajökull eruption, which
just one year ago paralysed air traffic
and stranded travellers all over Europe.
When they awoke the next morn-
ing around 7:30 AM, it was absolutely
pitch black outside, Þórunn told me.
Their farm, which sits just southwest
of Kirkjubæjarklaustur—80 kilometres
from the eruption site—was pummelled
with thick ash and, unfortunately, they
had just put their flock of 200 sheep
out for the summer, as is custom after
lambing season.
ASH BLOCKS OUT THE SUN
Iceland’s Route 1, which goes full circle
around the island, was closed from
Sunday morning until Tuesday evening
between Vík and Freysnes, a 145-ki-
lometre stretch in southeast Iceland
where the ash was at times so thick that
the sun didn’t shine.
“It was something you had been told
about, but didn’t believe”, Erlendur told
us. “People talk a lot about the 1918
when Katla erupted; it is said that peo-
ple crawled—they couldn’t walk—they
crawled. I can tell you on Sunday it was
like that”.
Erlendur explained to us that there
is a specific Icelandic word to describe
this darkness. It’s “öskumyrkur”, which
translates to “ash darkness”. While it is
sometimes used to describe a dark Ice-
landic winter night, that darkness pales
in comparison to the darkness that en-
sues when ash blocks out the sun, stars
and lights.
While Erlendur described the erup-
tion as a “medium sized Katla eruption”,
he also noted that today Iceland has a
rescue team, which distributed masks
and goggles to everyone in the area
and stayed to help clean up the mess
after the eruption quieted down.
We knew very well what he was
talking about for we foolishly drove into
the ash on that Sunday morning. Pass-
ing through Vík just before authorities
closed the road on Sunday morning, we
experienced first-hand what was prob-
ably as close to the doomsday evan-
gelist Harold Camping had envisioned
on May 21, the evening that Grímsvötn
erupted. We were prepared for the ash
to fill the car and seep into every nook
and cranny, but we were not prepared
for the hazy brown surroundings to turn
pitch black as the ash blocked out the
sun entirely.
“It feels like being snow-blind”,
Grapevine photographer Maroesjka
Lavigne said uneasily as she navigated
the car into darker territory. We made
it within a few kilometres of Kirkjubæ-
jarklaustur when we could no longer
see even one road marker ahead of
us. Stopped in ‘öskumyrkur’, there was
no choice but to call Iceland’s rescue
team.
THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY WORRIES
A French man we had met earlier driv-
ing from Kirkjubæjarklaustur back
to Reykjavík had strongly advised us
against continuing on our trip. He
was in here scouting the country for a
French tourism company, and would be
returning home with a negative impres-
sion of Iceland as a viable tourist desti-
nation. “I can sell snow, I can even sell
rain, but I just cannot sell ash”, he said
matter-of-factly.
The recent eruption was the latest in
a series of crises to test the resolve of
Icelanders in the past few years. First it
was the collapse of the banks and the
Icesave dispute with the Brits and the
Dutch. Then it was the difficult-to-pro-
nounce-eruption that left thousands
of travellers, like the infamous “I Hate
Iceland” guy, stranded and Iceland’s
hotels empty.
So the Icelandic government was
understandably worried about the
eruption’s impact on the tourism indus-
try. Iceland’s president, Ólafur Ragnar
Grímsson, was harshly criticised for
speaking overdramatically when Ey-
jafjallajökull erupted last year, and the
Icelandic Travel Industry Association
quickly sent a press release urging the
media not to overdramatise the Gríms-
vötn eruption.
“It’s too much”, said Anna Þóris-
“Erlendur explained to us that there is a specific
Icelandic word to describe this darkness. It’s
‘öskumyrkur’, which translates to ‘ash darkness’.
While it is sometimes used to describe a dark
Icelandic winter night, that darkness pales in
comparison to the darkness that ensues when ash
blocks out the sun, stars and lights”
OH NO!
IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!
GRÍMSVÖTN 2011
Words
Anna Andersen
Photography
Maroesjka Lavigne