Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.06.2015, Page 34

34 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 7 — 2015CULTURE
It was at a reconstruction of Þuríður’s
old fishing cabin in the South Iceland
town of Stokkseyri, on a visit in 2000,
that American anthropologist Margaret
Willson became endeared to Þuríður’s
story. During the next several years,
questions surrounding the famous female
captain, and other Icelandic sea women
like her, began stewing in Margaret’s
mind. When she asked Icelanders about
the history of Icelandic women at sea,
fishing and crewing on boats, she came
up empty-handed.
“It’s like they were invisible,”
Margaret says. “I just didn’t believe it. I
grew up on the Oregon coast. I fished.
I just thought, of course women have
fished here, too.”
She knew Þuríður’s era wasn’t the
only one that included sea women, and
began researching and compiling a
history of female seafarers. From 2009-12,
she spent seven months finding modern
Icelandic women working in fishing and
maritime industries, and conducting
interviews. In 2013, she received a grant
from the National Geographic Society to
continue her research, and she teamed
up with Íris Gudbjargardóttir, a specialist
at the Reykjavík Maritime Museum, who
had been investigating the topic on her
own as well.
Iceland’s invisible seafarers
“People in Iceland say, ‘There haven’t
been any fisherwomen really. There
aren’t any now,’” Íris says. “But that’s just
not true.”
One of those fisherwomen, Jónína
Hansen, has been working at sea for
almost 20 years as a ship’s engineer. She
got started in her twenties and came
from a family where everyone, women
included, worked at sea.
“We are all raised by the sea. I am
sometimes surprised that there are so
few Icelandic women on the sea, because
we are so fascinated by the sea,” Jónína
says.
In addition to Jónína, Margaret
compiled a list of more than 250 Icelandic
sea women and interviewed 150 of them.
She discovered records of Icelandic sea
women going back to medieval times,
laws from the 1700s guaranteeing their
equal pay to men for the same sea work,
and numbers that suggest that in the late
1800s, thirty percent of seafarers in West
Iceland were women.
This research is the subject of
Margaret’s forthcoming book, ‘Survival
On The Edge: The Sea Women Of
Iceland’ and an exhibit opening on
June 5 at the Maritime Museum. With
Margaret’s research, Íris has been the
charge of the exhibit, which will feature
old photographs, documents and stories
of Icelandic women at sea.
The exhibit and Margaret’s research
show a dynamic history of Iceland’s sea
women, who were bolstered at points
by public perception of them as heroes,
strained during others, when they were
perceived as ugly and unfeminine.
“Up until the late 1800s, the sea
women were written about with great
respect,” Margaret says. “In the late
1800s, Iceland began to see itself as a
more modern country, and the model
Icelandic woman became the mother and
housewife.”
Going against the current
The exhibit’s opening coincides with the
100th anniversary of the women’s right to
vote in Iceland, which occurred several
decades before women on larger modern
vessels started getting back out to sea
again in greater number.
The sea had become a male-
dominated space, and women knew
they were considered out-of-place on
the ships. “By the mid-1900s, the women
that were going out to sea knew they
were going, as they put it, ‘against the
current,’” Margaret says.
And though Iceland’s 124-year-old
School of Navigation (formerly known as
the Navigation College of Reykjavík) has
graduated women for the last 39 years,
including Jónína, she says that even with
a degree there is still some adversity to
overcome in order to get on a boat.
“I think there are some men that are
just nervous about having a woman on
their boat, especially if she’s educated,”
Jónína adds.
This is one of several challenges
Iceland’s modern sea woman is up
against. The evolution of selling,
marketing and processing practices in
the industry has meant longer stints out
at sea—four to six weeks—in recent years,
which is difficult for many mothers.
The consolidation of fishing rights
into the hands of few across fewer
communities means
more women must
leave their towns to
find fishing work.
This means financing
the move, asking
around for work from
captains and crew
that are unfamiliar to
them, and doing so
without the familial
support that sea
women, who might start as young as 16
or 17 years old, could benefit from.
They have little to no representation
or involvement in policymaking that
occurs in Reykjavík, where decisions that
affect them about the nation’s fishing
policies and rights are made.
Bringing to light their story
But on the sea, most women become
equal members of the crew. They do any
number of jobs with varying degrees of
power and responsibility. They are part
of oceanic families, building endearing
friendships with fellow crewmates and
doling out daring banter like any salty
seafarer.
“There are hilarious stories of the
women one-upping the guys. There’s
this humour, feistiness
and self-respect the
sea women possess,”
Margaret says.
Jónína recalls that
one of her best times at sea was the rush
of catching 150 tons of cod on longlines
in just three to four days, despite losing
four fingernails in the process. Her stories
and life at sea have inspired all four of her
kids, including her daughter, to work on
ships as engineers themselves.
When asked about her first
impressions of being at sea, Jónína
immediately responded, “Freedom.”
“When you are at sea, you have the
greatest peace in your mind,” she said.
According to Margaret, all of the
women she talked with expressed a
similar passion for their work. “The
women all talk about a love of being out
there,” Margaret says. “What a privilege
it is to be out there. Life becomes very
simple, the stresses from land fall away;
they have a job to do.”
Born in 1777 and out to sea by 1788, Captain Þuríður was
a legend among Iceland’s seafarers. Þuríður brought in
the largest catches, read the weather as keen as a bird
and fished for 60 years without losing a single crewmem-
ber. People wanted to be on Þuríður’s crew; they wanted
to work for the woman who wore pants and noticed life-
saving details and women, especially, wanted to work for
Þuríður because she made it a point to hire them.
Words
Alex Baumhardt
Photo & Illustration
Provided by ‘Survival On The Edge: The Sea
Women Have Always
Made Waves Here
Unearthing the history of Iceland’s
most overlooked sea workers
ARTISAN BAKERY
& COFFEE HOUSE
OPEN EVERYDAY 6.30 - 21.00
LAUGAVEGUR 36 · 101 REYKJAVIK
“There are hilarious
stories of the women
one-upping the guys.
There’s this humour,
feistiness and self-re-
spect the sea women
possess.”
Reykjavík Maritime
MuseumOpens on June 5
Seawomen