Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.04.2015, Síða 30

These people are amongst the 60 or so
residents of Drangsnes, a small fishing vil-
lage in the remote region of Strandir. The
closest pizzeria is located in Hólmavík,
a slightly larger town populated by 337
people. Fifteen years ago, nobody would
even have thought of ordering pizza from
Hólmavík—it would have taken almost two
hours on an unpaved road to make the trip
there and back. Fifteen years ago, if you
wanted a pizza in Drangsnes, you simply
made it yourself—at least that’s what my
friends and I did, growing up there in the
late 1990s and early 2000s.
I arrived there from India with my
adoptive parents at eight months old, the
first adopted resident of Drangsnes, to
my knowledge. I’m told that I was adored
from the start, but then new babies tend
to cause excitement in small places. I
rarely noticed that I was a little different. I
had a complete sense of belonging to this
tiny place and its people. Icelanders, es-
pecially those from the countryside, often
attach much of their identity to their place
of upbringing—and so do I. People some-
times ask me where I’m from, and though I
know they’re usually wondering about my
foreign roots, my first instinct is always to
say,
“I am from Drangsnes.”
The fishing village was founded in 1930s.
With the ocean proving fruitful, the munic-
ipality built a fish processing plant and an
elementary school in the 40s, which both
remain central to today’s community. Un-
regulated fishing allowed the population
to prosper and at its most flourishing pe-
riod to date, the 1950s, about 300 people
inhabited the village. But the population
has fluctuated along with the stock of cod,
prawn and other fish, upon which the lo-
cal economy is dependent. More recently,
Iceland’s quota system, which was intro-
duced in the 1980s, has also made it dif-
ficult for local fishermen to compete with
larger fisheries. How can a one-man com-
pany with a single five-tonne boat com-
pete with a company that has dozens of
employees and a fleet of hundred-tonne
trawlers?
Of course, such matters didn’t con-
cern me. I was just enjoying the privileges
of growing up in my tiny hometown.
In a community this small, it’s inevi-
table that everyone knows everyone, and
in my experience they are there for you
when you need support. In Reykjavík, I
hardly know the names of my next-door
neighbours, whereas in Drangsnes I know
every villager by name, and three quarters
of them are my relatives. Children have
the freedom to be outside on their own,
without anyone worrying too much about
them, even after dark.
Some of my best childhood memories
are of the outdoors, exploring the shore-
lines, the moors, and my grandparents’
farmland or soaking in the hot tubs. Chil-
dren of all ages played together outside.
Since there were often only one or two
kids born in the same year, it seemed
natural to us that the fourteen-year-olds
would play with the seven-year-olds, and
so on.
In elementary school we also all
played together during recess. The school
typically has fifteen to twenty students—
divided into three classes—and three to
five teachers. This student-teacher ratio
enables the teachers to tend to each stu-
dent individually and to be creative in their
teaching. For example, the well-known
musician Borkó has taught at the school
for several years and now all the kids are
talented instrumentalists. In my school
years, other teachers sparked my inter-
est in creative writing. One of them was
also my best friend’s mother, who was like
a second mother to me, encouraging my
creativity both in and outside of school.
It was probably weird for my friend to
call her teacher ”Mom” and to always be
with her at work, but then again, in a com-
munity like this, parents and children don’t
live separate lives and children often start
participating in their parents’ occupation
at a young age. As a little girl, I could think
of nothing more fun than going to the pier
when my dad came from sea to unload his
catch from the boat, or tagging along to
salt lumpfish roes or hang up lumpfish for
drying—Lumpfish, an exceptionally ugly
fish, that happens to be a local speciality.
We even have a saying, "Lífið er gráslep-
pa" ("Life is a lumpfish").
Life at sea is not a
walk in the park
In the summer of 2005, at the age of fif-
teen, I started going to sea with my dad,
and that became my summer job for the
next decade.
On a typical day at sea, I wake up be-
tween three and five in the morning and
drive to the harbour, which is two kilome-
tres away because the village is too windy
for a good harbour. Then we sail for up
to three hours, looking for good fishing
spots with an echo sounder. When we find
a good spot, we lower a line with several
hooks into the sea. The reels automati-
cally detect when the fish bite, and when
that happens we start reeling them in. We
then unhook the fish and bleed them be-
fore sorting them into containers by size.
Sound easy? If so, you’re underestimating
the strength of a codfish. The workday can
last from one to fourteen hours.
Life at sea is colourful and the phrase
”cursing like a sailor” always makes per-
fect sense there. I’ve had many memo-
rable experiences at sea. Once a whale
started nosing around the boat, startling
me to a scream. Dad mocked me. When
the whale surfaced again with a huge
blow, dad screeched. Sweet vindication.
A less funny incident occurred when dad
decided to sail halfway to Greenland (ok,
maybe not, but unusually far from land)
because he’d heard of some good spot
and the boat started leaking. Poor dad
had some serious second thoughts about
bringing his only daughter to sea ever
again.
Fishing communities in decline
Today I mostly watch daily life at Drang-
snes through Facebook. Social media has
given small-town comradeship a new di-
mension, as people use it to ask for assis-
tance, share information and resources,
and order pizza. But the community is
endangered as young people—such as
myself—leave for college, many only re-
turning as visitors or summer workers.
Fishing communities like Drangsnes
are in decline, partly because government
policies tend to favour larger fisheries over
smaller ones, and partly because young
people seem less interested in the fishery
sector. But perhaps the rise in tourism will
be the solution to keeping these places
populated, as tourists are increasingly
looking for peaceful remote places. In any
case, I really hope there will be a move to
save these communities from extinction
so that people will be able to experience
this way of living.
An amusing interaction in a Facebook group caught my at-
tention the other day. A small-town resident wanted to order
pizza. Seeing a mass order as her only chance to get the piz-
zeria to deliver, she rallied her townsmen. Together they put
in their order. But the understaffed pizzeria wouldn’t budge.
Finally, someone in the group was able to make arrange-
ments to go pick up the pizzas and distribute them to the
rest. She got her pizza. But, you’re probably wondering, why
all this fuss about ordering pizza?
Photos
Guðmundur Guðmundsson/Ragna Ó. Guðmundsdóttir
Words
Ragna Ó. Guðmundsdóttir
"Life is a lumpfish"
Growing up in a remote fishing village
Drangsnes In
Numbers
71
Population (including a few who are
registered, but don’t actually live there)
30
Kilometres to the nearest town (Hól-
mavík)
5
Number of streets
33
Number of residential homes (including
9 summerhouses)
1
Number of swimming pools
260
Kilometres from Reykjavík
How Drangsnes
Got Its Name
Long ago, three night trolls set out to
separate the Westfjords from Iceland,
for the purposes of starting a troll col-
ony. For fun, they decided to compete
against each other to see who could
dig faster. Two of the trolls started in
Breiðafjörður Bay while the third, a hag,
went to Steingrímsfjörður with her ox.
The two trolls to the west created nu-
merous islands but the hag’s terrain was
tougher. As dawn approached, the two
trolls fled to Kollafjörður for shelter, but
they were too late and turned to stone
before making it there. When the hag
realised what was happening and that
she hadn’t even made a single island,
she furiously rammed her shovel into the
ground, splitting a piece from the land,
creating Grímsey island. The petrified
hag still stands and watches the island
along with her petrified ox. Drangsnes is
named after the hag, ”drangur” referring
to an upright boulder.
Top Five Things To Do
In Drangsnes
1. Go to the hot tubs – Discovering a
geothermal energy source in 1997, the
locals were quick to fill up some tubs to
soak in. This is simply a must!
2. Visit Grímsey – This island is home
to huge colonies of sea birds, including
adorable puffins.
3. Go fishing – Sea angling is an exhila-
rating experience and it comes with the
chance of seeing whales.
4. Eat some lumpfish – Lumpfish is pro-
cessed in two different ways: the female
fish is half-dried and the male smoked.
5. Pick wild berries – In autumn, the
region is rich with crowberries and the
juiciest bilberries.
30 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 4 — 2015TRAVEL
How to get there: Head to the Westfjords! Go through Búðardalur, turn right at Þröskuldar,
and follow route 645 all the way to Drangsnes.Drangsnes Distance from ReykjavíkAround 260 km