Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.08.2016, Side 60

TRAVEL ICONS
Search & Rescue
With Tom Cruise
Anton loves the highlands and has
been known to save lives
Words VALUR GUNNARSSON Photos ANNA DOMINICK
Most Reykvíkingar tend to think
that being born outside of the cap-
ital is some terrible accident that
needs to be corrected as soon as
possible, and in fact the last hun-
dred years saw a mass migration
to the big city, with new urbanites
pouring in from all over Iceland.
But thanks to the tourism boom,
employment prospects have
opened up and enabled people to
stay put in their hometowns. Tour-
ism has also created a demand for
local knowledge, which has made
young people passionately inter-
ested in their surroundings. One
such person Anton F., who is a
guide and co-owner of Geotravel
Iceland. Geotravel specialises in
tours criss-crossing the desolate
highlands, taking in such splen-
did scenery as the newly minted
Holuhraun lava field (which only
came into existence a couple of
years ago) and the stunning Askja
volcanic crater.
“My father and grandfather
both took tours here, but it’s only
in recent years that it has changed
from being a part-time job for
farmers to a full-time career,” says
Anton, 27, who was born by Lake
Mývatn.
But you yourself are also a farmer?
“One is always a farmer at heart. I
own a pig-and-a-half along with a
cousin, and some sheep. We must
remember where we come from,
and it is very relaxing to deliver
lambs or to cut wool.”
So you expect to live here your
whole life?
“That has always been the plan. I
have lived in Spain and Australia
and my wife is from Estonia, so we
go there every year. I met her eight
years ago when she was an au pair
here, and thankfully she decided
to stay. Mývatn is becoming a little
bit of a multi-cultural society, peo-
ple come from all over to work here
in the summer and some stay on.”
Mývatn, about an hour’s drive
east of Akureyri, is a community
of some 400 people clustered in a
few settlements around the sce-
nic lake. But the population goes
up to well over 2,000 in the sum-
mer, and as many as 700,000 peo-
ple pass through each year. This
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2016
58
brings with it benefits beyond
employment. “We have seven res-
taurants now in this small area,”
Anton says.
‘Game of Thrones’
comes to town
On his days off from travelling
the highlands, Anton tends to,
well, travel the highlands, tak-
ing his one-man tent with him to
Askja. His other passion is Iceland
Search and Rescue, with whom he
volunteers.
“My interest in mountaineering
initially came from taking part in
the Search and Rescue team youth
program,” he explains. “When you
get older, you take full part in the
operations.” Anton is always on
call. “Sometimes there are one or
two operations a week, then there
are quiet times in between.”
The rescue squads subsist on do-
nations, but one important aspect
of the funding is working on the
many film projects up here ‘Game
of Thrones’ has come through Mý-
vatn in recent years, and ‘Fast 8’
was here just this past winter.
Anton says that the worst job he
ever had was turning tourists away
from the Dettifoss waterfall during
the filming of Ridley Scott’s ‘Pro-
metheus’. “People looked like they
wanted to throw me into the water-
fall, and I felt like I deserved it.” Tom
Cruise also got a mixed reception
from local farmers when grazing
areas were closed off for the making
of ‘Oblivion’.
“Those guys showed up for
work in helicopters, but they mostly
stayed around Akureyri,” Anton re-
calls. “Our job was to keep specta-
tors from taking photos of the set.”
Still, the money they brought in
contributed to the rescue service.
“Yes, it may even be said that Tom
Cruise has saved lives in the area,”
says the mountaineer.
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