Jökull - 01.01.2020, Qupperneq 133

Sturkell and Gudmundsson
Figure 1. A simplified map based on Wadell (1920) showing the route (in blue) of Hakon and Erik in 1919.
William Lord Watts route in 1875 is given in red. Both expeditions started at the farm Kálfafell. – Kort, byggt
á korti Wadell frá 1920, af leið Hakons og Eriks um Vatnajökul 1919 (blá lína). Rauða línan sýnir leið Watts
og félaga árið 1875.
at the end of August 2019. On the 31st of August 2019
at approximately the same time and place when Erik
Ygberg and Hakon Wadell looked out over the vol-
cano hundred years ago, the group of twenty-two cele-
brated their achievement (Figure 2). Before the infor-
mal ceremony on the glacier, the group had coffee and
a cake, which had the map from Hakon Wadell’s pub-
lication 1920 on its top (Figure 3), followed by a bar-
becue. This was a fitting celebration of the achieve-
ments and discovery of the two young Swedes 100
years earlier. An achievement that was not acknowl-
edged and recognized by the Swedish geological com-
munity in the early part of the 20th century.
The 1919 expedition
The travel to Iceland started on the 26th of May 1919
from Stockholm by train. A small group embarked on
the steam ship ‘Island’ on the 31st of May. Upon ar-
rival in Reykjavik, all passengers had to stay in quar-
antine because of the Spanish flu. It was a group of
four that traveled to Iceland; the two main characters
Hakon Wadell and Erik Ygberg, the geologist Hen-
rik Strindberg and a photographer Mr. Boge. The lat-
ter two were not enthusiastic about travelling across
Vatnajökull and thus disappear from this story.
130 JÖKULL No. 70, 2020