Jökull - 01.01.2020, Page 139

Sturkell and Gudmundsson
(1723 m a.s.l.) and Svíahnúkur vestari (1703 m a.s.l.).
The names translate to Swedes peak (east and west).
The huts of the Iceland Glaciological Society, built in
1957–1994 are located on the eastern peak.
In March-April of 1934 a jökulhlaup occurred in
Skeiðará, triggering an eruption in Grímsvötn. This
event spurred the Danish professor Niels Nielsen to
make an expedition to Vatnajökull 1934 and again
1936. Nielsen (1937 p. 33) recognizes the achieve-
ments of Hakon Wadell and Erik Ygberg, and states
“gav vigtige videnskablige Resultater” = provided im-
portant scientific results. They were correct with the
reason and the source of the jökulhlaup. These fine
words and recognition did not reach Sweden. In 1936
Hans W:son Ahlman made an important expedition to
Vatnajökull. He just mentions Hakon and Erik in two
lines on page 20 (Ahlman 1936). An interesting coin-
cidence is that Ahlman met the same Dagbjartur who
helped Hakon and Erik to retrieve the equipment 27
years earlier.
Hakon and Erik should have received much more
credit for their achievement, both the expedition and
the scientific results. However, their legacy is still
manifested with the names of the two peaks at Gríms-
fjöll – Svíahnúkar.
Hakon Wadell in his later
years (from J. Harlen Bretz
obituary, 1964). – Hakon
Wadell á miðjum aldri (úr
minningargrein J. Harlen
Bretz frá 1964).
Hakon Wadell
The first thing to unravel in relation to Hakon Wadell
is the name. In all printed material, except one time
the name Hakon is used. In a text for Morgunblaðið
(21st and 23rd September) that was translated with a
slightly longer account of the expedition and this is
signed by Håkon Wadell. This was a telephone in-
terview and most likely the journalist got the name
wrong, so it is probably Hakon.
Hakon was born in Gothenburg 1895. After his
military service he started his studies at the Stock-
holm Högskola in 1918 and graduated in 1920. As
stated earlier, he published a scientific article in the
Swedish journal Geografiska Annaler with the results
of the Vatnajökull expedition (Wadell, 1920a), which
sadly received little recognition in Sweden. He moved
to Central America where he worked in the petroleum
industry. In the mid-twenties he moved to the United
States. In 1932 he received a Ph.D. in Geology from
the University of Chicago. He worked as a geologist
for several companies on the American continent. He
published many research articles, mainly in sedimen-
tology. It is for this work that he is best known, and
various terminology, including suggesting the adap-
tion of the term sedimentology for the field was made
by him in the nineteen thirties (Wadell, 1932a,b, 1933,
1938). He passed away in 1962. In an obituary writ-
ten by J. Haren Bretz at the University of Chicago,
who was Hakon Wadell’s friend and a sometime men-
tor, Bretz describes Hakon as a very sensitive person,
a deep thinker and a perfectionist.
Erik Ygberg
Erik was born 1896 in Västerhaninge just south of
Stockholm. In 1915 he started his studies at the Stock-
holm Högskola. After completing his geology stud-
ies in 1922 he and his wife Ria left Sweden. Erik
worked as an international prospector, but after some
years, the injuries he got during the expedition in Ice-
land came back. Because of the injuries the cou-
ple returned to Sweden. He continued working with
prospecting. After some time, he got a position at the
Department of Mineralogy at the Swedish Museum of
Natural History and in 1937 he moved to the Swedish
Geological Survey (SGU). At the time the museum
and the survey were in the same building. He worked
at the SGU until his death in 1953 only 57 years old.
In 1945 (4th Oct) he got an article published in the
newspaper Aftonbladet about the expedition (Ygberg,
1945). He provided the newspaper with four pho-
tos (one used in the article) and these were returned
to him. These photos were later found at the Mu-
seum of Natural History by geologist Erik Jonsson.
136 JÖKULL No. 70, 2020