Iceland review - 2013, Síða 14

hellO
THe naTIonal museum of Iceland
suðurgata 41, 101 reykjavík
open Tuesdays through sundays, 11am-5pm
the first telephone in reykjavík (pictured) dates back
to 1904, the year the telecommunications company
talsímahlutafélag reykjavíkur was founded. the
phone is part of the permanent exhibition at the
national Museum of iceland, which celebrates its
150th anniversary this year.
talsímahlutafélag reykjavíkur serviced the capital
only and is the country’s second-oldest telephone
company. the first was founded in Ísafjörður, the
West fjords, in 1891.
landsíminn, the state-owned monopoly tele-
communi cations company, was founded 1905 and its
first job was to contact the great northern telegraph
Company in Copenhagen to connect iceland by
cable to continental europe from shetland to
seyðisfjörður in the east fjords. the cable was ready
in 1906 and in June that year, landsíminn embarked
on the enormous task of erecting 14,000 telephone
poles, transporting them by horse the 614 kilometers
(386 miles) between reykjavík and seyðisfjörður. the
project took three months.
the summer before, when the cable contract was
signed, farmers from south and West iceland rode to
reykjavík to protest the cable, specifically the setting
up of all those telephone poles which, they argued,
would visually pollute the landscape and destroy
farmland. But their strongest argument against the
cable was that the landline was a dying technology—
radio transmissions were the future. they were right.
Mobile phones came 85 years later. PS
12 ICELAND REVIEW
09
10
tO dO in iCeland
50 crazy THIngs… x 3
snæfríður ingadóttir and Þorvaldur Örn Kristmundsson
salka
Writer snæfríður ingadóttir and photographer Þorvaldur Örn Kristmundsson
have put together three innovative guide books in recent years:
50 crazy romantic things to do in iceland, 50 crazy things to do in iceland
and 50 crazy things to taste in iceland.
in the first book, you learn to fight with ghosts and steal a kiss behind a
waterfall. in the second, you meet up with aliens, walk between continents
and hang out with the heathens. the last book is for food lovers. learn
to appreciate the taste of ram’s testicles, sheep’s heads and laufabrauð
Christmas ‘leaf bread.’ the book also discusses mysa, the Vikings’ cooler.
the guides are a great introduction to an iceland less ordinary. PS
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Culture Club