Iceland review - 2013, Page 42

40 ICELAND REVIEW
from the West Fjords and as far away as the
Netherlands and Germany traveling to Flatey
to buy and sell goods.
Good conditions for livestock grazing and
rich fishing grounds are said to have resulted
in a higher quality of living than in other
areas in West Iceland. Among Breiðafjörður’s
abundant resources are fish, seal (the meat
is a source of food, the blubber was used
for lighting and the skins and furs to make
clothes and shoes), birds (the meat and eggs
are considered delicacies) and seaweed (used
as food, animal fodder, fuel, fertilizer and for
medicinal purposes).
With this in mind, much of the food at
the hotel restaurant is sourced locally. On the
menu are blue mussels, cod, lamb, lumpfish,
and trout with fresh seaweed, which chef
Sveinn Kjartansson picks along the island’s
shores. “We do have a veggie garden but I
don’t really use a lot of green veggies here.
I use seaweed instead and mix it with herbs,
salt, sesame seeds and oil,” he says. And it
isn’t just Sveinn who is keen on the seaweed.
“When I was here a few years ago, I saw
these sheep going with their lambs down to
the sea. I asked Guðmundur [Páll Ólafsson,
local seaweed expert] what they were doing
and he said they eat the seaweed!”
CuLTurAL HuB
Along with its standing as a trade center,
Flatey became the main center of culture
and education in Iceland around the middle
of the 19th century. Flateyjarbók, (the Book
of Flatey), the largest and one of the most
important ancient Icelandic saga manuscripts,
was preserved on the island in the Middle
Ages. In 1864, the country’s first library
was built on the island and in 1926, Flatey’s
current church. The church’s interior was
decorated by Baltasar Samper, the renowned
artist and father of film director Baltasar
Kormákur, in exchange for accommoda-
tion on the island, and is considered one of
the region’s attractions. The unconventional
mural depicts Jesus wearing a lopapeysa, a
traditional Icelandic woolen sweater, standing
alongside two local sheep farmers.
The other buildings scattered across the
island consist mostly of colorful 19th cen-
tury houses, most of which are owned by
the families of Flatey’s former residents and
have been renovated and turned into sum-
mer homes. Ingibjörg is one of those lucky
few to own a house—two in fact—on Flatey.
Her husband’s family’s roots lie in Flatey and
they’ve been spending their summers on the
island for years.
The old houses are an attraction in them-
selves. “I walked around taking photos of
all the fronts of the houses,” says Antoinette
Block, visiting from The Netherlands, her
travel companion Petra Hendriks explaining
that she works as a designer of tree houses.
“There’s a lot of inspiration here,” Hendriks
says.
FAMILY AFFAIr
Although there’s been a trend towards visitors
staying longer, there are still plenty of day trip-
pers. Katrín Baxter and Trausti Hákonarson
from Akureyri, North Iceland, are enjoying
lunch on the hotel verandah, soaking in the
unusually warm temperatures before they hop
back on the ferry. “It’s something we’ve want-
ed to do for a long time. We’re on our way to
Rauðasandur [in the West Fjords] and thought
we’d stop along the way,” they explain.
Hotel Flatey very much feels like a family-
run affair with the same staff returning year
after year. Among them are two of Ingibjörg’s
grandchildren, siblings Kolfinna Nikulásdóttir
and Nikulás Stefán Nikulásson, both artists
based in Reykjavík. “We’ve worked here since
we were kids. I started when I was 15—it
was my first job—and I’ve worked here every
summer since, apart from one year when I
tried to stay in Reykjavík but I missed it so
much,” Kolfinna remembers. During their
spare time on the island, they work on their
artwork, with Stefán, as his friends call him,
coming up with an unusual idea for a souve-
nir: coffins for puffins.
Come autumn and it’s time for Ingibjörg to
close the hotel and head back to Reykjavík
where she runs catering company Mensa. “I
would like to have it open longer but there
just isn’t a big enough market,” she says.
“Sometimes people ask why I have been
doing this so long. The only answer I can give
them is that I love it. If I didn’t I would stop
straight away. I will never get rich doing this
but I knew that from the start.”
top: stop and smell the roses: Rannveig in the
veggie garden. Bottom: Many of the same people
return year after year to work at the hotel.