Iceland review - 2014, Page 6

4 ICELAND REVIEW
What I would miss the most if I moved from Iceland
is not the politics or the half-awake volcanoes.
not the darkness of winter or the endless summer
days. not the greenest of moss or the singing of the
plover. no. It would simply be the swimming pools.
there is no place like them, lying there staring at the
sky, daydreaming, embraced by the warm water. or
you can just empty your mind and recharge your
batteries. or do 1,000 meters of breaststroke. or the
trudgen stroke.
every village or town in Iceland has one; even the
tiny island of Grímsey with its less than one hundred
souls walking on the Arctic Circle.
In this issue we visit another kind of water: the
wonderful world of an ice cave in Vatnajökull glacier
made from rain and snow that fell on it 1,200 years ago,
the time when Iceland was first settled by the norse
Vikings. It was strange to touch its walls, thinking that
the rain that soaked Ingólfur Arnarson, Iceland’s first
settler, on nearby Ingólfshöfði cape in the year 874
was now ending its journey as ice, melting back to
water.
the third type of water in this issue is to be found in
the Geysir area; we explain who owns the area around
the geysers. In early spring, a debate arose in Iceland
after the landowners of the surrounding area decided
to start charging travelers to visit the geysers. the
government intervened and—at least for now—visiting
Geysir remains free of charge.
With one million tourists visiting Iceland this year,
we must find the right solution to protect the fragile
nature of Iceland, and let visitors contribute to the
cost.
We have that obligation to the next generation of
people, living in and coming and going to Iceland.
Some of them for a swim.
Páll Stefánsson
ps@icelandreview.com
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in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher. ISSN 0019-1094. Iceland Review (ISSN:0019-1094) is published
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Printed in Iceland by Oddi
editor
Páll stefánsson
dePuty And
FeAtures editor
Ásta Andrésdóttir
desiGn
erlingur Páll ingvarsson
contributinG
Writers
Gísli kristjánsson
Guðmundur magnússon
halldór lárusson
Zoë robert
contributinG
PhotoGrAPhers
Áslaug snorradóttir
haukur sigurðsson
magnús Ólafsson
rAx
vilhelm Gunnarsson

Web editor
eygló svala Arnarsdóttir (on leave)
Zoë robert
coPy editor
Zoë robert
ProoFreAder
julie ingham
Production
erlingur Páll ingvarsson
color Production
Páll kjartansson
AdvertisinG sAles
sunna mist sigurðardóttir
sverrir h. Geirmundsson
Advertising Sales sunna@heimur.is
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From the editor
You, blue mountain space! With your bright glacier ring,
In midsummer I flee to your heart,
O take me in your arms where I shall sing my loss away
On a summer night by the bright swans’ lakes.
(from The High Mountains by Steingrímur Thorsteinsson 1831-1913, translated by Bernard Scudder)
p
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o
to
B
y
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A
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.