Iceland review - 2014, Page 20

18 ICELAND REVIEW
PeoPLe
ostwald helgason Spring/Summer 2014.
I’m ‘supervising’ the haymaking here at Brekka,” laughed vilhjálmur
Hjálmarsson, farmer and former Minister of education and Culture,
when Iceland Review called him about his new 320-page long book:
Örnefni í Mjóafirði (‘Topographical names in Mjóifjörður’), the fjord
in the east Fjords where he was born and lived for most of his long
and notable life.
The publishing date, September 20, was set because it would be his
100th birthday.
Three days after the phone call, vilhjálmur died peacefully at his
farm, on July 14.
When vilhjálmur was born in 1914, at Brekka, 420 people lived in
Mjóifjörður. now, a hundred years later, the population is 23 and has
halved in the last decade.
Mjóifjörður is the most remote fjord in the east Fjords, and only
in 1959 was the road connecting it with rest of the country con-
structed—and today still, 55 years later, the road is open only during
the summer months.
vilhjálmur didn’t start writing until he retired in 1981, then
67-years-old, and his last book, Örnefni í Mjóafirði, will be his 27th.
“yes this is probably my last one, i am getting older,” vilhjálmur
told us, adding that the haymaking had been good so far this summer.
“it’s been so warm, warmer than usual, if i remember correctly.” *
By PÁll StefÁnSSon
laST WorDS