Iceland review - 2015, Page 66

64 ICELAND REVIEW
talked about it all the time.” Born and raised in Húsavík, Örlygur
had the island in sight most days. “It allured me. I longed to go
there.” However, Örlygur first visited Flatey at 17 when he was
working as a fisherman. While no one lived there anymore, and
the island’s roughly 15 houses were left to decay, fishermen still
regularly docked there and processed their catch.
Then something happened. “People move from the country-
side to the city, growing up with stories from their provenance.
Then they start wanting a refuge outside in nature, building
summerhouses. Eventually they return to their roots; there’s
been an awakening in rebuilding abandoned farms.” Örlygur
has begun restoring his house on Flatey. He recollects the first
time he and his wife, Valgerður Gunnarsdóttir, an MP for the
Independence Party, stayed in the house in the early 2000s. “My
grandparents built it in 1929 and it had been abandoned for 40
years.” All the modern amenities were lacking. “There was a
small gas stove which my wife used for cooking and my first job
was fetching water from the well. It was a special experience.”
Without running water in his house, there were no showers
either. “Part of the charm is not having the same comforts as at
home. It does one good, as it brings one closer to what life was
like at the beginning of the last century. It’s kind of liberating.”
Ingi’s daughter Helga agrees. When her family first acquired a
house on Flatey at the turn of the millennium, she found joy in
heating it with firewood. “I was the one who fought the electric-
ity the longest,” she smiles. Today, the family uses a diesel motor
and solar cells for producing power and oil for heating. They’ve
also fitted the well with a pump, providing their house and four
others with running water, and put in a septic tank for the toilet,
which they flush with rainwater.
OUT OF THE FOG
Suddenly, we catch a glimpse of outlines through the fog—
there’s land ahead. Out of the mist appears an island. Smooth,
it rises from the gray ocean surface, separating itself from the
dull sky above. Flatey is bright green in contrast to the colorless
surroundings, dotted with many-hued houses. Soundlessly, we
drift closer.
“This is coming home,” says Ingi’s 16-year-old daughter
Ingibjörg Ósk Ingvarsdóttir, who has traveled with her family
to the abandoned island every year since birth. “We come here
for peace and quiet, to disconnect from the outside world. It’s
a place where we can spend time together as a family,” adds
her 25-year-old sister, Helga Margrét Ingvarsdóttir. “Back in
Húsavík dad’s always working, and even if he’s rebuilding houses
on Flatey, life is not as busy.”
Flatey, as the name indicates, is flat; its highest point being
22 meters (72 feet). It’s also small, only measuring 262 hectares
(647 acres). It’s hard to imagine that the island used to accom-
modate a largely sustainable community of 120 people, some
400 sheep and ten cattle mid-last century. Islanders practiced
fishing and farming, hunted seals, picked eggs and eider down
from nests. A school, church, community center, lighthouse,
store and facilities for storing and processing fish were located
on the island, as well as an airstrip and a harbor.
It’s only 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) to the closest shore in
Flateyjardalur valley. The two communities were tight-knit
until the valley was abandoned in the early 1950s. Even though
there were grounds for continued habitation on Flatey—a large
generator which provided electricity and running water had
been established—the young people started moving away to
attend secondary school. In 1967, the remaining 50 inhabitants
on Flatey left the island for good, mostly relocating to Húsavík,
25 kilometers (14 nautical miles) away by boat.
BACK TO THE ROOTS
“Flatey leaves no one untouched. It’s like stepping 50-60 years
back in time. Everything was left the way it was, a whole com-
munity. All that’s missing are the people. As you walk between
the houses, you can imagine what life was like there, you can pic-
ture the children playing,” says lawyer Örlygur Hnefill Jónsson,
who chairs the Flatey House Owners’ Association, established in
2005. Örlygur and his family own the house where his mother,
Emilía Sigurjónsdóttir, grew up on Flatey. “It was her island. She
TRAVEL
View of the island with the house Grund in the foreground.
Gemstones at the shore.