The Icelandic Canadian - 01.10.2002, Qupperneq 23

Vol. 57 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
65
North America, to find a better life, an eas-
ier life.
Eighteen pilgrims. Some of us came to
write, and others to teach writing. Some
only to rest. But Richard wanted to fish.
Arctic char, cod. He needed to rise early in
the morning to dangle a string down from
the boat or the dock into the cold Icelandic
water. Until a few months ago I had never
even dreamed of visiting Iceland. But I’d
hatched a plan too; intended to mark my
own series of trails north, and south, and
east from the hamlet, to witness the lives of
Icelandic birds, and flowers, rocks, to
scribble again in my overseas journal. My
travel plans, in that sense at least, have
become entirely predictable.
We arrived finally in the early afternoon
in Hofsos, an ancient trading post and fish-
ing village of some three hundred people,
cast on the eastern shore of Skagafjordur
and less than seventy-five kilometres south
of the Arctic Circle. Eight hundred kilome-
tres nearer the North Pole than the port of
Churchill, Manitoba but, because of the
Gulf Stream, reporting winter tempera-
tures an average of twenty-five degrees
Celsius warmer. A land so green, so beau-
teous and austere. A land completely with-
out mosquitoes, not one single Churchill
mosquito. I’ll never forget the swarm and
buzz, the sting of those northern mosqui-
toes.
No trees anywhere on the Hofsos hori-
zon, except those planted and nurtured in
village yards. Nothing to block our view of
the rim of flatland along the fjord, the
basalt and cliffs that fell to the sea, moun-
tains that clambered from emerald pastures
up toward the cold and the snow. Nothing
to hide the headland of Drangey, home of
Grettir the old saga outlaw, home of a mil-
lion nesting birds puffin and murre, fulmar
and guillemot and kittiwake, looming six
miles distant over the water. No object to
mask the sun’s peculiar circle round the
broad Icelandic sky.
Thrift bank. Common scurvygrass.
Alpine cinquefoil. Hairy stonecrop, wild
pansy, and nootka lupine. Marsh marigold
bloomed in the bogs and ditches. Heath
dog-violet and trailing azalea. Dandelions,
our common North American weed some
species of the genus Taraxacum smiled and
waved on the hillside along the river. The
name dandelion borrowed from the Old
French dent de lion, tooth of the lion, a ref-
erence no doubt to its sharply indented
leaves. The plant is cultivated in several
countries for food, for its medicinal prop-
erties; it may contain more nutrients than
most of the foods grown in your garden.
Lady smock. Moss campion and moon-
wart. Alpine mouse-ear. Northern gentian.
I left my small room in the house next to
the church in the village of Hofsos and
walked with my plant guide and bird guide
and Pentax binoculars along the main street
and past the scattered houses. Red roof,
and black roof, or green, aluminum siding
and stucco, these Icelandic houses. I
marched over the river and north to the dirt
road that skirted the shining fjord.
Whimbrels scoured the lawns around
me. Ringed plovers and European golden-
plovers. One redwing sang on a rooftop.
Gravel scrunched under my feet. Black-
tailed godwits those cinnamon birds with
their long legs and long bills and black and
white markings in flight, a pair called from
above. And Arctic terns, Sterna paradisaea
kria, both their Icelandic name and the
sound of their reckless call from the pas-
ture.
I had already begun to contemplate the
difficulties of my life here on Skagafjordur.
Seven days in Iceland, each trail I chose dis-
missed so many others, each hour I slept an
hour of daylight wasted; I felt wrenched in
every inverse direction. June, two weeks
until the summer solstice. Last night at
midnight and the sun still bright in the
northern sky; I felt exhausted, I needed to
sleep. But I wished even more to go out on
the boat with Jon the fisherman. He said in
a half hour I would catch six large cod,
more than enough for tomorrow’s group
supper.
The appropriate time for guidelines I
thought, my body wouldn’t do well with-
out structure, the wisdom of middle age.
And I’m not an easy sleeper in any case. I
decided every night at eleven p.m. to begin
preparations for bed. To pour a nightcap.
To complete my daily diaries, read two or
three pages from a book. In a manner of