Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
Atop Eyjafjallajokull. January 10, 2016. Watercolor on paper. 3.5 x 10.5 inches.
January 10, 2016. Sunday. Hotel Natura, Reykjavik. Kathie had booked a waterfall tour. Things did not go as planned. Instead they went far better than expected. Read the journal-extract below discover what happened.
Three Super Jeeps make up our caravan. Leaving Reykjavik, we head east on Highway 1, the southern coast road. Passing route 38 on our right, the land drops away. A broad inlet off to our right is fed by an estuary that snakes across the plain below. Passing the foot of table-lands rising steeply to our left, we drive past the town of Selfoss. Our driver Arne informs us that Chess-champion Bobby Fischer is buried at a Church not far from here.
“I thought Fischer was Jewish,” I reply. “How is it that he is buried in a churchyard?”
Arne can’t say for sure, but explains that most Icelanders are Lutheran, and not by choice. When the island was under Danish rule Lutheranism was compulsory, the official denomination for all Baptisms.
“The story we were told in school,” I tell Arne, “was that Leif Ericsson had converted to Christianity a thousand years ago.”
“That may be true,” Arne replies, “but many continued to worship the old gods. Some still do.”
I tell him how indigenous Pueblo communities in the American Southwest celebrate both Catholicism and traditional Kiva mysteries, not in defiance of Christianity, but in a blending of spiritual practices. Early Christian Europe I remind him, converted pagan gods into Christian saints. Medieval cathedrals were often built on the site of Roman temples that had replaced indigenous places of worship.
“That’s interesting,” Arne replies, “but I don’ think the Lutheran church would go for it.”
One of his favorite sagas is about Odin visiting Iceland, walking from one farmstead to another, to see who still worships him.
In outlying areas along the eastern and northern coast, there was some resistance to Christianity.
“What got them to go along with it?” I ask.
“We finally agreed to accept Christianity, but only if the church let us keep our slaves and eat our horses.”
Beyond Selfoss we cross a coastal plain covered by small farms. The road traverses a broad arroyo of black volcanic gravel through which dozens of frozen streams thread pathways to the sea. At Hvolvöllur we stop for fuel, use the restroom and buy sandwiches. The drivers gather for a powwow around the gas-pumps. The lead driver is the owner of the tour company Superjeep Island (pronounced Ice-land).
Arne informs us that his boss just had a call from base. Radar is showing no inclement weather as far west as Davis Strait, on the other side of Greenland. The other drivers are talking about driving to the summit of Eyjafjallajokülll–the unpronounceable volcano that brought air-travel to a halt in 2010 when it dumped thousands of tons of ash on Europe. Like Gaelic, Icelandic orthography to non-speakers is non-phonetic. Eyjafjallayoküll sounds like Aee-yah-fee-yacht-la-yo-cook to an Angophone.
All being game, we proceeded east on highway 1 to route 249. Turning left (north) we pass Seljalandfoss waterfall, turning right onto another road that bends back to the southeast, crossing the stream that feeds the falls. The unpaved road rises, reaching at last a desolate area that seems to have been mined for gravel.
The road-surface ahead almost resembles a stream-bed. Reaching a level area after half a kilometer, the Jeeps halt. Arne gets out. He and the other drivers deflate their tires to improve traction. A short distance ahead we drive onto the snow-pack.
Arne guides the Jeep around unseen pitfalls and obstacles, at times yawing twenty degrees to one side or the other, we crawl upward.
Carefully Arne crawls along a huge snow embankment, piled up against a rocky outcropping curving upward like an amphitheater. The flat, open space below is more likely to conceal dangerous fissures and crevasses.
The third Jeep in our caravan speeds past us.“He’s young,” Arne explains. “His dad owns the company.”
Reaching a broad shelf, we stop at the edge of the glacier. Arne gets out and deflates the tires to further enhance traction. He explains that a tank of compressed air in the rear of the vehicle will be used to re-inflate them when we return to a hard surface. Jumping back into in the car, he takes off his sunglasses, replacing them with a more expensive pair hidden in the side-pocket of his door.
I asked him why change eye-wear.
“Crossing this glacier (pronounced gloss-ear). It’s full of crevasses. The snow-pack should be deep enough to keep us from falling through, but you never know. This is the first clear day we’ve had like this for nine months. It’s up to you. Shall we go for it?”
“You know,” I said. “If we do get killed, I’ll be sure to tell Saint Peter that in spite of everything, you were an excellent driver.”
Looking sharply me, he furrows his brow. Pointing upward, he asks, “What makes you think I want to go THERE?”
Atop Eyjafjallajoküll volcano, Iceland. January 10, 2016. Sunday. Note the sketchbook in hand.
Proceeding slowly at a steady pace Arne drives us up onto a snowy plateau at the crater’s edge. Another Jeep-tour caravan was already on site. On the northern edge of the shelf is a lopsided pyramid of snow, leaning away from the crater’s edge. I suppose this was created by a combination of the winds, and perhaps heat rising from the crater. People climb the giant snow-pile. I see a red parka at its summit, a child in spirit of Edward Whymper or Edmund Hillary.
Kathie and I walk south, a hundred meters from the tailgater now underway. I make two sketches with color accents, to be elaborated back at Hotel Natura, over a glass of Brennevin, Icelandic schnapps known locally as Black Death.
Silence envelopes us. Looking out toward the south we see the Vestmannaeyjar Islands, lying just offshore. The islands are named for a group of Irish slaves massacred by friends of their captor, whom they had murdered during a mutiny.
Reveling in the snowy hush of our wild isolation. Just as we feel the mountain about to whisper deep truths, a roaring blizzard almost knocks us over. Rising up from the crater is a sleek, black helicopter. Landing, the downwash of its rotors blows powdery snow is every direction. Suddenly we are in a James Bond moment. A tall thin woman in a long fur coat and thousand-dollar sunglasses steps out of the chopper, followed by an older, well-groomed man in a knee-length parka. Another man climbs down beside them, perhaps a handler, or their cicerone. Kathie and I walk back to the Superjeep cluster. A woman at the pinnacle of the tipsy pyramid calls down to friends, her words inaudible to us.
Boots-on-the-ground art-historian Kathie Manthorne at Seljalandfoss. June 10, 2016.
Down the mountain and back on blacktop, we stop at Seljalandfoss for photo ops. Again, I make a sketch, adding some color notes for later reference when I unzip the file. Skogafoss, a spectacular waterfall created by runoff from another glacier, on the southeastern slope of Eyafjallajoküll. Located next to the village of Skogár thirty kilometers further east. Today’s excursion will go no farther before returning to the city. (to be continued)
Below: Satellite view of the souther coast showing Eyjafjallaokull and Vestmannaeyjar Islands
© James Lancel McElhinney. 2016
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Disclaimer: The above is a work of fiction based on real events. Any resemblance to fact is coincidental. “Print the Legend”
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to
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