Inspired in Iceland: Nature, Art and Bloody Sagas

Carved rock sculptures in Husafell by the artist Pàll Guömundsson were scattered in the mountainous paths around his studio.

When the opportunity arose to go Iceland with my wife Lona and our older son and his family, I grabbed it. Iceland’s a country I’ve wanted to see for a long time, and what a treat it was! Iceland was cool (highs in the fifties) and very windy in the midst of the hot and humid summer of Washington D.C. To be honest, it was good to take off my parka when I returned home a couple of weeks ago. Summer is supposed to be hot; we have enough cold in the winter. Being a writer now I was drawn to the famous Icelandic sagas. I read one of the first sagas, Egil’s Saga. What a bloody history after the Norwegian Vikings discovered and first settled the lonely island: killing and then more killing. Tough guys. Egil started his murderous path when he was seven. He used an ax to split open the head of a boy who was a few years older and bullying him. The irony is that Egil was also noted as a poet. A further irony is that while the slaughtering took place, Iceland set up one of the first democratic parliamentary democracies (Althing) in the tenth to twelfth centuries for running the country and establishing law. Nothing is ever just one way. Kill, write nostalgic poems, drown “witches” and adulterous women, construct the finest boats and most beautiful art, and establish a parliamentary democracy. The Vikings did it all at once; it’s like a crazy package. Don’t guess what’s in the box without unwrapping it. Don’t judge anything too quickly! A major challenge of traveling is digesting the layers of complexity, or at least trying to do so. You’ll never succeed completely.

Standing on the tectonic rift. Enough said.

Nordic lands have a cold, stark, rugged beauty that seeps into my imagination. That contributes to another irony: despite the harsh conditions and struggles to survive, the Inuits of the Arctic in northern Canada are a rich source of art: magnificent stone and ivory and whalebone sculptures, and imaginative stone cut and etchings and stencil prints. Alaskan Eskimos also are famous for their carvings and scrimshaw. That lonely, cold environment of snow and ice and subzero weather bursts with expressive art, which I collect.

The land’s rugged beauty and the jagged coastlines seeped into my imagination.

I carry my trusty digital camera when I wander from home, as I did in Iceland. When I “click,” it’s not always using a mouse on the computer. I point and shoot by pressing the button on my pocket size Canon and then carry the images home. The vast lava fields at the Blue Lagoon and elsewhere all over the island, the snow capped mountains, jagged coastline and the absence of trees were like moonscapes. We walked along the stream and rift created by the separation of two tectonic plates underneath Iceland. We hiked down manmade tunnels (with guide, of course!) lit with LED lights that penetrate 100 feet into glacier Langjökull and have eerie blue ice walls.

A hike 100 feet down into the Langjökull glacier tunnel – just a chilly 0 degrees!

The sparseness of it all –meadows of green and browns dotted with a single house or old church – seemed like Hopper paintings. We spent two nights in the elegant Bùdir Hotel in the middle of nowhere surrounded by lava fields with distant mountains and a rugged coastline. The carved rock sculptures in Husafell by the artist Pàll Guömundsson were scattered in the mountainous paths around his studio. And the lively colors of the houses in Reykjavik and elsewhere – oh, my! I need to repaint my house, give it the sparkle to match Iceland houses. I’ll give you just a teaser of pictures here. It’s not the real thing, for that you’ve got to go there, but it’s a taste. Enjoy.