ICELAND continued from page 21
sand beaches, and unbelievable rock formations created by hot lava meeting cold ocean. We stopped to look at two wind-
whipped waterfalls. One is so tall you can walk behind it. At The Folk Museum at Skogare, we really lucked in when we met a living national treasure by the name of Thordue Skogasam. At the age of 95, he can play a mean church organ in an unbelievable outdoor museum that he helped create.
You should see the tiny unheated
(no fuel) sod (hobbit) houses that people actually lived in until the late 1950s! There was so much to see and experience that time flew. Back to Reykjavik for dinner we went, to choose between arctic char or lamb. The next day’s tour was up the
west Iceland coast. We followed the shoreline to a 5.7 km tunnel that dove under a fiord – and cut off about 50 km of driving. The landscape was the continued on page 40
glacier rivers right up to the 1970s. The area was still living a Middle Ages lifestyle of abject consumer poverty right up to Iceland’s independence in 1944. The area was then teleported into the 20th century within a mere 30 years. The result for us is an area
rich in history, told by the last generation who actually lived a medieval life of “if you could not find it on the beach or create the material from your livestock and could not fashion it into something useful you did without”. Leaving Reykjavik, we
climbed into the stark treeless mountains and glaciers stained with white ice, black lava and green moss. Then we dropped into an Alberta-like prairie, lodged between the severe mountains and black sandy beaches. We passed a geothermal power
plant, one of five that produces 30 per cent of the electricity and 85 per cent of the heating. (It costs about $50 a month to heat and light an average-sized house.) We got down to Vik for some
great traditional lamb soup. Our necks were sore from looking at the mountains and glaciers. On our return trip, we stopped to marvel at a glacier, the black
www.bounder.ca BOUNDER MAGAZINE 31
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