Iceland: Before I Go, Part 4/4: History Time

History in Brief

Size and Population Today

Iceland is 39,756 sq. miles, about as big as England, with .006% as many people. Or in American terms, that's 4 times the size of Massachusetts and with one-fifth of the people.  Most people live on the coast as the interior highland is uninhabitable, consisting largely of glaciers, lakes, lava, and sand.

First Settlement

Iceland is thought to have been briefly settled by Irish Monks, who then no doubt realized the country was trying to kill them, and moved on. Norse came over and permanently settled down, forming several chiefdoms that eventually were united under the what is the world’s oldest parliament.

Vikings

In early America, restless, landless young men dealt with being restless, landless young men by going west and conquering the frontier and mining for gold. In Iceland, they became Vikings. Taking advantage of new, faster ships, they raided monasteries along Britain’s coasts, before venturing as far as the Middle East and Russia. Raiding wasn’t unusual at the time; what was unusual was that the Vikings were so damn good at it.

Losing Independence

The chiefs decided, for the sake of unity, that they couldn’t be a part-pagan, part-Christian country and opted for Christianity. Around the 1200’s everything dissolved into battles between chiefs and Iceland saw a chance to restore order by accepting the Norwegian king’s rule. In the late 1300’s, Norway sold Iceland to Denmark, who imposes oppressive trading restrictions.

Regaining Independence

In 1918, Iceland became an independent state of Denmark, and move increasingly towards independence during World War 2 (in which it attempted to be neutral). In 1944, Iceland achieved official independent status, though that didn’t stop other countries from interfering in its international affairs. Britain and America occupied Iceland during WWII, and the USA would return to occupy a military base there during the Cold War.

Today

2008 marked Iceland’s major banking collapse and financial crisis. Iceland is currently trying to become part of the EU.

Iceland: Before I Go, Part 3/4: Why Iceland?

So why Iceland?

Beauty

Most of all, Iceland’s beautiful. Everyone cites the waterfalls, the glaciers, the hot springs and geysers, the lava formations and volcanoes*. It’s been a hot spot for filming movies, too. If you’re outdoorsy, Iceland sounds like a great place to go.

* Some of the volcanoes are still active. Because beautiful beautiful Iceland still wants to kill us.

Music

Iceland’s known for music, which is unexpected given that instruments were something of a luxury for much of Iceland’s history, as the people were preoccupied with not starving/freezing/smothering-under-ash to death. What people did do, though, was sign, and in the 1900’s rock hit it off in Iceland. There seems to be a whole lot of energy and diversity pouring into the music scene now.

Thanks to its relative isolation from Europe, Iceland has retained a lot of tradition, including centuries-old singing styles and a written/spoken language that’s so similar to Old Norse, Icelanders can read sagas in the original language.

Elves

Iceland has rich stories about all kinds of fairy folk, including ghosts who age and islands dotted by the forms of petrified trolls. Many Icelanders truly believe that elves and faeries exist and there are plenty of stories of construction companies having to re-plan their road building in order not to disrupt an elf house and anger the occupants. (If you do mess with an elf’s dwelling, expect accidents and setbacks).

Iceland: Before I Go, Part 2/4: Trivia!

Iceland, You So Strange

I like tidbits and trivia, so let’s pretend you do too!

Alcohol

Speaking of food, did you know beer was illegal until about twenty years ago? Not alcohol, just beer. People would make a substitute by mixing non-alcoholic beer with vodka. The drinking tradition is still pretty strange – order a drink with your meal during the week and (at least until recently, and maybe even now if you’re in the country) everyone will assume you’re an alcoholic (so says Lonely Planet). But if you’re in Reykjavik* on the weekends, expect everyone to be getting smashed.

* One of the hardest parts of co-planning trips in Iceland is I can’t pronounces the names of 90% of the places. Reykjavik’s the capital, if you didn’t know.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Icelandic_Patronyms.svg

Surnames

What really perturbs me, my sense of logic, and no one else I talk to, is Iceland’s naming system. They use patronyms. That is, everyone in the country has a last name derived from their father’s first name It’s also illegal to change your last name, even for marriage.

A last name is meant to distinguish you from the five million other people with your first name: it’s an organization and filing system tool. If I live in a town of 500 and say I’m Edwardsdaughter, there won’t be too much confusion. But if you get the whole country doing things like this, that defeats the purpose. To make matters worse, Iceland also explicitly prohibits you from getting a really unique patronym by requiring parents to choose first names from an approve list.

Because surnames are useless as identifiers, everyone just refers to each other – their friends, their teachers, the president – by their first name, and books by Icelandic authors are filed by first name as well.

Iceland: Before I Go, Part 1/4, a Dangerous Country

This summer, I’m going to Iceland for a week with my family. And so, I’ve been reading up.

Iceland is Number One Threat to Icelanders

Deadly

Iceland’s known for Vikings and the musical kids show Lazy Town. It’s also, I'm discovering, a country that fate never wanted to exist.

Let’s look at the facts*:

In the 12^th century, a volcano erupts three times and blankets a third of the country in its ash. Then there’s a mini ice-age. Then the Black Death kills off half the population.

Still, some people keep inhabiting Iceland. This is what we call Not Taking the Hint. In 1783, more eruptions release gas that poisons the air. A quarter of the population and more than half of the livestock die. Everyone still alive continues not taking the hint.

Even when Iceland isn’t actively trying to bury its people in ash, it still gets back in passive aggressive ways, like simply refusing to grow food. Other countries have had the privilege of letting taste influence their culinary tradition. Iceland founded its food choices on the prime question, “does this have enough nutrients and calories to keep me alive?” Which is why we end up with things like putrefied shark fin, ram’s testicle cake, and boiled sheep’s head. (I’d give these the benefit of the doubt flavor-wise, but from all I’ve heard, they really don’t deserve it).

Part of why Iceland is so beautiful is that it’s full of glaciers and lava formations and black sand beaches. Which doesn’t leave a lot of room for growing crops. Soil erosion is a problem even today, and the frigid winters place a sharp cut off on the growing season.

What plants that do grow are pretty stunted and the country’s forte seems to lie with moss and fungi. This leaves Iceland eating a lot of seafood, birds, and sheep (and even the sheep aren’t indigenous).

That said, it sounds like much of Iceland outside the big cities is farms. I suppose it makes sense: if crops are sparse, you might as well dedicate everyone you can to growing them.

Not so Deadly?

Despite all this, Iceland somehow has a high life expectancy rate, great healthcare, and almost no crime. 

* Where am I getting these facts? Mostly from my 2010-edition Lonely Planet guide book, supplemented with the odd internet search.