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Gareth Morgan - Lasting Impressions of Iceland |
As the ferry pulls away from Iceland to take us on a three day voyage across the North Sea to Denmark, we reflect on what has been a fun week riding around the island and venturing here and there from the ring road to find as much that Iceland can offer the quick tourist. So what are our lasting impressions?
Firstly, it’s the desolation of the place. The country is home to very few people, the occasional one or two farm houses alone in a vast glacial valley being a common sight for much of our ride – the glacial valleys are numerous with the smooth sides of their cradle shape comprising ice at the top, then bare rock vertical standing atop loose scree that tumbles to the valley floor where the farmers have pasture and some small amounts of crop cultivation in place. Farmers here apparently sell their produce at world prices, but we found that had to reconcile with the massive number of tractors they have at their disposal – more tractors than sheep it seemed at times.
Then there are the small villages, each one at the head of one of the fjord inlets that describe the coast. Most of these have around 200 residents and a wharf, being centred around fishing as they normally are. It’s said that Iceland is the most developed country in the world – and that can be seen in the modernity of its vehicle fleet but is certainly not reflected in its housing which is basic and spartan in the main. Finally there is Reykjavik, of population 130,000. In large part reminiscent of tinsel tourist meccas Queenstown and Arrowtown, Reykjavik is where many of the tourists begin, spend, and end their time in Iceland – maybe interrupted by a day trip out to see a waterfall or geyser.
So here we have a country the size of the North Island with just 300,000 people and pretty much desolate beyond its single large town. One reason for their stark contrast with its fellow European States – the Netherlands for example have 17 million people crammed into an area less than half that of Iceland – are the very strict immigration controls Iceland maintains. Our own Winston Peters cites this as a recipe for success, pointing to the combination of low population density and high living standard, as something New Zealand could aspire to. I’d like to see him live in such a desolate community and not admit it is a markedly different “socioscape” to that Kiwis are accustomed to. It’s a barren, lonely hermit-like society for many of those resident beyond Reykjavik, sensibly sited in the warmest part of the island next to the Gulf Stream.
The second impression that will stay with us is the geology of the place and its environmental character. In particular the three ice caps that constitute 10% of the land area with the largest (in Europe), Vatnajokull being almost 1 km thick. The history of the ice caps is fascinating – they were small when Iceland was being first settled but grew during the Little Ice Age of some 500 years ago. More lately they have been shrinking again and the Jokulsarlon lagoon at the foot of one glacial tongue that comes down from the Vatnojokull cap, only formed during the 1930’s but continues to expand rapidly. It is a surreal sight, akin in some ways to Antarctica amongst the sea ice, and is where the James Bond movie Die Another Day (remember the grenades James dodged that instead harmlessly blew apart ice floes?) was set. Some of the glacier tongues have a surge characteristic and can gather quite a momentum – one of Iceland’s most famous is known occasionally to reach a pace of 100 metres a day, and then enter a long period of stagnation.
Over recent decades the ice caps have been shrinking at a rate of around 0.2% per annum so if that were to continue they’d be gone in 500 years. But such simple extrapolation is not valid such is the climatic variation that been apparent since the caps were first observed. Indeed in 1998 one of the volcanoes under the Vatnajokull ice cap erupted biffing smoke, ash and ice miles into the sky. Now that’s an exciting landscape, and certainly not that predictable! As the caps melt and the weight on the island lessens, the seismic activity is again changed.
But as the island disappears over the horizon, it’s the material wealth of the place will stay on this economist’s mind. So much geothermal and water activity and so few mouths to feed, its electricity exports should ensure it remains a haven of prosperity.
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