Iceland has no army, hence we don’t have a day in which we wear poppies or place wreaths on the graves of dead soldiers. Instead we have Sjómannadagurinn [Seafarer’s Day] – a day in which we commemorate our heroes who wage battles against the sea.
I heard something to this effect in a speech yesterday, broadcast from the annual Sjómannadagur celebrations down by the harbour. I thought it was an excellent take on Seafarer’s Day, which is devoted to celebrating our men [and some women – but mostly men] who for centuries have braved the forces of nature to harvest riches from the sea, thereby laying the foundation for the prosperity of this nation.
Seafarer’s Day was celebrated for the 70th time yesterday. Every year on that day, fishermen have the day off and Iceland’s entire fishing fleet is in. Throughout the country there is boundless activity around the harbours, with games and competitions going on, tents serving food, play equipment for kids, award ceremonies and speeches, and even an exhibition of fish on ice like we saw at the Reykjavík Harbour yesterday afternoon.
The sea and its harvesting is such an inextricable part of this society – so bound up with our way of life and character and thinking. I suspect that Icelandic women, for instance, are so strong and independent because they had to survive on their own [run the households, look after the finances, raise the children…] while their men were at sea for long periods. [To say nothing of if they didn’t return.] And the heavy aversion of the Icelandic people to sentimentality and self-pity is likely because there was no room for excessive sentiment – they just got on with things, the men setting off for the sea, sometimes for extended periods, saying goodbye to their families and not knowing if they would ever return. Like going to war on a regular basis.
Today, of course, the risk is negligible compared with what it was, although the danger is always there – since the beginning of this century [the past eight years] 21 Icelanders have died at sea. A century ago men went to sea in open rowboats that were virtual death traps; if the weather suddenly changed and the boat overturned, it meant instant death. Back then, hardly anyone knew how to swim. The general belief was that the sea was so cold that learning to swim was pointless; if you fell into the water you would cramp up and drown anyway. EPI’s great-grandfather worked tirelessly to dispel this myth and made it his mission to teach Icelanders how to swim. Among other things he built the first swimming pool in this country on his own initiative right next to his own house, across the street from where the Laugardalslaug pool is today. Of course his son, EPI’s grandfather, swam out to Drangey – as Grettir was reported to have done – expressly to prove this point. But I digress.
Fishing and fisheries has changed a lot over the centuries – not only with new technology, but also with the whole issue of overfishing and efforts to manage fisheries. While most everyone agrees that it’s necessary to keep a close watch on the fish stocks and manage their utilization, there is a lot of discord about the fisheries management system, more specifically about the way quotas were – and are – allocated. Large fishing vessel operators who were able to secure massive quotas have become extremely wealthy from harvesting the fishing grounds – which rightfully belong to the entire nation. Moreover, trading in quotas has resulted in certain fishing communities virtually being wiped out, as quotas have been sold out of the villages with no economic activity to replace them. And of course there’s also the whole big messy question of whaling – a can of worms I’m not keen to pop open here. Tough issues – and no easy solutions.
AND WE HAD OUR QUENTESSENTIAL ICELANDIC WIND
Appropriately enough, as wind has been one of the main nemeses of our fishermen throughout the centuries. It kept increasing throughout the day, and by afternoon it was highly unpleasant, despite the relatively mild temps. Today started out pretty much the same, overcast and windy, but calmed down as the day wore on and by this afternoon we even had some sunny spells. Right now it’s perfectly calm; EPI has just come in and claims it’s gorgeous outside. We’re into the season of the midnight sun now, meaning it never gets dark, and right now at 10.45 pm it’s bright daylight outside. It will get dusky a bit later, meaning the sun will just dip down past the horizon, hover there for a while, then come back up again. Right now it’s 11°C [52F], the sun came up at 3.20 this morning and will go hide under the horizon at precisely 11.34 this evening.
[Note: this post was written and designed to be posted yesterday, but obviously this wasn't possible due to the server outage. So don't mind all the rewrites intothe past tense.]
~ This post is filed under the My Iceland category.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The whole open boat thing just blows my mind.
And then to find out that they went out in open boats not being able to swim! Even more mind blowing. So did fishing-related deaths go down after EPI’s great-grandfather started promoting the teaching of swimming?
(I know you probably don’t have that info at your fingertips!)
The fact that EPI’s great-grandfather built the first swimming pool in Iceland I find fascinating. In my Iceland travels, it seems as if every small village has their own pool. Would you care to comment on the development of the community pool within Icelandic society?
Obviously, there is abundant hot water for the pools, but I wonder if the development centered on a way to socialize in a warm environment during the long, cold, dark winter, back in the days when Iceland was much more isolated than it is today.
Rozanne – The open boat thing, coupled with the no-swim thing, is totally mind-blowing, I agree. I read a novel a couple of months ago (in Icelandic) where there was such a fabulous description of this, it just brought it all home. These men were rowing out for hours on end, and then if the weather suddenly changed … that was it. No hope of survival. – and as you correctly surmise, I don’t know the data about the swimming, but I do know that a lot of the sailors were dying practically on the shore (within sight of land) and that obviously changed.
Don – Yes, almost every small village has a pool here , correct. I can’t remember the actual number of pools in the country – it’s around 300 or something, so one for every 1000 residents. As for your question about the development of the pool community – I really can’t comment because I honestly don’t know. Although I suspect the abundant hot water coupled with the health/wellbeing factor played a highly significant part. Probably more than the socializing factor (not everyone socializes at the pools).
So you’re saying it’s sort of a cod Memorial Day then? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
I saw one of those rowing boats at a little museum of fishermen that’s near Hellisandur (or possibly Rif?) and wasn’t too impressed at the idea of going out to sea in one of those, sat on top of several hundreds of hooks on long lines. But then I couldn’t cope with the steintok either, so plainly I’m not made of stern enough stuff to be an Icelandic fisherman circa 1882.