Iceland: Horseback tours in saga land

by W. S. C. Russell

The view from the summit of Krafla is imposing but not so extensive as from Hekla. Unlike Hekla the craters are on the slope and far below the summit. The top of Krafla is a jumbled mass of disintegrating granophyre. The view down the eastern slope and across the intervening space to Leirnúkr is plutonic and exceedingly wild. In the distance a mass of lava hangs upon the side of Leirnúkr like a petrified waterfall, nearer and on the middle slopes of Krafla are several old craters filled with water from which columns of steam continually ascend. One of them is a double crater with confluent edges. It is filled with water which boils violently along the side next to the summit of the mountain. The craters are at an elevation of 1700 feet above sea level and in the days when Henderson visited them they were in a violent state of action. On July 15, 1910, we found them provokingly quiet. At some distance down the mountain below the crater lakes there is a great rift cutting deeply into the side of the mountain. Here we found considerable activity. The cleft was so filled with clouds of steam that my photograph of it reveals little except the belching vapors. If I had had a phonograph I could have brought home a record of growling, roaring, impatient muttering that burst into explosive thunders that would have been of scientific interest at least if not to the popular ear. The odors of sulfur gases were sufficiently strong to stifle any one except a chemist accustomed to the fragrance of the laboratory. If I had had an instrument to record odors I could have brought away a collection of these simple and multiple combinations of smells that would have startled the dullest of olefactory nerves. The name of this rift in Icelandic is Víti, signifying Hell, well named.

Krafla is not dead, merely sleeping. In the past centuries it has wrought great havoc. The eruption of May 17, 1724, was so violent that the ashes and pumice on the eastern shore of Mývatn were deposited to a depth of over three feet. The connection between Krafla and Leirnúkr is close, in reality they are one volcano with different craters. Leirnúkr had a violent eruption in 1725, to which reference was made in the preceding chapter, and during the following four years there were three more eruptions that did great damage.

The extended view from Krafla is desolate and dreary in the extreme. When the eye ranges beyond the smoking slopes of mighty Krafla it meets the greatest lava desolation in the north of Iceland. In the distance flashes of the Jökulsá, Ice-Mountain-River, are seen as it labors through the twisted lava to plunge into the abyss of the Dettifoss. The southern view commands the low volcanoes surrounding Mývatn. To the left rises the obsidian mountain and at our very feet ascend the roaring columns out of Víti to their dissipation in the upper air.

Descending to our ponies we decided to traverse the unexplored portion of the mountain by a spiral route. We soon became entangled in an intricate mesh of deep, soft gullies. The great depth of these gullies, the ridges of dry ashes that surmounted them, the steep, viscid slopes and the beds filled with running water hot and odorous, wherein a peculiar alga thrives, and the intervening reaches of slumpy snow afforded us two hours of very laborious work. Cautiously we proceeded, leading the ponies, searching for places to descend the slopes and then working much harder to get out of the ravine, only to find it necessary to repeat the performance many times. The trusting beasts followed our ignominious slides into the gulches and after much coaxing managed to scramble up after us into the dry ashes at the top. We photographed these gullies, descended to the sheep trail and after three and one half hours of hard riding returned to our comfortable quarters at Reykjalíð farm, where we did ample justice to the supper which the farmer’s daughter had prepared for us. On the menu was an excellent item that was new to us, a sweet purple soup.

The minerals and lava specimens that I had collected up to this time were packed and left with the farmer who engaged for a kroner to transport them to Húsavik when he went to this trading station in the autumn. In due course of time the box, which I had left to his care, arrived safely in Springfield,—another instance of the faithfulness of the Icelander in keeping his word. The reader will note the difference in the cost of packing a box of seventy-five pounds on the back of a pony for two days and the tariff of the Express Companies of America.

On the morrow we rode through the lava beds that fringe the eastern shore of Mývatn just after a clearing shower and the sunlight upon the crater islands, the lichen-encrusted lava ridges and the play of light upon the water of the land-locked pools was of surprising beauty. As we neared Kálfstrond, Calf-Strand, an Icelandic shepherd dog ran out to meet us and gave a noisy welcome. For the size of the dog the Iceland variety has the strongest lungs of any member of the canine family. They will run for half a mile to meet the traveller yelping and crying and will often follow him for miles after leaving the farm. One of these fluffy balls of animation stayed with us for several days and resisted all our efforts to leave him behind. We left him in a stable with instructions to keep him till some one returned to the farm from whence he had run away but at noon as we were fording a river he joyously arrived. The cold stream was no obstacle, he was the first on the opposite shore and stayed with us until we arrived at Reykjavik. He lost no opportunity to get into our room at the hotel, invariably found us if we went for a walk and when we pushed from the landing in a small boat to go out into the stream to board our steamer for home, he jumped from the wharf into the boat and stuck to us till we ascended the gang plank and as the boat pulled ashore he gave one long and mournful cry. My heart has often turned towards the faithfulness and the attachment of this little fellow and often do I wonder if he is following the sheep over his native hills forgetful of the summer’s escapade when he ran away to associate with strangers.

Beneath the lava ridges great streams of water from the neighboring mountains pour into the lake and around these inlets there is always excellent trout fishing. The trout are large and abundant. Between the lake and Hverfjall the lava is rifted into deep ravines and mighty cliffs which, in their castellated and architectural forms, coated with lichens, present more the appearance of being the handiwork of man than that of subterranean powers assisted by the frosts of time. Little imagination is necessary to view in this mass of plutonic rock the Gothic arches of a long deserted cloister, and in that pile of ragged crust, the ramparts and bastions of a mediaeval fortress. Lofty piles stand side by side upon the plain suggestive of triumphal arches whose capstone has fallen to the ground.

On arriving at Skútustaðir we found that Baron Klinckowström, his son Harald and Walter Friedeberg, whom we had met on the Botnia, had arrived and established themselves in the Thinghús. Here they were busy in preparing bird skins for museums in Stockholm, Berlin, and the private collection of Harald. It was a pleasure to see a youth like Harald cling for hours to the trying labor of preparing bird skins. Later I examined his large and excellent collection of mounted birds at his father’s castle at Stafsund near Stockholm and I could not help admiring the energy and perseverance of the youth as well as the skill manifest in mounting this collection, all of which was the work of his unaided hands. The boy with a purpose, who lives largely in the open, even though he may be deprived of the university, is sure to obtain a most liberal education, an education that comes through the eye and is augmented by thought. Later, when I had had a chance to study the daily life of a boy in the public schools of Sweden and draw a comparison with that of an American youth, I understood how that little country of mountains and lakes had produced so many remarkable men, such as Berzelius, Linnaeus, Bergman, Scheele and Arrhenius. It is the spirit that dominates the boy in successful education, not the special advantages of his equipment.