Tunnels. So let me tell you about tunnels in Iceland. The mountains are so difficult, particularly in winter, and the fjords so long to drive around (and the roads too difficult to keep on the mountainside) that they have built tunnels everywhere. They say Norway is even more like that—people here say Norway is like Swiss cheese, full of underground holes. Norway even has—according to rumor here—a round-about in a tunnel.
Leaving Reykjavik (I will use the shortened form of this town of Rvk) going north-or west—it is all the same road, one goes through a very long tunnel that goes under a major fjord. It is long, and very deep. It seems that you just go down, down and down, deep into the bowels of the earth. Then finally you perceive you have leveled and then you climb up. It is steep. But that tunnel, although disturbing, is at least in a form one expects from a highway tunnel, it is fairly wide, has a high roof, decent lights—and is two-lanes. The tunnels to the west and north are different.
All of the other tunnels I have encountered in the west and north are—single lane if you can believe this. They go on for miles, they look exactly like miner’s shafts, low, chiseled ceilings, dim lights at intervals, uneven rough stone sides. They are disconcerting because you are supposed to be driving through tem but it is hard opt tell exactly where the road is. They put striped cones every few feet on both sides theoretically to guide you, but the effect is almost petite mal and you feel as though you are going to pass into tremors at any moment.
The way the tunnels work is that one side has passing bays. The cars on that side, when ever they see headlights of an on-coming car, slide into the next passing bay and wait for the car to pass. On the other side, you continue—slowly—until you also see a passing bay. Then you wait for the on-coming car to reach that passing bay, slide into it, and then you pass. A problem is that the headlights are blinding so it is rather hard to tell where the on-coming car actually is.
I have to admit I was terrified the first time I went through one of these, but as I have continued to have the experience, I have become, if not relaxed, at least fairly comfortable. Of course I am not driving I have to admit.
The Icelanders who live in the villages these tunnels lead to tell me how the tunnels have liberated them, how before when winter came, they were trapped, sometimes for weeks at a time, because the snow and avalanche danger made the roads impassible. They tell of huge rocks falling down the slopes on the mountain roads, pushing cars off the roads, of winds topping cars, of the having to be in boarding schools in a town that is now, with the tunnel, fifteen minutes away, because it took ages on the old mountain road—when you could get there. They all tell me they love the tunnels.
The tunnels work in part also because there is not much traffic. But now is tourist season. The tourists rent cars, head off happily on their around Iceland in eight days trip (the thing people seem to like to do it try to drive the road that circles the island in their eight days or so of vacation. Sometimes this works and sometimes not. Recently there has been some issue because recent volcanic activity made a huge gush of water flood one of the rivers in the south and it took out a bridge. That means the ring road is broken and you can’t get through. They have been trying to ferry tourists across in huge buses but several days ago one of the buses got swept away and all the tourists had to crawl on top of the bus as it went bobbing down the river. They were all recued I am happy to say)
But then in their rental car, the tourists encounter their first tunnel—and they stop dead in the tunnel, terrified. A car approaches and they have no idea what to do. Even at the best of times, they go about five miles an hour. Icelanders swear at them as they almost crash into them or have to crawl through the tunnel at a snail’s pace. I now have sympathy for both sides. I think the car rental agencies should issue little booklets for people renting cars telling them how to deal with the tunnels. But that is not Iceland so I don’t expect it to happen.
I stayed with my friends on their family farm in the small village of Flateyri. Their grandfather settled the farm in the late 1800s, then their father farmed it. He died a couple of years ago. So the seven children, none of whom are farming the land anymore, were trying to decide what to do. The farm is about three kilometers long, stretching perhaps a third of the way along one side of the fjord. In the end the family decided to keep it and use the old farmhouse as a summerhouse among all the children and grandchildren. Others in the area were so happy, they were so afraid that if the family sold it some rich banker would buy it and build some huge monstrous house, not take care of the land and not understand the community.
The farm is magical.
We spent part of every day cutting the grass, clearing areas, planting trees—their 89-year-old aunt planted trees starting almost fifty years ago. They are still small by our standards, but each year she goes out to plant a few more. This year she still climbed the mountain slope with us, but let us all do the planting. This is my friend laughing as she dug the tough grass.
One evening, we all went fishing from the dock in the center of the village. My friend’s fourteen year old son was there with a buddy of his and he was the expert fisherman. I even fished—and caught three flounder. They did not want founder, they wanted the big fish, but the big fish were too smart and just sat looking at our bait while the silly flounder snapped it up. We are fishing about elevent at night in the photos.
Flateyri has a special relationship with its tunnel. In 1995, when the tunnel was dug but not yet open, a huge avalanche cascaded down on the village in the early hours of the morning while every one was sleeping. This was in late October. The snow literally covered half the village and many of the homes. At the time the village was 500people.
Frantically people ran from their homes, digging people out. Some they saved but in the end twenty people died. But the only reason the search and recue crews could get through as day broke, who saved so many who were injured, was because they could get through the not yet completed tunnel.
One woman, who was twelve when it happened, told me that many of her school friends died. “There weren’t any children here after that,” he said.
“Why,” I asked. “Did you all leave?”
“No,” she said. “After an experience like, that no one is a child any more.”
Now they have built huge ‘dams’ or barriers along the mountainside which are supposedly to divert any impending avalanches There is also a large stone marking the edge of the avalanche and no one is allowed to build close opt the mountain. It is though the presence of their recent history sits above them, a power that is their heritage and a source of tragedy that everyone one in the village shares.
The sun crept along the mountainsides, glowing magenta at midnight. It never got dark, so we sat in the old kitchen, telling stories, everyone loath to leave the light, a special light that inspires confidences and intimacy. It has a special energy this midnight light, not a twilight but soft, intense color, cobalt sea, verdant yellow grasses, the mountain rock an orange tinged with blue—who can try to sleep in this color? So we drank coffee until three AM, until the sun was high and in the new morning light that had never seen dusk, we lay finally in comfort on our beds.
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