Fishing in the Land of Vikings
The following account of another excursion into the unfished North waswritten by Dr. Erwin C. Miller '20, one ofthe Dartmouth trio who tried their fisherman's luck in Iceland last summer.
When Paul Sample, Sid Hayward and I were leaving the salmon rivers of Labrador two summers ago, we decided that our next expedition would take us to that land of volcanoes, mountains, glaciers and Vikings Iceland.
After months of preparation, Paul and Sid flew from New York to Keflavik on July 10 and my good wife Harriet and I left Idlewild Airport by Pan-American Strato-cruiser at 10 A.M., July 17, stopped at Gander, Newfoundland, for refueling, and arrived in Iceland the next morning at 3 A.M., in broad daylight.
Harriet and I spent the first few days exploring the museums, bookshops, craft shops and waterfront of the capitol city, Reykjavik, as well as meeting some of the splendid Icelanders we had been corresponding with before our trip North.
The following few days were exciting ones, on a glacier and mountain-climbing trip into the interior with a group of Icelanders and guides. This expedition was under canvas and took us into that uninhabited region between the glaciers, Myrdalsjokull, Eyjafjallajokull and Tindafjallajokull.
After a day of rest and shopping in Reykjavik, we drove to Hvalfjordur, a beautiful fjord where the H.M.S. Hood was "incognito" during the War, and where we visited an active whaling station and observed the whalers cutting up a recently harpooned whale.
From Whale Bay we drove to Borganes and joined eleven Icelanders in a truck for a grueling ten-hour ride through the interior to the impressive city of Akureyri on Eyjafjordur on the Northern coast of Iceland thirty miles from the Arctic Circle. Harriet left the party to remain here for a few days while I continued on over an almost impassable road, thirty miles over the lava fields to Vopnafjordur on the northeast coast where Paul, Sid and I lived on the 450-year old Bursta£elli farm and fished the Sela and Hofsa Rivers for salmon, trout and Arctic char. This typical old farm had sod walls and grass-covered sod roofs. We were the first Americans to visit and fish this area of Iceland.
After a week at Burstafelli with a party catch of over fifty salmon, innumerable trout and many Arctic char, we trucked back the three hundred miles through mountains, glaciers, volcanoes and through bridgeless streams to the northwest area of Iceland, where we were again joined by Harriet, and we fished the Straumfjardara and Stadara Rivers, the latter being best known for its twenty-pound sea trout. These two rivers are near Snaefellsjokull of Jules Verne's story fame A Journeyto the Center of the Earth. Harriet enjoyed all this as the fourth American girl to ever fish in Iceland.
We returned to Reykjavik again for interviews with several artists, the President of Iceland, business executives, professional people, foreign legation personnel.
The four of us spent the night of August 8 at the Air Force barracks at Keflavik and boarded our return plane at 5 A.M. The return flight was scheduled through Goosebay, Labrador, and we flew over Cape Farwell, Greenland, at 10,000 feet on a clear, sunny day, giving everyone on board one of the most exciting sights of our lives. Below us were dozens of glaciers, tremendous mountain ranges, fjords, the Greenland Ice Cap and hundreds of huge icebergs surrounded by miles of pan ice on a deep blue sea. This was an unforgettable sight!
We landed in Boston about noon, where Paul and Sid's families met us. Paul made many sketches in Iceland and Sid wrote the drafts of articles to appear later this year in several national publications. These will be illustrated by some of Paul's paintings.
We loved the country and the hospitality of the people, the rivers, the treeless mountains, glaciers and volcanoes, and wish to return there again, but next time - let's make it Greenland!
DARTMOUTH IN ICELAND: Doc Miller '20, Sid Hayward '26 and Paul Sample '20 on Iceland ponies at the Burstafelli Farm and Hofsa River in northern Iceland this summer.
