Iceland: the land breathes

No place like Iceland has managed to be both landscape and person at the same time.
The physical perception I had, the first time I set foot on the island, was of being in contact with a living place, a breathing land.
I returned ten more times and this might be enough to understand how fond I am of that portion of the world located just below the Arctic Circle.
The first time was in 1989, the last in 2019.

The question I am most frequently asked is: "What has changed in these thirty years?".
"Nothing" I feel like replying but, if you think about it, that's not entirely true.
The landscape has remained unchanged, yes, fascinating and incredible as always. Instead, it is the Icelanders who have changed. Since tourism, here too, has become "mass", literally invading the island, the inhabitants have had to adapt.
I can't find a more concise way to describe the tourism boom than the words used by the enfant terrible of Icelandic literature, Hallgrímur Helgason who, like his fellow citizens, watches in amazement at hordes of foreigners enthusiastic about challenging the hostile climate.
«Every morning at eight o'clock I take the children to school by car, crossing the center of Reykjavík.
And every morning I see them, on the sidewalk in front of their hotel, about fifty tourists waiting for the bus that takes them out of the city to admire geysers and glaciers."

«We weren't used to seeing people on the streets of Reykjavík, and certainly not at eight in the morning. But now the whole center is crowded from dawn to dusk, although "dawn" is perhaps not the most appropriate term here, given that we are in February and the morning remains pitch black until at least half past ten. They stand there frozen in the dark, equally black in their winter clothes, and every time I pass them I am amazed by their enthusiasm and their resistance: they are people who don't give up."

«Tourists – continues Helgason – saved our economy after the frightening crisis of 2008, when all the banks collapsed in a week and Iceland ended up practically bankrupt, if not from a financial point of view, at least from a moral one .
We struggled for two years to try to get back on our feet, enduring heavy cuts to all state services and tightening our belts until 2010, when our dear Eyjafjallajökull decided to make things even worse: its eruption closed all the airports of 'Europe. From one corner of the old continent to another, travelers were stuck in some port of call due to a volcano up there in Iceland and its ash cloud. But wasn't this the same nation that had burst into a monetary cloud a few years earlier? By the way, don't those losers still owe us money?

Our reputation was in tatters and our economy would collapse again, we all thought so. In an act of extreme desperation, the government has decided to play another card and squander the last remaining pennies on the largest public relations campaign in the country's history, called Inspired by Iceland. It included, among other things, a music video shot in various parts of Iceland, in which very pretty local girls in their traditional sweaters danced to the tune of Jungle Drum, the hit song by Icelandic star Emilíana Torrini. The campaign caused a lot of discussion at the time, many thought it was over the top: we were clearly selling ourselves and our country short. But it worked. Too much".

Roberto Cristaudo
NP gennaio 2024