Hornstrandir & Isfjardardjup, Northwestern Iceland
Vestafirdir (the Westfjords) is the remote northwestern peninsula of Iceland; almost a separate island, it is connected to the rest of the country only by a narrow isthmus and a pair of lonely roads that wind along the shores of the fjords from one tiny fishing village to another. Hornstrandir, the northern region of the peninsula, where we spent our morning today, is untouched even by these narrow tracks. This is a genuine wilderness, far from the well-known and much-visited scenes of the Golden Circle and the Blue Lagoon. Here, at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, huge cliffs tower up out of the sea in a landscape inhabited only by seabirds and wildflowers and accessible only to intrepid trekkers and expedition ships.
A visit to this region is something of a journey back in time, a chance to see the north Atlantic as it was hundreds or thousands of years ago. Most of the Atlantic between Europe and North America is an ocean much used, perhaps abused, by the nations that have grown up on its shores. As these human communities have expanded, neighboring communities of fish, whales and other marine wildlife have declined. Though much beauty remains, the wild nature of the north Atlantic has been subtly altered by these losses. But in northern Iceland the untrammeled nature of the past still remains alive for us to see.
Hiking in the steep valleys of Hornstrandir, watching humpback whales breach at the entrance of the enormous fjord of Isfjardardjup and looking into the largely undisturbed kelp forest ecosystem beneath the rocky headlands, we have had a rare opportunity to see the Atlantic much as it once was, before the arrival of our own species. Here, where even small villages are few and far between, fishing pressure is very light and disturbance of all kinds is exception rather than the norm. The quality of the kelp forest community in particular amazes me whenever I visit and have a chance to dive these remote waters. Tasty, popular and much-targeted species like cod, wolf eel, flounder and lumpfish, rarely seen these days in most other regions of the north Atlantic, are astoundingly common here, encountered on nearly every dive. It’s always a special pleasure to see this strange and lovely ecosystem in such a healthy and intact condition.
Geologically, Iceland is a very young place, but here in the Westfjords there is a powerful sense of ancient stability and a chance to look back into the past beyond our own history. This feeling came to us in many ways today, from the sea and the sea cliffs, from tiny wildflowers and tremendous marine mammals, as we enjoyed the rare privilege of visiting a north Atlantic wilderness.
