"Look at it this way"

On my recent trip to Iceland, I had some time to explore the Hafnarhús - an old industrial building down by the harbour which is now a modern art museum / gallery. Hafnarhús is located in the oldest part of Reykjavik, where the town’s boats and first docks lay. The building was erected in the 1930s and at the time it was one of the largest buildings in the country. It was renovated by Studio Grandi architects in 1998-2000 to house Reykjavík Art Museum. I was drawn there by one particular exhibit which had previously been Iceland's entry for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2025. I read about this at the time. Lavaforming is a proposal on how the brutal force of lava can be turned into a valuable resource, capable of lowering atmospheric emissions through its future use as a sustainable building material.  The exhibition tells the story of a future society that has learned to tame lava flows, utilise them, and thus turn a local threat into an...

There are a number of foods which have a protected geographical designation of origin status, such as Arbroath Smokies and Parma Ham. Icelandic Lamb has just gone through the process of achieving protected status. In March 2023, this message went up on the website: ‘Íslenskt lambakjöt' is the name given to the meat from pure bred Icelandic lambs, which have been born, raised and slaughtered on the island of Iceland. Sheep farming has a long and rich cultural tradition in Iceland. The characteristics of ‘Íslenskt lambakjöt' first and foremost consists of a high degree of tenderness and gamey taste, due to the fact that lambs roam freely in demarcated wild rangelands and grow in the wild, natural surroundings of Iceland, where they feed on grass and other plants. The long tradition of sheep farming passing down generations on the island has led to high standards of flock management and grazing methods.  One of the best examples of traditional Icelandic cooking is lamb meat soup. ...

Cross posting from the LivingGeography blog.  I spent five days of the first week of my half term in Iceland, exploring the magnificent landscapes of the country.  This introduced me to a couple of new locations which I hadn't visited before - including the car parks and tracks leading to the recent Fagradasfjall lava flows - and also reminded me of a great many that I'd been to previously before the pandemic and I enjoyed experiencing the power of Gullfoss (and the taste of the ice cream at Efstidalur). There had been some changes in tourst infrastructure in familiar locations with others being constructed e.g. a nice new toilet block at Thingvellir for visitors, and new paths etc. I will be working with Rayburn Tours  to lead future tours through 2023 and beyond. I've got a special Iceland blog which will host all the reading and planning I'm doing around these tours, which already hosts the year long 365 blog project which I completed in 2020 (when I was originally...

Some foods are closely linked with the landscapes in which they are created? There is certainly a case to be made for an Edible Landscapes unit focussing on foods with Protected Geographical status. I like the promotion and graphic design on the support for Icelandic lamb, The tagline is good too. I'd go so far as to wear one of those if they were available to buy. The marketing brand book is full of wonderful images of the Icelandic landscape which provides the terroir for this food. And while in Iceland, seek out a bowl of Kjötsúpa!

An interesting website which explores the growing pressures on Iceland. It's written by Ellis Quinn, who writes on the Eye on the Arctic website. When most people think of Arctic economic development, things like resource extraction are usually first to mind. But northern regions and chambers of commerce are increasingly touting tourism as a key economic tool. It’s seen as an industry that creates jobs for a variety of education levels, promotes small-scale entrepreneurship, reinforces and promotes local cultures, and creates the sustainable development lacking in many of the expensive and hard-to-get-to regions of the North; whether the remote Indigenous communities of Arctic Canada and Greenland, or the villages of Finnish Lapland and northern Russia. But tourism is far from the benign industry it’s often made out to be. As Iceland has discovered, mass tourism in the North can have social and environmental impacts as profound as those of the mining or drilling industries. Ye...

Lessons 9 and 10  from 'Look at it this Way' focus on upland glaciated landscapes in New Zealand. This video is a 2 year timelapse from the British Geological Survey's Facebook page   of a glacier in Iceland. The latest timelapse from the BGS Iceland Glacier Observatory shows just how dynamic glaciers really are. This film takes daily noon-time images from one of our automated weather stations, between April 2011 and yesterday, May the 29th 2013. This is the ice flowing through the icefall on Falljökull, the eastern arm of the glacier. Immediately below the icefall we know the ice flows at roughly 50 meters per year, or around 15cm a day, but the icefall itself is faster flowing. We will be conducting research this September to find out just how fast…

Lesson 3 in the book explores changes in the landscape and their relative impact. Pylons are often viewed as being a blot on the landscape. An item for my (relatively) new Iceland blog: NICE LAND ICELAND A proposal to put a string of pylons shaped like human figures , which would go some way to reducing the visual impact on the landscape of this development... Or is a pylon a pylon no matter what shape it is ?

New life pushing up through the ash deposits from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano: image by Val Vannet, taken last week After many years of waiting, it seems like I will finally be going to Iceland later this year. I will be accompanying teachers on an inspection visit to Iceland in October 2010. The visit is organised by the Brighton based company TRAVELBOUND Download an itinerary HERE (PDF download) and I might have the chance to spend a few days with you exploring and curriculum making ... Some of the places that are here are on the lists of places that must be seen when visiting Iceland... Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik Hekla Solheimajokull Glacier trek Kerid Crater and Thingvellir National Park Reykjavik Geysirs and waterfalls Hellishollar Why not request a copy of the brochure, or visit the Travelbound website to find out more. If you'd like to come on the inspection visit, the price is £199, and you will need to do the following: Contact James Walker on: 01273 265 266 for deta...