There are so many extra things we learned about Iceland that didn’t fit into our earlier posts – so I’m adding an additional post to get down some of these other interesting things.  

Some of these extras were from guides and port talks, and most came from the book How Iceland Changed the World by Egill Bjaanason.   Its subtitle  is The Big History of a Small Island.  

It was a great book and I was happy to leave it in the ship’s library for another traveler to enjoy.  We went by the ship library the next day and I was so pleased that someone had already taken it!

Iceland, the land of fire and ice, was the last major territory settled in northern hemisphere.  The settlement of New Zealand,  a few centuries after, made human occupation of all major territories in the world complete. 

Iceland is about the size of Ohio. 

There is a Ring Road, also called Route 1, around most of the perimeter of Iceland. It is 1908 kilometers long, taking about 24 hours to transit. There are many travel sites that promote the places to visit along the Ring Road if you are traveling in Iceland independently. They suggest allowing seven days.

Because my social media feeds are still giving me Iceland information, I saw this posting of the road being washed out because of heavy rains and winds. The comments indicated that, once the weather subsides, these washouts are repaired in just days.

Twelve percent of Iceland is covered by glaciers. 

Alaskan Aspen is the tree having the best success in reforestation.

Iceland’s conversion to Lutheranism led to improved literacy as people were encouraged to read the scriptures for themselves.

The Black Death hit Iceland in 1402 and wiped out 2/3 of the population. 

The first country wide census ever was done in Iceland, commissioned by King Frederick IV of Denmark, circa 1700.  The results indicated a population 50,358 which plunged to 30,000 three years later due to a small pox outbreak.

“The population of Iceland is 1000 times smaller than that of the United States…. What we lack in manpower,  we make up in volcanoes, but we’re still figuring out how to aim them.” spoken by an Icelandic Prime Minister at a White House dinner.

Iceland has chosen to emulate the Nordic countries as a social democracy.  The people pay high taxes but get a lot for them.  Medical care and education through university are free. 

During the Cold War, Iceland denied the US government request for a 99 year lease to build a military base.  However, since Iceland didn’t have a defense force, some Americans did serve in that capacity. Iceland still has no armed forces.  It is a peaceful place.

The Icelandic language has not changed much in centuries. It is the closest to the old Norse. They do not incorporate new words from other languages.  They create new words from their own.  For example:  the Icelandic word for computer combines their words for sorceress and numbers.

Circa 870 AD, Norseman, Infólfr Aranson decided on the location of the first permanent settlement, using a traditional method. That meant casting pillars carved with the image of Thor overboard as soon as land was sighted and settling wherever the gods brought them ashore. Two of his slaves searched for three years before finding the pillars. That settlement became Reykjavik, meaning Smoky Bay in Old Norse. The name was said to be inspired by steam rising from hot springs.

The eruption of the volcano Laki lasted for seven months  in 1783. It changed the weather of the entire northern hemisphere for years.

Loki spewed 220 square miles of lava 3 feet deep. Iceland was covered in ash and then in acid rain.  Many sheep died resulting in famine throughout the island. Air particles led to a severely cold winter all through Europe which resulted in freezing rivers destroyed crops and flooding.  It was the greatest occurrence of “natural” death in Britain killing 23,000 – 30,000 people.

When evaluating marriage partners in Iceland, one often is considering semi-distant cousins. It has been common in some cultures to marry cousins.  Worldwide, more than 10 percent of marriages are between cousins.  Icelanders are familiar with their genealogy and have access to a data base to see how related they are. There is an app for that!

After World War II, Iceland declared independence for Denmark and then joined the United Nations.  Their ambassador became the leader of the ad-hoc committee to tackle the Palestinian issue.  It was chosen because Iceland was not Arab, not Muslim, not in the Mediternnean, not Eurocentric, not anti-Semitic and not one of the big five.  That left Iceland, Guatemala, Sweden, Peru, Canada, Australia, Iran and a few more.  There was much maneuvering but in the end, Israel was created in 1947.

NASA astronauts including Neil Armstrong trained in central Iceland because the landscape is similar.  Nine of the twelve people to ever walk on the moon, first trained in Iceland.

American chess master Bobby Fisher played his match against Boris Spassky in Reykjavik in 1972.  Years later he was arrested and jailed in Japan for traveling on a voided US passport after playing a match in Yugoslavia.  A friend from Iceland helped him gain asylum and citizenship.  He lived his last years, and is buried, in Iceland.  

Mikhael Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan met in Rekyjavik and tackled the issue of nuclear arms.  Although they didn’t reach the deal they’d hoped, they made significant progress and a deal was reached a year later.

In Iceland in 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, was the first woman in the world to be elected president by a direct vote of the people – not through parliament or party leadership.  She was elected the fourth president of Iceland with a margin of 1,911 votes.

Halla Tómasdóttir, another female president of Iceland, was inaugurated on August 1, 2024.  The is the seventh president of Iceland since gaining independence.

Iceland was a very interesting destination, and way bigger in world impact, that I ever suspected!