Iceland March 2025

Arriving at Keflavík Airport on the bleak peninsula outside Reykjavik brings with it a palpable sense of excitement, even (or especially) on what is the third occasion for me. This stems not only from being on the outer edge of the European continent but also the sense of wilderness and the deep, rich folklore that this island nation possesses. Of course these feelings are somewhat of a conceit. I am not some hybrid of Indiana Jones and Captain Scott embarking on an adventure into the wilderness, but a privileged visitor arriving at a modern and developed western country. Nonetheless, Iceland can’t lose it’s aura and, even if I wanted to, I can’t shake the palpable feelings it invokes.

My journey North was a little different from my hop in a small plane to the delightful Westfjords two years ago, the flight replaced by a car journey that had to navigate rush-hour traffic, the notorious Icelandic speed cameras, the onset of darkness and snowstorms, and a disturbing combination of slow cars and fast trucks. My car was a trusty steed in all this and throughout the trip utilised a range of techniques to keep my engagement, informing me when I was being overtaken, telling me to keep my eyes on the road, bleeping when I stepped out of lane, and gently reminding me to check the back seat after I turned the engine off (I didn’t, being too scared to find out what might be there). It was somewhat reassuring to have a car so in-tune with my own brand of OCD, but also a salutary reminder of how annoying this can be for other people. Arriving very wired at my first-night hotel is alleviated by the offer of a free beer from the beaming and welcoming staff there. Courtesy, or at the behest of, Expedia apparently for some reason.

The next morning brings with it a trip to Hvitserkur on a peninsular that thrusts out into the Denmark Strait, and is a reminder of the stark beauty that is Iceland. It is a strange form of beauty. Like most of Northern Europe it can be bleakly dull when conditions don’t align and, while pretty enough in the summer months it is never ‘pretty pretty’. Truth is Iceland is at its best when it is at its most ambiguous, when stark hardness dovetails with soft beauty, when dark clashes with light. When the orange globe of the setting sun sits behind grey-green cloud and fog, when a ray of light cuts through and hits a misty peak in the far distance, when an individual can bathe in sunlight and look down the valley to see brooding and menacing dark blue-grey skies moving inexorably forwards (grey covers a multitude of colours in Iceland, some of them even grey).

All this of course is subject to huge variations, often over a short period of time. So many times I see the most idyllic scene that has disappeared by the time I have manoeuvred into a position to take the right photograph. Equally I can find myself driving through the drabbest of grey sceneries only for a ray of light to instantly transform the entire panorama. This trip has also seen considerable manifestations of the unpredictable climate with wind as intense as I have experienced in a multitude of combinations with mist, sunshine, drab nothingness, and some wild snowstorms that swept across the road like a wild liquid flurry, occasionally turning in on themselves and creating mini twisters.

My interest, nay fascination, with Iceland with a camera in hand is two-fold. Obviously landscape is one with all its rapid changes and subtle variations, even more so when we spy an isolated, maybe derelict, building to provide some perspective. 

Second is those signs of human activity amongst the wide spaces. Because Iceland may be a wilderness in large part but as with many such broad vistas this is not some pure, untouched manifestation of nature but a place in which humans have lived lives and built communities. So the manifestations of this - the functional buildings, the derelict shacks that speak of so much, the busy little docks that are home to some of the hardiest folk in the world, the industry that sits of the edge of said docks. These tell of so many human stories and how people co-exist in this equally brutal and endlessly fascinating environment, and the story is often seen in the beaten and battered detail.

After all, even a great visage can benefit from perspective and there are few more significant perspectives than the interaction of human-kind with the natural world.

My stay in Akureyri, the 4th largest town in Iceland and comfortably the largest outside the capital south-west region, is my base for a series of day trips to local towns such as Grenivík, Siglufjörður and Húsavík. In truth though these places are not destinations as such, more places to aim at as a reason to explore. I know Iceland has some special attractions that many people come a long way to see, but for the the attraction of the country is whatever may be waiting beyond the next stretch or road, or other side of a bay, or on the far side of a hill.

Siglufjörður in particular provided the sort of semi-derelict whiplashed industrial environment that can be safely described as my happy place with camera in hand.

The weather during much of this time really was a huge wake-up call about how lucky I had been on my previous winter trip to the Westfjords, where I was accompanied by wonderful snowfall in the evenings and sunny, pristine and calm landscapes during the daytimes. This time around a lot of the snow was blasted away by vicious storms a fortnight before I arrived, and its replacement was arriving, as mentioned, with exceptionally strong (by my standards if not Iceland’s) winds. The landscape was simultaneously bleaker but also untidily cluttered and a far bigger challenge for the type of photograph I wanted to take in the country. If the wind took a toil on me the car also suffered and eventually the window in the long-suffering drivers door wound down and refused to emerge again despite my cajoling, protestations, persuasions and threats. The call with the rental firm went like this…

“Hi, it’s -5 and theres a howling gale and the drivers window is stuck open”

“I’m sorry. Is it a Subaru Forrester?”

“Yes it is. How do you know?”

“It always happens with them”

One benefit of becoming acclimatised to the weather before I had to get out the car was that it because easier to wander into storms and challenge myself to find images amongst the blur and beyond my own comfort zone. After all, not many straight lines and neat contrast in the middle of a blizzard.

Having mainly aimed myself at coastal towns I changed tack and headed towards a random inland geographical location called Lake Mývatn. As I was selecting places on a map and not researching them I had no idea I was travelling straight into one of the most popular and stunning attractions of Northern Iceland. First came the staggeringly beautiful craters and hummocks of Skútustaðagígar, the result not of direct volcanic activity but of a distant eruption creating a lava flow that hit ancient wetlands. Later the landscape became dominated by plumes of gas as I entered a high level of geothermal activity for the first time in Iceland (Westfjords is a very old land mass and tends to be more dormant). The whole thing is in equal parts utterly stunning and beguiling.

All good things come to an end of course and I am grateful my North Iceland wanderings come to closure with the marvels of Lake Mývatn. Naturally, not even Iceland can insure against the falling blade of reality as I eventually head back to Keflavík Airport, now seen not so much as part of the country but a gateway to the real world. A flattening landscape, the sprawl of Reykjavík and the weird stuff the road does on the way the way to the airport are all those normal travel things that thankfully fade in the memory over time.

But the allure of Iceland remains and never disappears.