Grímsey Island

The large stone ball marks the location of the Arctic Circle on Grímsey Island in Iceland.

We are now back in the US, staying in Fairfax, Virginia, for a few days after our remarkable trip to Iceland on the National Geographic Explorer. In the next few weeks, I'll be doing more travel, but I'll also be adding a few posts about the many places we visited in Iceland. 

The policy of the ship was to be very very careful to avoid contact with local people, in order to preserve a bubble of covid-negative crew, staff, and passengers, and we did accomplish that, according to tests done on shipboard the day before we disembarked. To preserve this bubble, we did not visit museums or in most cases visit shops, and several events were scheduled for passengers only, not with other travelers or local people. This of course limited what we could do, but the natural world of glaciers, waterfalls. geothermal activities, seashores, bird colonies and other scenic areas afforded us a wonderful selection of activities, and I'm very glad we took the trip!

Grímsey Island

The puffin colonies on Grímsey Island, far in the north of Iceland, have hundreds of birds. They dig burrows in the earth, as seen behind this puffin that's bringing a mouthful of fish to a puffling in the nest. We visited Grímsey on July 30.

Puffins are everywhere!

We enjoyed other birds as well, like this snow bunting.

Grímsey Island in Fiction

A commercial boat in Grimsey Harbor.

Grímsey Island plays a large role in the French police procedural novel, A Climate of Fear, by the author Fred Vargas. During the trip and on the plane going back, I was amused to read a chilling tale about the peaceful and beautiful place where I had just visited. Long after his visit to the island, a character narrates the tale of going there:

"We arrived one evening at the little island of Grimsey, the most northerly in Iceland, and we were having dinner in the inn at Sandvík. It smelled of herring, it was warm inside. Sandvík is the village with a harbour, the only one. Madame Masfauré absolutely wanted to go to Grimsey, because the Arctic Circle runs through the island. She wanted to set foot on it. The restaurant was full. And the three of us, Henri, his wife, and I, had a few glasses of brennivín after dinner – that’s the hooch they have there. We were certainly making a lot of noise, especially Madame Masfauré who was delighted at the idea of treading on the Arctic Circle and her enthusiasm was infectious. Gradually various other French tourists who happened to be there gravitated towards us and sat at our table. You know what people are like. They go off to the ends of the earth to get away from home, but the minute they hear a compatriot’s voice, they’re on to it like a camel heading for an oasis." (Fred Vargas. A Climate of Fear, A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery, pp. 58-59). 

As they investigate series of brutal and incomprehensible murders the detectives connect the current crime wave to a strange and horrifying experience ten years earlier, where a group of French tourists -- as introduced above -- had innocently walked over the ice to a small uninhabited island off the Grímsey coast. A sudden fog stranded them for many days, without food or shelter. The gruesome result: one of the men in the group murdered two of the others, and after they were rescued and returned to France, terrorized the rest of them not to reveal the real story. When two of the group are themselves murdered (ten years later), the police must figure out how the Icelandic adventure connects to a serial killer in Paris.

The isolation of the desolate small island, and the off-putting nature of Grímsey when the detectives visit there is a major part of the tale. While we only strolled around the island, enjoying the bird life and viewing the location of the Arctic Circle, the detectives have a more sinister adventure, including a short stay at an inn at the port, and a terrifying experience at the location of the decade-old misadventure.

The detectives are French, so there are many wonderful meals described throughout the book, as the chilling series of murders leads them to an increasingly strange collection of characters. The detectives' trip to Grímsey also includes a meal:

"The hotel proprietor, who was satisfyingly blond, with an austere face carved out of material to face any weather, brought them their food without speaking: thin slices of salt herring on rye bread, followed by smoked lamb ... with a dish of vegetables. ... The proprietor had served them a breakfast of which it was apparently obligatory to sample every item: unlimited coffee, sour milk, pâté, ham, cheeses, rye crackers." (A Climate of Fear, p. 296 & 298)

Without wasting much time, they rent a little boat in order to inspect the small island that was the scene of the original crime. Of course they come back to Paris with new insights into the serial killer they are stalking.  A Climate of Fear is a suspenseful if somewhat quirky police tale, and I wish I could tell you more about it. Here's just one more food note, from a small restaurant that the policemen enjoy: "mushroom and sorrel vol-au-vent, followed by liver Venetian-style." (p. 139).

© 2021 mae sander