Photo credit Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
With great hoopla, on 2 June 2019 Iceland sent out its fishermen, an annual rite celebrated world-wide by nearly all cultures who go down to the sea in ships. As a cluster of men dressed in black waited behind him, an orator took the podium on a rickety stage to address the crowds. As usual, the crowds seemed to be paying scant attention. Despite that it was all in Icelandic, I felt right at home.
There were numerous food stalls and trinket booths. The fisheries had set up big ice-filled plastic tubs on the midway (photos in the January 4 blog) with what must have been an ugly fish contest of some sort. We could view ratfish, flatfish, eels, sharks, and really grotesque bottom feeders, and precious few were the fish I could recognize, and I took ichthyology, too. The coast guard invited the public on tours of their rescue vessel. It was all in a way familiar and yet exotic.
One thing was quite different: kids. Port Townsend has one of the oldest demographics in the country. Lots of people, few small children. Here, every other family is pushing strollers. Much of the hired help is young. It was an interesting change from my town.
Not everything changes, of course. When Norwegian film producers needed to depict Norwegian speakers of a thousand years ago for an historical feature, they simply used Icelandic. It hadn’t changed enough worth mentioning.
I paused for lunch and coffee in a place that bills itself as Iceland’s oldest restaurant. Seated around a table down the middle of the room, half a dozen old men gathered to yak and laugh—in Icelandic, since you asked. That custom too is old as the hills. Every town has its cadre of old men who meet over coffee and talk daily.
Iceland is something of a crossroads, for travelers and cultures both. Nearly all the signs in public spaces are in Icelandic and in English. A lady in the museum recalled for me when English came to Iceland. The island nation got television, but there were no local production companies to produce homeland Icelandic TV shows, so the television content was brought in from Britain, Canada, and the US. Kids picked up the language from watching TV and soon were speaking English better than the adults. Schools teach it now. Television changed the traditional culture in ways no one paid attention to, and now its vestiges are gone.
On the stage, the orator finished his spiel and the black-clad male chorus behind him (a really fine chorus, well balanced and rich) broke into an a capella song to send the fisher folk on their way. The tune was so familiar. What was it? I picked up the tune and hummed along. I even knew words to it, but I had to sing it clear through to get to the title line. ”South of the Border, Down Mexico Way.”