Do
you find this landscape beautiful?
Borghildur’s
story is a story that must not be forgotten. I do not
remember a time when people were subjected to district
relocation, homes were dissolved and children handed over
to the lowest bidder, but my grandmother, who was born in
1910 and who raised me, told me many such stories. Stories
of families in Borgarfjörður and Dalir, where she grew up,
and from Stokkseyri and nearby surroundings. My
grandmother, whom I have always referred to as my mother,
considered those authoritarian measures brutal. When I was
growing up I knew old, worn-out individuals that the
authorities needed to “place” somewhere, and
which they did without ensuring that those people would be
well cared for.
I, on the other hand, was fortunate. When I was young and
my mother was unable to care for me, I was sent to my
grandmother and her husband, who wrapped me in kindness and
safety. Moreover I had the privilege of growing up in what
I considered the best, most beautiful place in Iceland:
Stokkseyri. A seaside village where farms and villages were
not far from each other, and where the mountains were
suitably distant. Each farm and each house in the village
had its own special name and was not fixed in place by
peremptory zoning or a master plan. We knew the people in
those little villages, who lived on the nearby farms and in
the municipalities close by. We grew up with agriculture
and fishing, revelled in the landscape, the coastline and
the nearness of the ocean, and had a deep affection for our
surroundings. The Sunday drives around the Flói area, first
in my father’s old Willys jeep and later in the Lada,
are particularly memorable. We would go over the main
landmarks in the area, and discuss the farms and
inhabitants – who lived where and who was on the
district council or the board of the youth association. I
am familiar with all the farms mentioned in
Borghildur’s story.
Those Sunday drives would inevitably take us past the
Litla-Hraun prison, the “labour camp”, and more
often than not my father would have to make a stop there.
It is where he worked for decades. Of course we, the
children who lived in the vicinity, knew that Litla-Hraun
housed criminals and that their punishment was to stay
there for a longer or a shorter time. In those days, the
prisoners were sometimes allowed to work outside the
prison. They took part in fish processing at Eyrarbakki and
Stokkseyri when the ships came in with a large haul and
many hands were needed to secure the value of the fish.
Whether it was the close proximity of the prison or the
fact that so many fathers worked there, one thing was
certain: we were not afraid of the Litla-Hraun inmates. We
considered them unfortunate souls who had been sent far
away from their families. Sometimes my mother sent them a
pair of mittens or socks, for them or their children. I
don’t recall them having tattoos, or at least they
were not as visible as those on Sigríður’s models.
And although certain things have changed – the nature
of the violations, the intoxicants being different, and
stronger, and perhaps more damaging, the ultimate result of
the crimes is the same: incarceration. The society within
the prison is similar, and the group division unchanged.
Ill-fated men, often lonely souls with a hard exterior. The
main thing is to appear tough. Not much is different. The
prison and the community in the Flói area still coexist in
harmony.
I have a vivid
memory from many years ago, when I was a teenager. My
family and I arrived at the crest of the Kambar cliffs,
having bounced along the gravel road from Reykjavík on our
way home. My great-grandmother was with us. She grew up in
the Dalir area and lived in Borgarfjörður until her later
years. When we arrived on the crest of the cliffs, the
magic of the region lay spread out before us: the entire
Flói area and the two villages down by the sea: Stokkseyri
and Eyrarbakki. Visibility was good and I could see the
Knarrarósviti lighthouse east of Stokkseyri. “The
Flói is so beautiful,” my father remarked out loud,
to himself. The old woman, his mother-in-law, stared at him
with astonishment and exclaimed: “Do you find this
landscape beautiful?” “The most
beautiful,” my father replied, “the most
beautiful of them all.”
Margrét
Frímannsdóttir