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Home
Family
Háreksstaðir, Isak's
Homeland
Isak's
Church at
Sauðanes
Hólmavað, Jacobina's
Birthplace
Mývatn Lake and
Volcanic Desert
Reykjavík
Waterfalls
Western Fjords
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Our Cousins in Melrakkasletta:
Northernmost Peninsula
Kristbjorg and Stephanie in
Kopasker
What does that sign say?
Nupskatla: birthplace of the Kopasker and Borgir
cousins
The ends of the earth
Watch for sheep!
A roadbed of washed-up debris, including horsehair
braided rope
Frank at land's end
Stephanie at land's end
An old driftwood shelter
Lighthouse and shed (and more sheep)
Outside of Borgir
Approaching Borgir
Vigdis and Stephanie at Borgir
Anna Maria and Vigdis at their farm
In the house at Borgir
Setting up camp (keep the gloves on!)
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From Husavik we went on to northeastern Iceland. We
visited Stephanie's distant cousins at Kopasker and
Borgir. They are related to the
American Johnson clan on our grandmother's side. Their great-great
grandmother was the first wife (who died in 1880) of our
great-grandfather Sigurbjorn (Jakobina's father). So we are
half-cousins, or in Icelandic reckoning, just cousins (fraendi).
Kristbjorg has an uncanny resemblance to the young
Jacobina.
This part of Iceland is barren and desolate--a rocky tundra shrouded
in mist. (It would be great for an outdoor production of King Lear.) On
our way to Borgir, we stopped at
Hraunhafnartangi, a bleak rocky outcropping just 2.5 km
from the Arctic circle. It is the northernmost point on the mainland.
Eric Johnson wrote when he was here: "...we fought the wind and drizzle
out over tundra-boulders to see the big burial-cairn of Thorgeir
Halvorsson who died here after killing 14 foes a thousand years ago as
told in one of the lesser sagas. (I couldn't help thinking why in hell
were they hacking at each other way out here?)...
At Borgir we were given a tour of the family
sheep farm by Vigdis and
her youngest daughter, Anna Maria. Their self-sufficiency was truly
impressive, including a generator powered by a glacier-fed creek running
across their land. In addition to raising sheep for meat and wool, they
raise eider ducks, help on their neighbors' farms, and do the mail run
in the area.
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