Welcome to Áshóll

Greetings from Áshóll, Iceland! First off–forgive my radio silence with folks I have been thinking about often, but in actuality doing little digital communication with of late! It has been a delightful and surprising past month here in my temporary “home” in Áshóll, Iceland. As everyone who knows me knows, I am a fervent, (border lining on obnoxious...) cheerleader of all things Iceland, and while I’ve only visited in real life once in 2014, as a seven year member of an Icelandic book club, and as part of the Reykjavik-Seattle Sister Cities organization, I have a special place in my heart for the culture, stories and landscapes of the country. So I was very much looking forward to a long-planned trip my mom and I did here in August to celebrate both of us having decade milestone birthdays this year–12 days of hiking and road tripping through the central highlands, Westfjords and northern landmarks of the country (Highlights included (photos here): Landmannalaugar rainbow-infused vistas, a visit to the Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery, and multiple ocean-side hot springs, just to name a few. No shade to mother-daughter eyebrow waxing days or anything, but I feel very lucky that we have a mutual vision of what constitutes “fun.” 

Since even before wrapping up my tenure at my previous job and sub-letting my Seattle apartment in June, when asked about what was my next step was, I had jokingly told people that I wanted to just stay in Iceland and work on a sheep farm (and by "jokingly" I mean I was singing silent torch songs of passions and internally fervently chanting, guru-esque, “I will manifest you!” toward this dream in my heart….). Due to the perils of not being an EU citizen and limitations of even the most potent of elf magic, I’m prevented from transforming into a potato seed and staying here permanently, but still the cosmos prevailed and on the second to last day of my trip here with my mom, I found a gig working on a sheep and potato farm in one of the northern fjords of Iceland, just 25km from the town of Akureyri, where I am currently working through the end of October. The farm is called Áshóll (it is pronounced more like “Auws-holt” vs. what you would expect from English phonetics—less funny, but still makes it easier to remember for an English speaker given it’s visual resemblance to something you would yell in a moment of traffic frustration in the U.S.) The correlation between English phonics and Icelandic pronunciation feels nearly random to me as a novice. I’ve been tentatively dipping my toes into daily ½ hr. Pimslur Icelandic lessons which help a bit with comprehension, but when it comes to speaking, I’ve been coached by more than one person to: “just kind of start the Icelandic word and kind of mumble the rest and you’ll be more intelligible than if you try to pronounce every syllable perfectly…”). 

The farm is run by a couple in their early 50s, Anna and Svienn. Anna’s grandparents started the farm in the 50s when there was nothing but the stark rock and moss covered mountains, and it’s incredible to see what they’ve grown it into now. They have vast swaths of potato fields, about 350 permanent resident sheep and their 700-some lambs, and a bakers dozen of clearly potent rams. The farm is on the east side of the fjord above Akureyri and slopes gently down to the sea, facing west for dramatic nightly sunset views behind the mountains on the other side of the water. Just a mile north is the Fnjóská river which carves a canyon out of the mountainside and makes for dramatic running scenery along its northern and southern banks. Sheep either clear the road, or else stare curiously at me as I pass by. Anna and Svienn have three daughters (age 17-26) and one adorable granddaughter, Alexandra, who at 18 months is already an active participant in all the rhythms of and rituals of farm life. The daughters have all moved out, but visit regularly. 

Up until now, there were two other young(er than me) German women (like, I could have birthed them, and not in a middle school “surprise!” teen pregnancy way, but like, as a full fledged college graduate...) working here as well. Six foot tall strawberry blonde Mathilde is whimsical and casually competent in all things, has a charming habit of humming to herself, and has been collecting specimens for her future “museum of potatoes that look like other things that aren’t potatoes” (examples: hearts, snowmen, hot air balloons, and rubber duckies). She lived in Iceland for a year as an au pair during the pandemic so she brought a welcomed understanding of many intricacies of Icelandic culture and even started teaching me how to knit. Marisa is a self-described “goth hippy vegan” with a tremendously intricate dagger tattooed on her right forearm who is super quick with a joke and the most compassionate animal empath I may have ever met. They are both expert horse women and go on daily rides on whichever of the eight Icelandic horses living here are most in the mood for a trip down to the sea, sometimes with saddles, and sometimes bareback. Aydur and Urdur are the two they most often ride, and pronouncing their names consecutively reminds me of the fictional show-within-a-show “The Rural Juror” from "30 Rock." Mathilde and Marisa both left at the end of this week, so October will make for a more monastic existence here as winter sets in—another interesting chapter. 

It was an incredibly fortuitous time to arrive in late August too in terms of seeing so many momentous annual events in farm life. The first weekend I was here, I participated in the “gangur” gathering of Anna and Svienn’s flock along with a dozen other friends and family members. Icelandic sheep are very independent creatures, and they are released after lambing season in May to go up into the mountains and freely graze over the course of the summer. You almost always see sheep in groups of three when as you pass them in the wild here– a ewe and her two lambs. Come the end of summer, the lambs are so big that from a distance, it's hard for the novice to tell which is the parent. So on the last weekend in August, we went into the mountains east of the farm to guide them all back to home for fall and winter. It was an astounding process to see in action—one that has changed little, save for the advent of walkie-talkies and chartreuse safety vests, over the past centuries. The land east of the farm is bordered by both a N/S and E/W flowing rivers which makes for a natural boundary, so a half dozen folks went on horseback, circling the mountain side counter clockwise, and the rest of us went by Land Rover to the north east corner. Those of us on foot stretched out and up the mountain in a line as if tethered on an invisible chair lift, and moved gradually west ward to “push” the sheep home. We walked forward in a loose line together, pathless, over the rolling terrain, flapping our arms up and down and yelling “HUP! HUP!” anytime we saw sheep in the distance. The sheep would then turn and head away from us, back in the direction of the farm, the ewes already knowing the way. 

It was an all day affair that culminated in a flow of sheep funneling back to the farm lands, in this odd parade of walkers, horse riders, sheep dogs and one young cousin on his dirt bike. The combination of both expertise and casual confidence in the process that the humans exhibited was as astounding as the animal migration to me. 

That process was in the immediate mountains by Anna and Svienn’s land, and was followed recently by the annual “Rettir” (sheep sorting) weekend which is for the entire community, and a much larger regional undertaking. For that, Svienn was on one of several teams of 7 horsemen who went out for four days scouring the entire peninsula north of here all the way to the Denmark Straight between Iceland and Greenland to herd over 3,000 sheep back to their farmlands for the winter. 

The sheep arrived in the late afternoon. It was very cold and foggy standing at the arrival point where we were waiting with all the anticipation of eager concert goers without tickets, anticipating a celebrity arrival. A crowd of early arriving sheep were milling around as well, suggesting this was the spot. Eventually we started to see more and more horsemen emerging on the tops of the misty cliffs until eventually a fuzzy river of white, black and gray bleating starlets began running down the hillsides towards us. There was a massive gated area, the size of multiple football fields, on the other side of the road where they were all herded. Once all the sheep were gathered, came the task the following day of getting them all back to their respective farms in a process of “Rittir”– sorting. This is accomplished with an enormous wooden structure that looks somewhat like a wheel from above. A center circular pen is surrounded by wooden, walled off spokes that radiate out to all sides. Each spoke is gated with the number of a nearby farm–one gate for the ewes, another for the lambs. After leading a group of sheep into a holding area just outside of the circle, all us humans climbed in, backs to the wall, at which point the conductor of the ritual (whose father had done it before him) opened the gate and strategically let in a flow of a couple hundred sheep and lambs, running in a circle. 

From there the steps were: walk into the malaise, reach down and grab some horns, swing your leg over the sheep so you’re in a roughly mounted position, try to hold the sheep in place with your inner thighs while reading the tag in their ear (this was harder than it might seem if you had a squirrely one…), hope that the gate is nearby you, and regardless, re-grab the other horn, and then wiggle walk them towards the appropriate gate where the farmer would open it just enough to hopefully let in the sheep you had between your legs, but not any of the others running by. There was quite the variety in reactions as to how smoothly this process went. Some sheep went resignedly, some bucked or squirmed, and some shot off like a furry jet ski that you essentially rode. As soon as one group of sheep was cleared, the conductor would blow a whistle and let in the next round. It was particularly endearing to see what a communal and all-ages endeavor this was. EVERYONE was participating. Parents had infants in backpacks as they reached down for sheep horns, toddlers were joyfully mounted on sheep as their parents held the horns and walked the animals to their gates, and elementary aged siblings double teamed sheep and co-rode them to their destination. I saw one particularly tenacious girl, who couldn’t have been more than seven, look at a full grown ewe with the intensity of an NFL defensive left tackle intent on sacking the quarterback on the winning Superbowl play: “You’re mine” her eyes said, as she dove towards an animal the size of a riding fuzzy lawnmower, and indeed, it was. 

While sheep were the initial attraction here, I have equally loved working on the potato harvesting and have really enjoyed the time ruminating on what our starchy subterranean friends have to teach us about life while getting my “potato legs” (the work happens on the back of a massive harvesting tractor that sways gently as it moves, requiring a similar inner ear acclimation as being on a ship). We just finished potato harvest on Friday (it was the fall equinox, and the last row was completed just as the sun was setting behind the mountains—perfect timing!) and we celebrated Friday night, four generations of Icelanders ranging from 18 month old Alexandra to Anna's 70+ year old parents, me, and three pizzas. Winter has officially arrived this weekend (Anna said her grandmother always said: "You must finish by September 25th!") and sure enough, it has been gale force winds the past two days, and the mountains are now dusted in snow. October work apparently includes starting to sort and process all we've harvested, do inventory on all the sheep who have come back (as well as venture into the mountains for any stragglers...) and do the fall sheering (they are shorn twice a year—once in fall, and once in spring). 

I'm going to attempt to add some more reflections here, and continue to add pictures of farm life as the seasons change, so if you are ever in need of some distractionary fodder that hopefully is not too cortisol inciting, feel free to check back. As ever, all missives from loved ones at home are much appreciated, as part of project "don't turn into Jack Nicholson a la The Shinning" over the coming month, and while there may seem to be an inverse relationship between appreciation and time of response, know a reply is eventually coming, and correspondence treasured.

    Photos of Áshóll Farm Life: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tgQe5vKpQdzCHYia9

Ást frá Íslandi (love from Iceland!),

Alicia