A Little Hearing Loss?

Thursday night out on the town to see the band, Skálmöld, who came for a show in Hnífsdalur! The Viking / folk metal band is from Reykjavík.  The band’s name is literally translated as Age of Swords and also means “lawlessness”, referring to the Sturlung Era of Icelandic history, when a civil war broke out between the country’s family clans.

The band´s lyrics are ambitious and follows the strict rules of traditional Icelandic poetry and use old Icelandic words.

The drummer is from Ísafjörður and always plays shirtless in a kilt! The band originally counted 5 members, all of whom had been formerly active in other bands, not all metal. From day one the band started to lay the groundwork to what would become the bands debut album, Baldur. It was fantastic!!!

The Polar Bear is Back

The factory trawler Isbjörn (polar bear) is back in port for a few days.

Eveeeery One is in the Phone Book

The Icelandic phone book lists everyone by their first names! Then comes the last name, then address, then occupation [to set you apart you from all the other Jón Jónssons of course] and finally the phone number.

With only 320,000 people, it isn’t the thickest book.

Everyone is listed by their first names in the phone book because here we call everyone by their first names. No one uses Mr or Mrs. Not even as small children. Your teacher is Gunna. Your friend’s dad is Jón. Your president is Óli. Your Prime Minister is Geir. Your friendly local pop star is Björk. And so on. The best part about Iceland is that even the prime minister is in the phone book!

Fun fact: The phone book has a cartoon on every page [it’s actually a full story]

Domesticated Cod

Today we visited an aquaculture company operating out of the village of Súðavík. Hraðfrystihúsið – Gunnvör hf (aka HG) is based in Isafjörður. The company also has 3 boats (Pall Palsson, Stefnir, and Julius Geirmundsson) and 150 employees. Their turnover is an amazing $35,000,000 USD! With the decline in the shrimp stocks, HG closed its shrimping factory in 2001 to focus on aquaculture.

We went out to feed the cod and clear the pens of dead fish. HG has about a dozen cod pens in Álftafjördur. In total, the company produces 2,000 tons of farmed cod per year!

Cod production cycle. HF does both the closed cycle (from eggs) and capture based aquaculture. Capture based rears 1kg wild caught cod to a 4kg product, extending the quota and increasing profit.

Hello little fishies! There are 60,000 of you!!!

The entirety of the cod gets used, and Súðavík also has a cod liver canning factory.

Konudagur

Today is Women’s Day!!! People traditionally don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day in Iceland, although its popularity is growing. It falls between two other romantic days: January 25 was Bóndadagur (‘Husbands’ Day’), and Konudagur (Woman’s or Wives’ Day).

My present was a beautiful rainbow! Captured from Albertína’s apartment window.

While Bóndadagur marks the beginning of the old month of Þorri, Konudagur marks the beginning of the month of Góa.In Icelandic there’s a saying: að þreyja þorrann og góuna, which refers to these two months representing the harshest winter period. If people can just stick it out until the end of Góa they have survived winter and can start looking forward to spring. But it already feels like spring, with the temperature in the double digits (“50s” – my Ferinheit friends). This is a false spring and soon we will be plunged back into winter. At least Women’s Day fell on such a fabulous day this year!

French Onion Soup

This weekend we hosted the second Ægir student association dinner… A Night in Paris. We drew a great crowd, the food was fantastic and overall it was a huge success.

As the Sous Chef, I had many responsibilities. One was cutting 15 onions… and swimming goggles ensure no tears!

A lot of nets in the water

There are over 100 fishing boats working around the Westfjords this day!

This image is from the Marine Traffic webpage (http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/). It is a live ship traffic map! The system is based on AIS (Automatic Identification System). Since December 2004, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all vessels over 299GT to carry an AIS transponder on board, which transmits their position, speed and course, among some other static information, such as vessel’s name, dimensions and voyage details.

Páll Pálsson Turns 40!

No, this is not a friend of mine from town. But one of the trawlers in the harbor. The Páll Pálsson ÍS 102, was the very first trawler I saw in Ísafjörður.

Today, forty years ago, the stern trawler Páll Pálsson came to the dock Hnífsdalur for the first time, after almost two months of sailing from Japan. The ship was built for Miðfell hf. in Japan and completed construction in 1973, but Páll Pálsson is now owned Hraðfrystihússins Gunnvarar (HG). With the advent of the stern trawler fleet in the Westfjords, Páll Pálsson set the precedent for the fishing industry in the Northwest.

When stern trawlers made their way into the fisheries sector in the early seventies, it was a major breakthrough in the industry. The ships were able to process fish on board and box them, improving the quality of the catch . Bringing Páll Pálsson to Hnífsdalur was a milestone in the Northwest.

The crew is only fifteen, but the Páll Pálsson and its crew have brought about 165 thousand tons to shore in the 40 years, of which about 100 thousand tons of cod. In today’s prices the catch is valued at about 40 billion.

Páll Pálsson has its place in the hearts of local people in Hnífsdalur and Ísafjördur.

Páll Pálsson has been well maintained, but in 1988 the stern trawler underwent great improvements. The ship was lengthened by 10 meters, got a different bow, a new bridge and main engine. And Páll still has life left!

Páll Pálsson likely directly impacts every third or fourth family in Ísafjörður and Hnífsdalur. There are so many people who have worked on this ship. It is quite clear that Páll Pálsson has had a major impact in the region.

The Second Part

Icelandic names differ from most current Western family name systems by being patronymic (occasionally matronymic) in that they reflect the immediate father (or mother) of the child and not the historic family lineage.

Iceland shares a common cultural heritage with the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark with its crown dependency the Faroe Islands. Icelanders, unlike other Scandinavians, have continued to use their traditional name system, which was formerly used in all of Scandinavia (and now is re-introduced in the Faroe Islands).

The Icelandic system does not use family names. A person’s surname indicates the first name of the person’s father (patronymic) or in some cases mother (matronymic).  The Icelandic word for a surname actually means an identification name, traditionally these names are meant to identify daughter (dóttir) of whom, or son of whom, a person is. Using the given names (first names) of the parents, instead of the surnames, is in accordance with the traditional common practice of the use of names in Iceland.

The given names of the father (or mother) appear in the genitive case, with the suffix “son” in the case of a man or “dóttir” in the case of a woman.

Some family names exist in Iceland, mostly inherited from parents of foreign origin, while some are adopted. Before 1925, it was legal to adopt new family names; one Icelander to do so was the Nobel Prize-winning author Halldór Laxness.

The Names Acts from 1925, 1991 and 1997 have all, along with the prohibition of new family names, contained provisions to preserve the rights of Icelandic citizens, who bore family names when the law came into force, and the rights of foreign nationals, to keep their family names and to pass them on to their descendants.

The First Part

On 31 January 2013,  a 15-year old, Blær Bjarkardóttir, who had been identified as “Girl” since birth as “Blær” was deemed by Icelandic authorities as an improper, unfeminine name, was allowed to keep her name! “Blær” means “gentle breeze” in Icelandic. The Reykjavík District Court recently overturned the rejection by Icelandic authorities. Up until the latest ruling, Blaer was referred to simply as “stulka” (“the girl”) in all official documents and litigation.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/31/iceland-name-light-breeze/1881177/

Popular female names.

Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named.First names not previously used in Iceland must be approved by the Icelandic Naming Committee (Mannanafnanefnd) before being used. In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don’t question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules. Parents can take from the list or apply to the special committee that has the power to say yea or nay. Parents are allowed a maximum of three names, i.e., two first names, and one middle name, or three first names.

The Personal Names Act of 1996 states “Names may not conflict with the linguistic structure of Icelandic. They shall be written in accordance with the ordinary rules of Icelandic orthography. Girls shall be given women’s names, and boys shall be given men’s names. A forename may not be such as to cause its bearer embarrassment.” The criterion for acceptance of names is whether or not they can be easily incorporated into the Icelandic language. First, they must contain only letters found in the Icelandic alphabet and second, they must be able to be declined (that is, modified according to their grammatical case). For example, names with the letter “C” in them, like Christina, are banned since there is no such letter in the Icelandic alphabet. To a lesser extent, names are approved based on whether or not the it has appeared before in Icelandic history. However, the female name Virginia is approved, likely due to the popularity of the John Denver song Country Road.

Popular male names.