Exploring Iceland
These are just my opinions and my memories from the year I lived in Iceland. I might be mis-remembering or looking at them through the lens of time but they are mine. Only mine but perhaps worth sharing.
Today, Iceland is a top tourist destination with many, many tailored photo tours as well as awesome adventures to wander about on the island. The Blue Lagoon is famous and one of National Geographic’s top destinations. When I was there, just the opposite was true, there was no Blue Lagoon and the Icelanders were fiercely protecting their culture, language, land, and sea rights. Fiercely!
The year before I arrived Iceland was involved with the UK in a dispute about fishing. Iceland increased its national waters to 200 miles which gave it exclusive fishing rights in that zone, a zone that the UK also fished. The dispute was nasty and Iceland threatened to leave NATO and Keflavik was a NATO base. The Icelanders dumped a huge load of stones in front of the entrance to Rockville, essentially isolating the facility. The dispute had been worked out but there were still some angst towards outsiders.
In addition to being a NATO base, Keflavik was the main airport of Iceland. When I was there the entire base was surrounded by barbed wire and access was only through two or three gates. Those gates were guarded by members of the Icelandic Police (IP). In our indoctrination briefing, we were told that the act of leaving any US/NATO installation was the same as crossing the border and entering Iceland and therefore all the rules about entering Iceland were in effect each time you left the base. And, so what, you wonder. Let me give you a teeny idea about the rules. And, all the rules were there for a reason, to protect the economy and culture of the country.
You were not allowed to take alcohol off base. I don’t remember the exact ratio but the cost of a bottle on the economy was three or four times the cost of a bottle on base. Even on base you weren’t allowed to just buy the booze, we all had ration cards. Ration cards! I don’t remember exactly what the ration was but something like one bottle of booze or one case of beer per week. Booze was strictly controlled because it was so expensive off base. Of course, I knew that some guys had secret compartments in their cars but the price of getting caught was high…immediate deportation and a really bad mark on your record. Getting caught off base with a bottle that didn’t have a duty free or Icelandic tax sticker meant the bottle came from one of the bases and deportation was the same punishment.
Cigarettes were also strictly controlled. You could take two packs off base, one had to be open. If you had an expensive camera, it had to be registered with the IPs and you could only take two rolls of film with you and one had to be in the camera. On the main base, when you went through the main gate you were more than likely going to be searched by the IP. If they found something, you were hosed.
The IPs were also highway patrol for the main island and had full access to the bases. That was critical because of the Icelandic view on drinking and driving is strict. Don’t do it. They are ferocious about this and will arrest you even if you are just heading to your car with keys in hand. I heard of a guy who was drunk, went to his car and started it because of the cold, and then he got into the back seat. He was arrested. I also heard they could test you long after you’d been driving and still arrest you. I think the max blood alcohol level is .02%. So needless to say, I never, ever drank and drove. But I drank a lot…more on that in another post. Interesting side note, the Icelanders used to drive on the left side of the road, they switched in 1968. Can you imagine?!
Rockville was several miles from Keflavik and usually didn’t have an IP in their guardhouse. They just treated us out there on the “honor” system. Mostly. On Friday and Saturday nights an IP often sat in the guard shack with the USAF guards. They were supposedly ensuring that no Icelanders were staying past the time the club closed…that was the rule. Of course, they never really knew who’d gone into the club and who came out.
The black market was a “thing.” But it was krona that was the popular contraband. Iceland did not have an “official” exchange rate outside of the country so if Icelanders went on vacation, they usually had to buy “all included” vacations where all the food and drink and hotels were part of the package, usually through an Icelandic tourist bureau. They didn’t have US dollars to spend or exchange and so there were limited. Consequently, the market for US dollars was high. You could get several times the exchange rate which was good for us service people because although we liked wandering about Iceland, it was super expensive. I’m sure that’s all changed now, too, but that’s what happened in the wayback machine.
Today, all the places I’d hung out are gone or changed and Iceland is a major tourist destination. The Icelandic language is the close to the Old Norse language because the Icelanders were the first to write down their language, freezing it in form and making updates more evolutionary and recorded. They used to carefully guard that language by having a meeting once a year to debate adding new words to their language. For instance, I think the words for television were something like “throwing pictures” although that may have changed. There are only 340,000 people on the island, I’d guess that all but a few speak English, we never had difficulties talking with the locals. I wouldn’t mind going back someday but then, my memories are good, why change them.
Back in the day when I went on adventures with my friends, there weren’t many rules or fences or guarding of things in Iceland. Consequently, this group of rather fearless people (me included) felt free to get up close and personal with this geyser. I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing there’s a fence there now lest people of low self awareness (like us) get too close to the edge of this very hot place. We might have seen common sense down in that boiling pit. Nah.