We have a large collection of lantern slides from the Manchester Geographical Society in the museum stores, including some of Iceland, and they gave us a window onto the lansdscapes of the past. Some of the most striking were images of Thingvellir National Park.
The three-gabled manor house was built in 1930 to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Alþing.
The second two gables were added in 1974 to celebrate 1100 years since SettlementView from the top of the Almannagjá fissure
Rachel Webster, our Curator of Botany has discovered an amazing collection of glass lantern slides of Iceland in the 1930s.The images show a rare glimpse into the pre-WW2 Icelandic landscape and society. They include some of the most iconic volcanoes, such as Hekla and form a snapshot of 1930s Icelanders.
Rachel, myself and Dmitri (our Curator of Arthropods) will be returning to Iceland in August and hope to be able to compare the images to the Icelandic landscape today. These will give us a dramatic insight into climate and cultural change over the last 70 years.
The next step is to gently clean them (thanks to Hetti for starting this process) and then photograph them.
Iceland’s native forests are primarily composed of downy birch (Betula pubescens) with some rowan (Sorbus acuparia). The aspen (Populus tremula) is also found in Iceland, but is extremely rare and the shrubby tea-leaved willow (Salix phylicifolia) can sometimes get tall enough to be counted as a tree.
Forestry plantation, Snaefellsnes
Beyond these species, the Iceland Forestry Service has experimented with a number of species from overseas, as well as planting more birch, and plantations of trees are now maturing. We have wandered through a few forested ares and we were privileged to meet Throstur Eysteinsson (division chief of the forestry service) who wrote this excellent description of forestry in a treeless land.
Apparently there wasn’t much of a tradition of eating mushrooms in Iceland, it is only relatively recently that the arrival of people from Poland have started to harvest the birch forest bounty and to introduce Icelanders to the idea.
One of the aims of our field work in Iceland was to visit the areas with the native forest of Downy Birch (Betula pubescens). We’ve visited several places with the birch forest, for instance, the site in the southern shore of the Lake Myvatn and the forest along Logurinn fjord in eastern Iceland. In both places the forests were full of edible mushrooms, and I could not help myself and collected some, which then we cooked and eat together. Here are the photos or some of those edible mushrooms we encountered during our trip.
Milky Mushroom (Lactarius resimus), or ‘Груздь’ in Russian, is considered a delicacy in Russia and some other countries of Eastern Europe when pickled in salt.
Slippery Jack (Suillus luteus), one of the most popular edible mushrooms; especially tasty when pickled.
Woolly Milkcap (Lactarius torminosus).
The Brown Birch Bolete (Leccinum scabrum) is typically used…
The Nootka lupin was brought to Iceland to help to restore degraded soils. It’s use began in the 1960s when the Icelandic Forestry Service used lupin to fertilise newly-planted forest areas. As a plant which needs a sunny spot, lupins could not thrive once the trees grew tall enough to create shade. After this it was then sown by the Soil Conservation Service to help to improve soils.
Erosion on hillsides
Soil erosion is a considerable problem for Iceland. At the time of settlement, Iceland was actually more vegetated, with habitats such as forests, grasslands and willow tundra. Before the Vikings there were no grazing animals in Iceland (the Arctic fox was the only mammal) but with the people came the sheep, goats, cows and horses.
Dust blowing off the Myrdalssandur east of Vik, Iceland
Centuries of sheep farming are thought to have taken their toll on the land putting an intense pressure on fragile grazing lands. Woodlands suffered when sheep could graze the regenerating shoots from felled birch and willow trees, preventing the formation of coppices. In addition, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, the climate became harsher slowing vegetation growth, and land was lost to disasters such as meltwater outwash caused by volcanic eruptions under glaciers.
Erosion control through lyme grass planting, Vik
Lyme grass and lupins can both grow in loose soils and help to combat erosion.
Myvatn is a shallow, eutrophic lake in north Iceland. The name means Midge Lake and the area is inundated with them every summer. Luckily, when we visited the midge swarms were of non-biting chironomid species (it’s very handy traveling with an entomologist!).
Besides being beautiful, formed from volcanic action and full of wildfowl, Lake Myvatn is also famous for balls of algae known as lake balls, marimo (Japanese) or kúluskítur (Icelandic). These are spherical colonies of filamentous algae (Aegagropila linnaei) which are thought to form when algae living on the rocks are torn off and are rolled around in the lake currents. Rolling helps to keep the ball clear of debris and mud so the colony stays velvety green.
Tantalizing greenness on the lake bed – could they be algal balls?
Recently, however, lake balls have been vanishing from Lake Myvatn as sediments begin to silt over the the lake floor. They can be seen in aquaria in a few places in Iceland, I hope they will still survive in their famous lake home too.
Lake balls at the Natural History Museum of Kópavogur
With a group of curators away on a trip together one thing is guaranteed – we’ll find some museums to visit!
Museum sign in Reydarfjorur
So one Icelandic word I’ve learnt is ‘safn’ meaning museum or collection. We’ve visited a whole host of wonderful museum large and small since arriving in Iceland.
There was Arbaer open air museum with it’s beautiful architecture and really stylish displays of Icelandic life and commodities.
One of Arbaer’s beautiful displays of Icelandic lifeHistoric Icelandic women’s desses
Then there was Eldheimar (Pompeii of the North) telling the story of the eruption on Heimaey with it’s evocative excavated house and clever use of audioguides. David has an interesting interview with the Director of this new museum here.
Eldheimar (Pompeii of the North)
Detail of a buried house
The Aquarium and Natural History Museum in Heimay celebrating it’s 50th anniversary with decorated stones and the chance to meet it’s VIP resident:
What hot feet a puffin has!
The eclectic shark fishing museum on the north of the Snaefellsness peninsula with artifacts, drying shark and the opportunity to buy the real thing. Visit Dmitri’s blog for a full write-up of this one!
Detail of fishing boat boat
The charming natural history museum in Ólafsfjördur with an extensive collection of birds, a polar bear and something which I particularly enjoyed…..a little browseable herbarium.
Pressed plants to flick through
At the Museum of Akureyri the current exhibition was an interesting display of images of Iceland today taken using the wet plate technique. We have some plates like this in our collection and even though ours are about 100 years old and these were modern, all the smudges and drips around the edges look identical. ALongside this chenging temporary exhibition they also had two more permanent displays about mapping Iceland and life in Akureyri in ages past.
Gallery of maps in Akureyri MuseumEdge effects on a modern wet plate image of the Cafe Paris building, Akureyri
Today we went to the site of the Krafla fires eruption at around 650m above sea level and there were still a few early summer flowers to be found. Mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) is the national flower of Iceland and all the other locations we’ve visited have been covered with it’s beautiful fluffy seedheads.
Mountain avens (with vapour from the hydrothermal power station)Mountain avens seedhead
I was also delighted to find the pretty purple bells of the Alpine bartsia (Bartsia alpina) which had gone to seed in other localities we’d visited.
Alpine bartsia flowerAlpine bartsia after seed set
While butterworts rely on carnivory, alpine bartsia has different specialist lifestyle which can help it to succeed in difficult environments:
The Akureyri Botanic Garden is one of the most northerly in the world and the oldest in Iceland. Along with displays of Icelandic and arctic plants, it has an amazing array of plant species in bloom in August. I wish I could grow delphiniums like these!
Beautiful delphiniums and monkhoods with snow on the hills in the distance
The garden is beautifully laid out and card for with very detailed labels describing the characteristics of the plant families on show.
The images show a rare glimpse into the pre-WW2 Icelandic landscape and society. They include some of the most iconic volcanoes, such as Hekla and form a snapshot of 1930s Icelanders.
Rachel, myself and Dmitri (our Curator of Arthropods) will be returning to Iceland in August and hope to be able to compare the images to the Icelandic landscape today. These will give us a dramatic insight into climate and cultural change over the last 70 years.
Milky Mushroom (Lactarius resimus), or ‘Груздь’ in Russian, is considered a delicacy in Russia and some other countries of Eastern Europe when pickled in salt. 
Slippery Jack (Suillus luteus), one of the most popular edible mushrooms; especially tasty when pickled. 
Woolly Milkcap (Lactarius torminosus). 
The Brown Birch Bolete (Leccinum scabrum) is typically used…
Herbology Manchester 