With over 2,500 citizens, Ísafjörður is one of the larger cities in Iceland. We took a bus ride to Súðavík, a small hamlet that has a very sad recent history. at 6:30 AM on January 16, 1995 an avalanche did great damage to the hamlet, killing 8 people. That, coupled with another fatal avalanche later on that year, caused officials to take protective measures. These measures varied from planting pine trees to building avalanche dams. In Súðavík, officials decided a more practical approach was to give citizens the money to rebuild their houses, moving the hamlet down the road a bit. Standing there looking at site and the mountain behind, I could see how an avalanche might happen. This picture doesn’t show it very well because it doesn’t show the slope of the area.

Avalanche site

Then I was struck by a more profound thought. The avalanche site became a park, which is a normal reaction. But the contents of the park were disturbing. The vertical posts are just driftwood. The number of posts has nothing to do with the number of people who died or were injured. There is a playground just to the right. It was installed by a mother who lost her child to cancer. There is a large placard just to the left of a tough looking man. The placard has no English, The tour guide said the man appears to be a detective in the police department. I won’t speculate on why there is no public memorial. If you wish, you can learn more here.

From there, we went to the hamlet church where we heard the most popular lullaby in Iceland. It’s about a family of outlaws being chased by authorities. The mother doesn’t want her baby to have this life, so she throws the baby into a waterfall. What a strange part of the world.

Melancholy music

Finally we got to the highlight of the trip — a rescue center for artic foxes. It has only two foxes that were raised by humans. They couldn’t be set free in the wild because they don’t have the hunting skills to survive.

Artic Fox

Here’s hoping our next stop will be more upbeat.