travel writing

Would you like to buy an old factory?

Your mom wouldn’t like you to play here. Watch your head. The ceiling is peeling off. Concrete expelling salt. Time has stained the walls. Each streak is an art piece in itself. Tarkovsky would be jealous. There is no smell. No sound. Just echo. Echo and the dust. Dust of fish and dust of men.

‘Would you like to buy an old factory?’ He was asked over the phone after coming back from a short visit to Djúpavík. His grandfather, who he had met only once, lived here until his death.  

‘The abandoned herring plant? No, thank you’ Ási declined the offer, but soon after, he and Eva decided to roll the dice. 

The Westfjords. The head of Iceland. In the Northeast of the Northwest, in Reykjarfjörður, where on a good day mountains stand on their heads, is a cathedral of the industrial age. A herring factory. Iceland's first industry. Thousands of tons a day. Now dead. Herring migration. No fish, no people. 

In a tiny garden nearby, Jóna Ingibjörg grows her flowers. She has green fingers. Rusted sprockets bloom among the grass. A chimney. Compost. A part of a big white skeleton. Paper-Scissors-Stone. Retention valve, semi-rotary hand pump and a whale bone.  

People used to work and play here. During herring years, herring men and herring women brought herring children to light. Bent by the mountain wind. Covered with fish and salt. Now, all this is gone. 

In the 80’s, the local kids made a sport of breaking the factory’s windows. Yes, there were kids here back then. Eva and Ási cleaned up the broken glass. Turned the women’s barrack into a hotel. She became a chairman on the local board. They raised their kids here. Handcuffed to the beauty of the fjord. Still, after more than thirty years, they are the newcomers. Who is local here? Who were the people who left this place? And who is left? 

The previous summer there were around 40 people in the whole district of Árneshreppur. Only 17 stayed for the winter, and those who stayed had an average age of 70. The last child left in the fall. The school is closed. After a century, history has come full circle.

‘Good things happen slowly,’ Eva says looking at the first fishing boats docked in the harbour this season. Fairly optimistic. ‘Mountains are like people,’ she says. ‘Every mountain has its own face.’ I look at her blue eyes, her delicate nose. Short gray hair. She learned it all the hard way. Every mountain has its own fate.

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