September 10, 2007

The Lighthouse

My grandfather, Carl or Afi, was the first lighthouse-keeper when the lighthouse at Hornbjarg, in far northwestern Iceland, opened in 1930. He and my grandmother, Thóra or Amma, and my father and his six siblings, the youngest a girl of about a year old, moved there to open the lighthouse and tend it when it opened. They would live there for several years. My dad, the oldest, was about 14 years old.

Hornbjarg – HorDN-BEEarg (basically translates to Horn Mountain) sits near the top of Iceland’s northwestern area, in a small bay called Látravík. It was totally isolated when my dad lived there from 1930 to 1932. There were no roads and it only accessible by a long hike or by boat. It is still only reachable that way. Even with a boat, those who want to hike or climb up to the lighthouse, need to get to the tiny beach in a dinghy or inflatable. Now you can drive to the lighthouse, in the winter, and only with a 4-wheel drive vehicle.

Afi was frequently away from the lighthouse, fishing or on bird hunts for food, and occasionally catching seals for their food. While he was gone, my grandmother was in charge of the lighthouse. She raised chickens and I think had a cow for milk. There were also sheep, and a barn, and a small garden to grow vegetables and potatoes, probably mostly cabbage and beans and carrots, all of which would grow during the short growing season that far north. She would slaughter lambs in the fall and make sausages to store and eat during the long winter. I can still remember her making sausages when she lived with us in Reykjavík. Another source of food was seabirds and their eggs, which my grandfather and the older boys catch by rappelling down the steep cliffs, at the end of ropes stretched over the edge of the cliffs. My dad wrote about this later when he was in high school and won a prize (Golden Pen Award) for the story.

One time, my dad was sent to the next farm, a very long hike, to fetch a midwife for Amma. My uncle Guðmundur, was probably about 12 years old, and knew only that Amma was sick and needed help. Apparently, as my uncle tells it, she had given birth to a baby boy who died. A while later, probably a few days, he remembered, they saw Afi take a bundle wrapped into a table cloth and walk with it up the hill. It was the baby, whose birth was apparently never registered. The tiny boy was buried by a creek a short up a hill. That creek forms a small waterfall down a cliff near the small beach.

Another time, during the winter, when my dad was away at school, two of his brothers, Þráinn and Guðmundur, then 10 and 11 years old, were sent to fetch a battery, on a sled, for the radio at the light house. They got back safely, after at least a day’s hike each way.

The family moved to Ísafjörður (EESUH-fee-urth-uhr) in 1932, where my grandfather continued working as the captain on a fishing trawler. A year later, after a major storm, everyone thought he was gone for good. He’d been missing, as was his ship, for several days. Suddenly, there was a lot of excitement … his ship had been sighted as it limped into the port, with most of the superstructure in ruins. But, Afi, made it in to port. Alive.

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NOTE: If you'd like to see some photos of the lighthouse and the cliffs, and some climbers, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/gls1106/sets/72157602462273174/ . These photos were taken by my dad, Áskell Löve, when he was 14 years old.