 It's a children's story book island, the perfect setting for a Hollywood castaway movie, the kind of remote, romantic spot traditionally sought out by poets to unleash their creativity. Heimaey (pop. around 4,500) dominates an otherwise uninhabited cluster of 45 rocky outcrops and islets known as the Westman Islands off Iceland's southern coast. With towering, puffin-covered cliffs mantled in pale green grass, Heimaey and its neighbors are starkly beautiful. Yet there is a dark side to this beauty, with which the islanders, to the surprise of many outsiders, seem quite prepared to live.
It's a children's story book island, the perfect setting for a Hollywood castaway movie, the kind of remote, romantic spot traditionally sought out by poets to unleash their creativity. Heimaey (pop. around 4,500) dominates an otherwise uninhabited cluster of 45 rocky outcrops and islets known as the Westman Islands off Iceland's southern coast. With towering, puffin-covered cliffs mantled in pale green grass, Heimaey and its neighbors are starkly beautiful. Yet there is a dark side to this beauty, with which the islanders, to the surprise of many outsiders, seem quite prepared to live.
Heimaey, like much of Iceland, is the product of volcanoes. Helgafell, today a green and innocent-looking mountain, in 1973 spewed more than 30 million tons of molten red lava and rocks out of its eastern flank, engulfing a third of the town of Heimaey while creating a twin cone beside itself. Red Eldfell, Helgafell's mirror image, now broods steamily over the town, reminding everyone of what volcanoes can do on their off-days.
Not that Heimaey's population needs much reminding. Among its island neighbors — all, of course, themselves volcanic creations — looms famous Surtsey. It first emerged from the ocean in l963. Heimaey residents 18 km away watched its violent three-and-a-half-year-long birth, which at one period created a column of ash and steam 6 km high. Today, black, virtually plantless and somewhat sinister, the 2.5-sq-km Surtsey stands as yet another stern warning of the little surprises nature can dole out in this archipelago.
Such violence so close to home would tend to put people off any idea of permanent residence on Heimaey, but not these islanders. Once Helgafell had calmed down, about five months after she first blew, most of the evacuated residents returned. They were lucky in that all escaped with their lives, other than a looter who was overcome by smoke, but around 400 families lost their homes and some streets now end abruptly at the great walls of solidified lava that swallowed up the houses beyond.
After everyone was found safe that January night, the next great concern was the harbor. Heimaey's life depends on fishing — the 40-ship fleet is one of the most important in Iceland — and the lava was moving inexorably toward the harbor channel. Firefighters and volunteers frantically doused the advancing flow with ice-cold sea water to try to halt it before it blocked the seaway. The lava did stop — just 210 m short of the water.
Today, people seem quite relaxed about future eruptions. "It was, after all, the first time the volcano had erupted in 5,000 years," shrugs Gudmundur Eyjólfsson, who brought his family from Reykjavik to live on Heimaey 10 years ago. Eyjólfsson says he found the peace and quality of life here irresistible, with plenty of time for friends and family because no one lives very far from anyone else.
True enough, the island is a walkable 13 sq km and most people live in the bare block houses that spread out above the harbor. While Heimaey may not offer the sophistications of metropolitan life, it does boast a superb l8-hole golf course in the bowl of one extinct volcano, and gridlocked traffic is certainly not a problem, although the town proudly erected its first set of traffic lights recently.
For visitors, who take the three-hour ferry ride from the mainland, or a 25-minute flight on a little Fokker plane from Reykjavik, it is the eccentricities of the island that intrigue. Even the sheep have strange lives, winched individually to the top of inaccessible cliffs then left to browse despite 180-km/h winter winds. The odd huts dotting the cliffs are not for shepherds but for puffin hunters who, during the six-week season, scoop up the flying birds with long-handled nets. The endearing birds with the huge, brightly colored beaks are less of a staple than they used to be here, but they are still a popular dish on Icelandic menus.
Fortunately, they are plentiful and not threatened as a species, even though their eggs are also eaten. During August, the young pufflings, suddenly no longer fed by their parents, leave their nests to look for food and many, attracted by the lights, stray into the town. Children traditionally collect them in cardboard boxes to return to the sea.
Of course, the works of Helgafell provide the top visitor attraction. Like a giant's spill of lumpy porridge, the lava field covers three sq km and has actually enlarged the island by 2.1 sq km. Tourists can climb the network of hiking paths that lead to the top of newly created Eldfell and investigate the steaming fissures and vents on the way. Resourceful residents used to use the the new lava field to heat water which was then pumped into town to heat homes and buildings.
One of the most surprising sights in the midst of this dramatic lunar landscape is a beautifully lush flower garden, painstakingly created by a determined townswoman. It strikes a defiant, even incongruous note, but symbolizes the resilience of Heimaey residents who have never allowed a few volcanoes to get them down.
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