Making wilderness: Tourism and the history of the wilderness idea in Iceland more

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Click “Text Edits.” You can then select any text and delete it, replace it, or insert new text as you need to. If you need to include new sec ons of text, it is also possible to add a comment to the proofs. To do this, use the S cky Note tool in the task bar. Please also see our FAQs here: h p://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/produc on/index.asp. 4. Make sure that you save the file when you close the document before uploading it to CATS using the “Upload File” bu on on the online correc on form. A full list of the comments and edits you have made can be viewed by clicking on the “Comments” tab in the bo om le -hand corner of the PDF. If you prefer, you can make your correc ons using the CATS online correc on form. {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:39 Polar Geography Vol. 00, No. 00, Month 2011, 1Á25 Making wilderness: tourism and the history of the wilderness idea in Iceland ´ ´ ´ ANNA DORA SÆÞORSDOTTIRa*, C. MICHAEL HALLb and JARKKO SAARINENc 5 a Faculty of Life and Environmental Science, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavı´k, Iceland; b Department of Management, College of Business & Economics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand; c Department of Geography, University of Oulu, PO Box 3000, Oulu 90014, Finland The notion of wilderness is often associated with high latitudes. This paper focuses on the historical and cultural processes that construct the wilderness idea in Iceland.Throughout the centuries histories have mirrored the feelings and opinions toward the wild and dangerous. These include the sagas and folktales about outlaws and supernatural beings in the Icelandic Highlands. Despite its harsh nature occasionally travelers did visit. However, in early times few knew the wilderness from personal experience but all had heard stories about it and contributed to its social construction. Later when more scientific knowledge was collected, the stories changed and a new meaning was created for the Highlands. Tourism led to a new commodified image that attracted more and more travelers to the Highlands, both Icelandic and foreign visitors. However, present contestation between different forms of wilderness use as well as new sets of visitor demands are leading to the construction of new understanding of the nature of the Icelandic wilderness. 10 AQ1 15 20 25 Introduction Wilderness is a concept that has long been associated with high latitude and polar regions (Grant 1998) and is significant for both cultural and natural heritage management and conservation (Hall 2010; Nash 2001). Although it is often defined via inventories or legislation, the identification of an area as wilderness is a culturally and historically contingent process that evolves over time and is marked by changing ideas and practices concerning meaning, values and uses. As a construct, wilderness invokes a diverse set of images and representations that depend on the period and socio-cultural environment in which a person or a social group is living and on their personal and/or shared histories and experiences (Saarinen 1998). Although the notion of wilderness often invokes meanings and images referring to wild, remote, and untrammeled natural areas, untouched by human influences, many of these areas are the products of human activities that reflect past relationships with the environment and current preferences and values. Wilderness areas are nowadays increasingly promoted as products or sites of consumption. This is perhaps most clearly seen in connection with modern tourism *Corresponding author. Email: annadora@hi.is Polar Geography ISSN 1088-937X print/ISSN 1939-0513 online # 2011 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1088937X.2011.643928 30 35 40 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:42 2 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 45 50 55 60 65 and associated place marketing (Saarinen 2004, 2005). Iceland has become a naturebased tourist destination and is often promoted as ‘Europe’s last wilderness,’ by the tourism industry (Oslund 2005), which uses marketing slogans that refer and rely strongly on the wilderness characteristics of the country: e.g. ‘Iceland naturally,’ ‘Nature the Way Nature Made It’ and ‘Pure, Natural, Unspoiled.’ Indeed, according AQ2 to Sæþorsdottir (2004, 2007) and Sæþorsdottir and Karlsdottir (2009), wilderness ´ ´ ´ ´ ´ and pristine nature are the most important attractions of the country’s highland areas. Tourists praise the perceived unspoiled spectacular landscape with its broad vistas, natural diversity, and limited visible evidence of human artifacts and structures. They do not notice the effects of human use and how the landscape has been changed and humanized. Yet, wilderness and nature have not always been tourist attractions in Iceland or elsewhere. Instead, fear was one of the strongest elements in European attitudes to wilderness until the early nineteenth century (Short 1991; Tuan 1990). Thus, the history of wilderness as a tourist attraction is relatively short (Hall and Page 2002; Saarinen 2005). The focal point for wilderness tourism in Iceland is the Highlands that cover approximately 40% of the country and are uninhabited (Figure 1). The traditional Icelandic word used for the uninhabited areas of Iceland is obyggð ir, a word that ´ means land where people have not settled and is therefore uninhabited. The word especially refers to uninhabited land in the Highlands. The word oræfi is also ¨ commonly used for the Highlands. It means uninhabited land or unutilized Highland area, wasteland or desert (Boðvarsson 1979). Vı´ð erni is another Icelandic ¨ word used to describe the Highlands and is more recent (Thorhallsdottir 2002). The ´ ´ concept o´snortið vı´ðerni (unspoiled wilderness) was used for the first time in Iceland Figure 1. The Highlands. {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:46 Making Wilderness 3 AQ1 70 75 80 85 90 in 1990 in The Proposal for a Parliamentary Resolution on National Tourism Policy (Tillaga til þingsa´lyktunar um ferð ama´lastefnu) where unspoiled wilderness is claimed to be one of the most important resources of Icelandic tourism. In spite of the specific term used the meaning of wilderness in Iceland is close to the AngloAmerican concept referring to areas opposite to human settlements, civilization, and culture (see Nash 2001; Short 1991). The Highlands are characterized by very diverse landscape types and is harsh and inaccessible with large glacial rivers and extreme weather conditions. The Highlands were initially used by the early settlers and farmers, then feared and avoided for centuries, before being admired by thousands of domestic and international tourists wanting to see and experience wild and sublime nature (Sæþorsdottir 2010a, 2010b). ´ ´ For centuries the Highlands were not of any economic significance except as a poor grazing area and were an obstacle for travel between the different regions of the country. At the end of the 1960s this changed when some of the glacier-fed rivers in the Highlands were dammed and hydro-power plants built and the Highlands became very valuable for electrical power production. Paradoxically, even though such plants and associated roads reduced the relative wilderness values of naturalness and remoteness, the improved access lead to a growth in tourist visits. Now, there are plans for further exploitation of many of the major glacial rivers as well as for geothermal power plants in several of the main geothermal areas ´ (Sæþorsdottir and Olafsson 2010a, 2010b), which while making the Highlands even ´ ´ more accessible for tourists will, at the same time, further reducing the wilderness values of the region. In this paper the construction of the tourism Á wilderness nexus will be discussed in an Icelandic context. The paper will seek to outline the history of wilderness travel in Iceland and how the idea of wilderness transformed over time and influenced traveling. In the current debate over the development of the Highlands this approach should help to understand better the role of tourism there and put a focus on the evolving issues that challenge the touristic wilderness. Tourism and the social construction of wilderness The word wilderness has been influentially defined by Nash (2001, p. 3) ‘as uncultivated and otherwise undeveloped land. The absence of men and the presence of wild animals is assumed.’ As it is usually conceived wilderness is on the far end of a ruralÁurban spectrum and is often thought to be the most natural of all environments (Tuan 1990). However, the subject of wilderness has been subject to a denaturalizing critique in which it is argued that the ‘natural’ is mainly constructed AQ3 via the result of social, cultural, and economic practices (Callicott 2000; Callicott and Nelson 1998; Hall 2012; Williams 2002). In the attempt by geographers to ‘socialize the natural’ in the discourses and social practices of nature (Castree and Braun 2001) two main strands on constructionist argumentation toward nature emerge, the representational and the material (Castree 2005). Together they aim to denaturalize nature, how it works, how it should be evaluated, and how it should be used. The first strand, the material strand, highlights economic relations, and has its roots in the sustainability debate as well as in the critical and Marxist geographers who, despite their materialist assumption, have claimed that nature is social. Harvey (1996) has argued that shortage of resources is not determined by nature but rather 95 100 105 110 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:48 4 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 the outcome of societal processes. Consequently what is a ‘natural resource’ is defined by society, culture, and economy and depends on the stage of technology, as Zimmermann (1951, p. 15) famously stated, ‘resources are not, they become; they are not static but expand and contract in response to human wants and actions.’ Nature can only be transformed into a resource when the society has the means and wish to utilize the resource and until then nature is not a resource for that society (Castree 2005). Harvey (1996) similarly criticized neo-Malthusians who claimed that shortages in the world were due to restraints set by nature. On the other hand, the physical world provides both opportunities and hindrances for societies and shapes how they use the resources of nature and the environment is neither totally sovereign nor entirely a product of social processes. Thus, the nonhuman world also constrains what societies can practically do (Castree 2005). The other main strand, the representational perspective, emphasizes the social and cultural constructions of the meaning of nature (Castree 2005). Demeritt (2002) identifies two kinds of construction discourse in contemporary human geography: construction-as-refutation and construction-as-philosophical-critique. Constructionas-refutation attempts to refute wrong and misleading beliefs about the ‘nature of nature’ by replacing a supposedly ‘false’ version with a ‘true’ version. False or misleading representations can be powerful if they go unchallenged for a long time. Constructionists refute false representations of nature by revealing the social bias and unequal (power) relations that distort their exactness. In this context, the term ‘construction’ refers to the way that knowledge of nature is actively produced by certain individuals or groups rather than it being a passive reflection of reality. This depends on philosophical understandings of epistemological and ontological matters regarding ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ whereby constructionists look at reality as socially produced, rather than as simply given with fixed ontological properties (Demeritt 2002). According to Demeritt (2002), there are several varieties of constructionas-philosophical-critique. One stream emphasizes the sociology of scientific knowledge and questions the objectivity of scientists and what is epistemologically held as a valid knowledge. Social constructionists claim that knowledge is socially constructed thereby denying the classical empiricist ontological reality of nature. They instead seek to explain and understand nature in terms of how individuals and groups, for example, recreationists and tourists, construct their perceived reality. The ‘naturalness’ of the external nature is questioned by claiming that nature is either completely, or to a certain extent, socially, culturally, and economically constructed. They further argue that representations of nature usually tell more about those who describe it than about the ‘nature’ they describe (Proctor 1998). Therefore, our perception and understanding of nature is never neutral, but depends on our knowledge, power relations and does not exist outside a cultural context (Castree 2005). Hence ‘nature’ and ‘wilderness’ according to this approach is a cultural and historical construction developed in a social context. Another stream concentrates on the role of discourses in the construction of social reality (Demeritt 2002), that may serve the interest of specific groups in society and often take on a ‘life of their own’ over time (Castree 2005). Some authors (see e.g. AQ3 Benediktsson 2007; Callicott 1998, 2000; Castree 2005; Cronon 1998; Demeritt 1998, 2002) have argued that discourses about nature are culturally fabricated and have deconstructed nature and related concepts like wilderness. From such a perspective wilderness should be viewed as the consequence of a collective human transformation {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:50 Making Wilderness 5 165 170 175 180 185 of nature and should not be viewed from its etymological origins, or from the image of a wilderness as untouched nature, as something that is real or objective (Demeritt 2002; Pickerill 2008). As Tuan (1990, p. 112) stated, ‘People rarely perceive the irony in the idea of preserving the wilderness. ‘‘Wilderness’’ cannot be defined objectively: it is as much a state of the mind as a description of nature.’ In a subjective sense, wilderness does not exist without an observer who experiences it. Wilderness experiences are conceptualized through human feelings and relations shaped by extensive cultural and socio-historical processes. In some cases, discursive practices by government agencies and tourism, business and political interests have transformed/constructed perceptions and portrayals of wild Iceland to serve their own interests, perhaps at times even unknowingly. Understanding wilderness as a meaning we attach to a landscape therefore helps to understand what and where we describe as wilderness and examine the development of meanings associated with it (Saarinen 1998). Consequently, wilderness is more an idea than a ‘real’ condition. ‘Wilderness hides its unnaturalness behind a mask that is all the more beguiling because it seems so natural. As we gaze into the mirror it holds up for us, we too easily imagine that what we behold is Nature when in fact we see the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires’ (Cronon 1998, p. 472). Nevertheless, even as we accept Cronon’s (1998) argument that wilderness is a cultural invention, which is to be understood and assessed through specific cultural glasses, it is also realized that it is an important invention with real effects on the political environmental discourse on wilderness and therefore ultimately on the landscape itself. To understand the evolution of these constructions through time it is essential to understand the historical development of the idea of wilderness in specific contexts. Ideas of wilderness and of nature contain, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history (Williams 1980, p. 67). It is to this history of wilderness that we will now turn in the Icelandic context. Constructing Icelandic wilderness in tourism 190 From wilderness to black desert Before Iceland was settled its nature was pristine according to classical empiricist definitions of wilderness. This unique situation gives a good opportunity to view the impact of humans and different activities on nature Á and how wilderness was constructed and ‘developed’ as Iceland was settled. Iceland has abundant literature about its history as the art of writing on parchment was brought to the country soon after Christianity (1000/999 AD). As a result, written historical manuscripts and oral traditions have structured Icelanders’ knowledge throughout the centuries, among other things about their environment. According to The Book of Settlement (Palsson and Edwards 2007, p. 17) originally ´ written in the early twelfth century, the country ‘was wooded all the way from the mountains right down to the sea’ when the first settlers came to Iceland. This might be somewhat exaggerated. Continuous vegetation now covers only about 10% of the Highlands and is probably the remains of a much more extensive vegetation which covered a large part of the area before settlement (Thorhallsdottir 1997, 2002). The ´ ´ settlers cleared with fire the land for their farmsteads and fields. Woodlands were a source of fuel, and wood was used for all ironwork until the mid-fifteenth century (Þorarinsson 1974). The settlers brought their livestock with them and unrestricted ´ 195 200 205 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:53 6 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 210 215 220 225 grazing of sheep, cattle, horses, and goats was practiced more or less the whole year around. Most travelers in Iceland probably do not know that the unvegetated land at the border of the Highlands is not ‘natural’ but partly created by poor natural resource management over the centuries (Arnalds et al. 1997). Ironically, such a situation (lack of environmental knowledge) has possibly helped to maintain a wilderness experience for present-day visitors. There have never been large wild animals such as wolves and bears in Iceland that Nash’s (2001) definition of wilderness assumes. Due to the island’s geographical isolation the only indigenous land mammals before settlement were the arctic fox (Alopex lagopus L.) and an occasional polar bear (Ursus maritimus L.) that reached the island by swimming the Denmark Strait, or by crossing it on winter sea ice. Apart from the fox there are now only three species of nondomesticated mammals in Iceland: Mice that arrived with the first settlers; Reindeer which were imported from Norway in the late eighteenth century and are now local to the north eastern part of the country; and Mink which was imported for breeding in 1931 but soon escaped and now lives wild. Native bird life is, on the other hand, more diverse and in the Highland there are internationally important bird wetland areas (Thorhallsdottir ´ ´ 2002). Early travels The travels of sailors and merchants During the Middle Ages, Iceland, as well as other northern regions, was often considered by travelers to be a frontier or wilderness region, the borderlands of the civilized European world. On land there were volcanoes, geysers and earthquakes and monsters (whales) in the sea around the island. The country was described as extremely cold and barren with no trees and very strong wind. Its inhabitants were said to live underground because of the extreme cold, and the Hekla volcano was the entrance to Hell (I´sleifsson 2009). According to Olwig (2002) the prominent theme in travel stories was the image of Iceland as wilderness and an exotic place with unusual extremes of nature. The narratives brought back from this alien isolated island by travelers where they describe their discoveries and interpretations of ‘nature’ formed the first images of the country abroad. Although constructed images could be contested, not just by the foreign travelers, but also by the Icelanders themselves (Olwig 2002), the early accounts of Iceland provided a trajectory along which the overall image of Iceland has developed. ‘Outsiders did not simply impose their views upon the natives and the land. Instead, Icelanders participated in shaping foreign visions, as well as creating their own. Rather than a simple, ‘‘top-down’’ model of colonial power and science, the Icelandic example shows the multifaceted character of these interactions. In the North Atlantic, visions of nature and history contested and influenced each other’ (Oslund 2002, p. 334). 230 235 240 245 The first travels in the Highlands One of the oldest narratives about travel in the Highlands tells of Gnupa-Barður ´ ´ who settled in North Iceland around 900 AD. He believed that the weather was better in the south and wanted to move there. His sons went to find a good route 250 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:55 Making Wilderness 7 255 260 265 270 over the Highlands and then they moved with their livestock to the south. The geographically shortest routes between the opposite quarters (landsfjorðungar) of ´ Iceland is through the Highlands as Gnupa-Barður obviously realized. The big ´ ´ glacial rivers are also much easier to pass close to their origin near the glaciers. But the Highland passes were difficult because of harsh weather and limited pasture for horses. There are two passes between the north and south that cross the Highlands. Kjolur, the western one, goes between the glaciers Langjokull and Hofsjokull and ¨ ¨ ¨ reaches up to 600Á700 m. Sprengisandur lies between Hofsjokull and Vatnajokull ¨ ¨ and reaches up to 800 m. Kjolur is shorter and the rivers easier to ford than ¨ Sprengisandur which also has less vegetation and pastures for horses. At the time of settlement, vegetation reached higher elevations than now. The Kjolur highland area ¨ was probably mostly vegetated except for the very highest part (Thoroddsen 1892Á 1896/2003). Therefore, travelers did not need to carry fodder for the horses which made traveling there much easier than in the following centuries, when the vegetation had vanished. From 930 the Alþingi (the Icelandic Parliament) met each summer for two weeks at Þingvellir in the southwest corner of Iceland and people commonly traveled through the Highlands to this annual gathering. It therefore became quite common to travel between the north and south over Kjolur ¨ but Sprengisandur was not used as much as the route was more difficult (Thoroddsen 1892Á1896/2003). During this first stage of human impact in the Highlands, narrow trails were formed by the hooves of horses and cattle, and stone AQ14 piles (vorð ur) were built to help travelers find their way (Figure 2). ¨ Around 1400 AD traveling through the Highlands became less common and knowledge about the area consequently declined. This can, for example, be seen in Figure 2. The main travel routes to ingvellir, where the Icelandic Parliament was held from 930 AD until 1798. {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:10:58 8 275 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 280 285 290 295 300 305 310 315 320 map by Ortelı´ us from 1590. It is the oldest map that gives a reasonably correct picture of the physical outline of the country but the interior is completely blank (Thoroddsen 1892Á1896/2003). There are few written sources from his period. The living conditions in the country had become more difficult because settlement due to climate change and loss of vegetation. In addition, Icelanders lost their independence in 1262 to Denmark which led to decreased importance of the Alþingi. The assembly gradually lost its parliamentary power and became mostly a judicial court. Travels through the Highlands to the gathering at Þingvellir therefore became less common. Strict rules regarding trade and trading posts were also established by the Danish government, and trade was not allowed except at fixed trading posts which led to reduced travel between the quarters. Unlike many remote regions in the Middle Ages, the Highlands of Iceland were never a place for religious life, a place where one could get into closer contact to God in the wilderness. However, religion did have considerable influence on traveling there, and knowledge of Highlands travel routes was essential for bishops and their companions in ministering to their flock (Karlsson 2000). Skalholt bishopric was ´ responsible for the South, West and East Quarters while the Northern Quarter was the responsibility of the bishop at Holar (Karlsson 2000). It was quite a journey for the ´ bishops in Skalholt to visit the East Quarter (vı´sitazı´a). They could choose between ´ either of the two highland routes Sprengisandur or Kjolur, or alternatively take the ¨ longer route through the inhabited lowland areas along the south coast. The shortest route from Skalholt was Sprengisandur, a 3Á4 days ride. There are vast sand areas and ´ very difficult lava areas in the north eastern part of the route. Kjolur was longer but ¨ somewhat easier. On the south coast route, there are very large rivers (the last one to be bridged was Skeiðara in 1974) and the journey could take 2Á4 weeks each way ´ ´ (Olafsson 1772/1974a). According to written documents, the first time a bishop traveled through the Highlands over Sprengisandur was in 1544 and the bishops occasionally traveled through the Highlands in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century (Table 1). From the late seventeenth century onwards their travels over Sprengisandur gradually ceased, few traveled over Kjolur but the far longer route ¨ along the south coast to the eastern quartiles was used instead (Sæmundsen 1949a) AQ14 (Figure 3). The bishops in Skalholt were the ones who traveled the most in Iceland as they ´ were the ones who had the reason, and time and were the wealthiest in the country. People also went into the area in autumn to gather sheep but only to limited parts of the Highlands. As a result knowledge about the Highland routes between the countries quartiles got lost. To quote Thoroddsen (1896Á1898/2004, p. 74) regarding travel in the Highlands in the seventeenth century, ‘People knew at that time less about the uninhabited area of Iceland than in ancient times, they only knew the lower lying areas where they looked for sheep, but rarely dared to go further inland; they were afraid to travel in the uninhabited areas. That caused the superstition and everyone believed the stories about outlaws and trolls.’ At the end of the eighteenth century the situation was still that ‘No one had thought of researching the uninhabited areas of Iceland, it was just coincidence if local people became knowledgeable about some parts of the uninhabited areas most were afraid of them and even though someone wandered around the hills in search of sheep, it was not documented and did not increase the knowledge about the geography of Iceland’ (Thoroddsen 1900Á1902/2005, p. 103). {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:1 Making Wilderness 9 Table 1. The travel routes of the bishops on their visitası´ a to the East Quarter of Iceland in the sixteenth to eighteenth century (derived from Sæmundsen 1949a). Bishop Gizur Einarsson Gı´ sli Jonsson ´ Oddur Einarsson Gı´ sli Oddsson Brynjolfur Sveinsson ´ orur orlaksson ´ ´ Travel route Sprengisandur Sprengisandur Sprengisandur Sprengisandur Sprengisandur Kjolur and back the south ¨ coast Sprengisandur Year 1544 1570, 1573, and probably 1582 1607 and 1610 1629 on behalf of his father, who was the bishop, and as bishop in 1633 Ten times in the periods 1641Á 1672 1677 and 1682 1697 1697 1734 1748 1755 ´ Arni orvarsson the substitute for bishop Jon ´ Vı´ dalı´ n ´ Arni orvarsson Probably Sprengisandur and back the south coast via Fjallabak mountrain route ´ Jon Arnason Two tours. The south coast via ´ Fjallabak mountain route and Kjolur ¨ ´ Olafur Gı´ slason Kjolur and back the south ¨ coast Finnur Jonsson The south coast ´ Figure 3. The routes the bishops used over the Highlands in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century. {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:4 10 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. A landscape of fear: outlaws and other creatures 325 330 335 340 345 350 355 360 365 370 The Highlands gradually became the land of supernatural beings, outlaws, trolls, elves, ghosts, and witchcraft, a mysterious place of unexplainable nature and natural forces (Hastrup 1990). Consequently few people dared to enter the Highlands and those who did were mostly farmers in search of their sheep. Yet stories lived among the inhabitants, both folktales kept alive orally and the written sagas. According to Hastrup (1990, p. 255) ‘in the world of the Icelanders the hidden dimension was as real as anything.’ The outlaws were more real than the others. They were convicts who fled into the Highlands and other isolated and uninhabited areas to escape the death penalty and other severe punishments. The outlaws survived by stealing sheep from the nearest farming community and they were usually assumed to be responsible when sheep did not return from the Highlands in the autumn. The first known outlaw in Iceland was ´ Grettir ‘the strong’ Asmundarson the hero of the Icelandic Saga of Grettir. Grettir lived during the Viking age and was outlawed for 20 years. During that time he stayed in various places, some of them in the Highlands. Þorisdalur, a well hidden ´ valley between the two glaciers Langjokull and Þorisjokull was supposed to be one ´ ¨ ¨ of them. Þorisdalur was even supposed to be the home of a large crowd of outlaws ´ and many stories exist about them. The most famous outlaw was Fjalla-Eyvindur who was an outlaw for over 20 years in the latter half of the eighteenth century, longer than anyone in Iceland. He is supposed to have lived in many places in the Highlands, for example in ´ ´ Odaðahraun, a desolate and very remote lava area in the northern Highlands. ´ ´ Odaðahraun was considered to be full of outlaws and sometimes people would see smoke rise up into the air and thought this was outlaws cooking their food. Unknown to the inhabitants at the time the Atlantic ridge goes through the area and there are geothermal areas and active volcanoes there. In 1830, the inhabitants in the Myvatn region retrieved only a part of their sheep in the autumn. Five brave ´ men were chosen for a trip into the area and they went fully armed to Dyngjufjoll. ¨ They did not find any outlaws. Four years later, two men went into the area and discovered Hvannalindir, a grassland in the middle of the lava and sand area. They did not find any outlaws either. Few years later the cartographer Bjorn ¨ Gunnlaugsson came to Hvannalindir. He was making a map of Iceland and thought that part of that work was to disprove the existence of outlaws. ‘ . . . I wanted to destroy the belief in outlaws if it was not true or verify it if it was true. I thought it was humiliating for me and my fellow countrymen not being able to check out whether there was a hidden community in our little county’ (Gunnlaugsson 1861, p. 11). He did not find any outlaws and when he came back he published a paper about his trip where he tried hard to convince people that there were no ´ ´ outlaws in Odaðahraun Á or in any other place where they were supposed to be. A year later a response appeared in a newspaper signed anonymously as 8.5 ((Aðsent). Að austan 1862) claiming that despite Bjorn Gunnlaugsson being a wise man with ¨ great travel experience, outlaws surely existed. To this Sigurður Gunnarsson (1864) replied stating that the respondent was wrong Á outlaws did not live in the Icelandic Highlands. In 1880, once again few sheep returned from the Highlands and this time four men went to Hvannalindir. This time they found a cottage hole or crevice in the lava edge next to the grassland where an outlaw must have been living, they AQ2 estimated about 100 years earlier (Sæmundsen 1949b). These ruins were later {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:5 Making Wilderness 11 375 380 385 390 395 400 405 410 415 explored, by the teacher Steindor Steindorsson (1933) and by Dr. Kristjan Eldjarn ´ ´ ´ ´ (1941), the director of the National Museum of Iceland and later the third president of Iceland. He found bones from sheep and horses, as well as from geese, swans, and ptarmigans. It was evident that around 1780 somebody had stayed there for some time, probably for years. Kristjan Eldjarn concluded that even though no one could ´ ´ know for sure it was probable that Fjalla-Eyvindur had lived there (Sæmundsen AQ2 1949b). So to some extent the presence, both real and imagined, of outlaws led to increased knowledge of the area, but on the other hand the existence of the outlaws was a disincentive to travel as, according to folktales, they were dangerous. At Kjolur a very mysterious event happened in 1780. Two brothers from ¨ Reynisstaðir in the north of Iceland traveled over Kjolur to buy sheep in the south ¨ of Iceland. In November they started their journey back home, north over Kjolur in ¨ the company of three others. They had 16 horses and 200 sheep and some money with them. People thought they were daring to go with so many animals over the high mountains so late in the year. They never returned and no one knows what really happened to them. Next spring a traveler found their tent with the bodies of the two brothers and two others. Later when people came to fetch the bodies they had disappeared. After a long search a hand of the fifth person was found along with the carcass of his horse, which had had its throat cut. There were all kinds of speculations regarding what had happened to them. Sixty-five years later two bodies of what seemed to be a young boy and a young man were found in a cliff fissure not far from where the tent had been found. After the mysterious death of the brothers from Reynisstaðir in Kjolur ‘hardly anyone traveled through the Highlands for over ¨ a century. The route literally got lost’ (Eyþorsson 1949) and the limited knowledge ´ about the route faded away. In the Highlands there are many places with names that are reminiscent of the horrible things that could happen to the traveler. Places like Human Bone Lake (Mannabeinavatn), Ghost Morass (Draugafla´) and Dead Man’s River (Dauðsmannskvı´sl) and places of trolls like Troll Volcano (Trolladyngja), Troll ¨ canyon (Trollagja´) and Troll church (Trollakirkja). The trolls lived in mountains or in ¨ ¨ the lava rocks and some of them, the night trolls, turned into stones when they did not reach their cave before sunrise. Therefore, many large single standing rocks were regarded as fossilized trolls (Hastrup 1990). Trolls primary lived on fish from the mountain lakes and farmers who went into the Highlands to catch fish often were in great danger due to the trolls. Although some trolls helped travelers others were threats to those daring to enter the Highlands. But the trolls did not only annoy travelers, some of them were in command of the awful power of nature. Katla the ´ giantess was probably meanest of all trolls (Arnason 1862). In the early fourteenth century, Katla was the cook at the monastery at Þykkvibær on the south shore of Iceland. She had a difficult mood and knew some witchcraft. After she killed a man she fled up to the glacier Myrdalsjokull, a glacier covering an active volcano. The ´ ¨ glacier has since been called Kotlujokull (the glacier of Katla). Ever since that time ¨ ¨ Katla has erupted approximately every 80Á100 years causing huge floods of melted water, ice, and ashes, jokulhlaup, that flow down to the lowland, destroying whole ¨ farm communities. ´ Arnason (2005) claims that this view of ‘(wild) nature’ may have started in the thirteenth or fourteenth century and is likely to have been dominant far into the enlightenment era and even into the Romantic period. The extremely difficult living conditions in the isolated island far in the north with poverty and foreign rule, {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:7 12 420 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 425 430 435 dominated by violent natural forces gave the landscape of the Highlands the meaning of fear and danger. Such landscapes of fear have been integral to the Western understanding of wilderness (Hall 1992; Tuan 1979). The image of the Highlands as a place of outlaws and mystical beings resembles in many ways the image of the wild forests in Europe in the Middle Ages and the Old English notion of ‘wildeor’ in the story of Beowulf (Nash 2001). In Iceland the legends of outlaws took the place of the ‘wild beasts’ in making the Highlands ‘wild’ just as the presence of Native Americans and dangerous animals contributed to the idea of wilderness for settlers in North America. However, Iceland was never a place of wolves or bears as on the European mainland. Through discursive constructionalism stories and folktales reflected this hostile unexplainable environment of the Highlands and were created and re-created through practices and social interactions. As fewer and fewer traveled in the Highland it became less familiar to the ordinary Icelander but became instead the home of supernatural beings and outlaws. This image remains even today but adventure and danger have also become a part of its attraction as a tourist destination while the supernatural beings have been transformed into tourist souvenirs. The mystique fades away Reason brought to the highlands 440 445 450 455 460 465 In the middle of the eighteenth century the ideas of the Enlightenment were mainly ´ brought to Iceland by Eggert Olafsson and Bjarni Palsson who were educated in ´ Europe. They traveled extensively around Iceland in 1752Á1757 and the output from their scientific investigation, the Travelbook (Ferðabo´k), was for a very long time the ´ foremost scientific writing about Iceland (Olafsson 1772/1974a, 1772/1974b). Most of their work was on the lowland with little on the Highlands as their focal point was utilitarian and there were few Highland resources that could be utilized by the technology of that time. They gathered information through scientific study but also ´ gathered local oral traditions. In their Travelbook (Olafsson 1772/1974a, p. 63) they mention outlaws a few times and refer both to the old Icelandic sagas and manuscripts and to folktales and oral sayings. Writing about Arnarvatnsheiði in the western Highlands they, for example, refer to two of the sagas: ‘Outlaws stayed there sometimes, as they could live on trout both in winter and summer (Laxdæla saga). Grettir lived there for a while, first alone but later a few other outlaws joined him (Grettissaga ch 47 and 51 ect).’ They also refer several times to oral sayings ‘outlaws ´ were according to folktales in the mountains of Tindfjoll’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, ¨ p. 96). There close by (at Hvanngil) ‘there are great stories about that place, which is both awful and dangerous due to trolls and ghosts, so that travellers are hardly thought to be safe there bright daylight. A fellow traveller told us many stories about events had occurred there and even claimed that he had witnessed some of them. He was an honest man. We on the other hand did not notice any of this, even though we traveled extensively, looked at caves, and climbed rocks in search for ´ plants’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 98). About supernatural beings they write: ‘It is said that the fire glaciers and the lava fields are the home of trolls and evil spirits and it is said that various weird events have happened, not only in early times but also in our days. It is obvious though that most of that is only superstition and imagination. In-between there are though events and phenomena that the philosophy of our times {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:8 Making Wilderness 13 470 475 480 485 490 495 500 505 510 515 ´ has difficulties in tracing and explaining’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 137). Eggert ´ lafsson and Bjarni Palsson are true representatives of the Enlightenment and did O ´ not believe everything they were told, but needed visual evidence for the existence of things and the explanation of events. ´ Olafsson and Palsson traveled through the Highland routes Kjolur, Eyfirðinga´ ¨ vegur, and Fjallabaksvegur syðri. In their Travelbook they describe routes ‘that were used at earlier times over the Highlands between South, North and East, but are not ´ used anymore and are long lost, which is a great loss for all people’ (Olafsson 1772/ AQ4 1974, p. 87). They mention some forgotten routes (e.g. Barðargata that Gnupa´ ´ Barður used) or where the knowledge had almost faded away: ‘men know about a ´ ´ route from Arnessysla north to Þingeyjarsysla but though is the Sprengisandur ´ ´ highland route between Rangarvallasysla and North and East better known’ ´ ´ ´ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 87). Of the Sprengisandur travel route they note ‘It is now never used and mostly forgotten and therefore travel across the country does ´ ´ not exist anymore . . . ’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 4). Olafsson and Palsson observed ´ that ‘Icelanders have lost all connection between distant quartiles and the ´ advantages that can occur as a result of that kind of a connection’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 88). They recommend re-establishing the Sprengisandur route for two main reasons. First, it would shorten travel routes ‘men can ride the path in 3Á4 days, if they travel lightly. Otherwise it takes 5Á6 days. The current route between ´ these parts of the country takes 2Á4 weeks one way’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 88). The second reason they mention is to use the natural resources found in various quartiles. As an example they point out the usefulness of the former annual trips when people in the south traveled to Langanes in the north to fetch driftwood which was valuable building material in the treeless land. They state that the main reason the Highland routes got lost is ‘that the so called ´ shelters (sæluhu´s) and other useful arrangement have not been maintained’ (Olafsson 1772/1974b, p. 88). The lack of maintenance was most likely due to the extreme poverty of the nation and harsh natural forces. They recommended that the shelters along the main travel routes should be rebuilt, especially at Sprengisandur. Around 1770 attempts were made to restore the Sprengisandur route and a few trips were made for that purpose. The most famous of them is the already mentioned trip when the outlaw Fjalla-Eyvindur was captured. Eggert and Bjarni climbed many mountains and glaciers and were the first to climb Hekla in 1750. They managed to confirm that these were just mountains and volcanoes and there was nothing mysterious about them. Through their work the knowledge of the country increased considerably, although knowledge about the Highlands remained very limited. In the nineteenth century knowledge about the Highlands gradually increased. Natural scientists studied and mapped the interior and the old Highland routes were rediscovered. Sveinn Palsson (1762Á1840), a doctor of medicine and a natural ´ scientist, explored parts of the Highlands, mostly the southern part (Palsson 1945). ´ Þorvaldur Thoroddsen (1855Á1921) was the first Icelander to study geography at a university and became a world-renowned natural scientist. His main interests were the Highlands which until then had been sparsely surveyed and he studied and he mapped much of the region for the first time. In 1901, he published a geological map of Iceland in which the Highlands were finally mapped (Thoroddsen 1896Á1898/ 2004). The reason Þorvaldur Thoroddsen gave for his interest in the Highlands was AQ5 that ‘there still were extensive areas in the Highlands unknown to the local people {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:9 14 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 520 and unexplored by scientists. It was humiliating to think that Icelanders let foreigners research the country’s nature . . . ’ (Thoroddsen 1913Á1915/1958, p. 2). During his time ‘the belief in outlaws has completely vanished in the northern part of the country . . . but in the southern part there are people who still believe these folktales . . . ’ (Thoroddsen 1892Á1896/2003, p. 269). The romantic attraction of the wild Late in the eighteenth century, foreign scholars and natural historians, in particular, started to show interest in Iceland. Sir Joseph Banks, Sir John Stanley, William Jackson Hooker, Sir Georg Steuart Mackenzie, and Ebenezer Henderson all wrote books about their travels in Iceland and interest in Iceland subsequently increased in Europe and North America. According to Oslund (2002) the massive volcanic eruption of Lakagı´ gar in 1783 made Iceland even more ‘attractive.’ Some thought the land was ugly and desolate but at the beginning of the nineteenth century this unfamiliar landscape became appreciated through the glasses of Romanticism and became magnificent and sublime. In addition landscape created by ‘fire and ice’ was considered to be the most typical for Iceland, and the country became seen as a ‘laboratory’ where one could observe the history of the Earth. British commentators also interpreted the volcanic activities as a sign of the endurance of the Icelanders and their opposition to Danish occupation, a symbol of ‘wild’ nature that mirrored the spirit of the nation (Oslund 2005). In the second half of the nineteenth century travel to Iceland for pleasure became more frequent at the expense of ‘scientific’ travel (I´sleifsson 1996). Travelers instead became ‘collectors’ of majestic landscapes, architecture, and the exotic (Macnaghten and Urry 1998). What characterized the travelers was that most of them were welleducated aristocrats, scientists, explorers, mountaineers, people with interest in history and culture, but there were also some salmon fishermen and ‘general tourists.’ Interest in the landscapes of Iceland therefore parallels in many ways the tourist interest in the hot springs and alpine landscapes. Throughout the nineteenth century, Icelandic nature was regarded sublime and beautiful by foreign visitors. Popular tourist destinations were Reykjavı´ k, Þingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss, Borgarfjorður, Snæfellsnes, Surtshellir, Akureyri, Myvatn, Dettifoss, and Reykjanes and the ´ ¨ best mountaineers climbed Hekla but, still, relatively few tourists went into the Highlands although alpinism was the vanguard for such ventures (I´sleifsson 1996; AQ14 Thoroddsen 1903Á1904/2006) (Figure 4). An example of the significance of alpinism for the interest in the Highlands was the visit of William L. Watts to Iceland in 1871. He climbed Myrdalsjokull and ´ ¨ Vatnajokull and tried to cross Vatnajokull from south to north but had to give up ¨ ¨ due to bad weather and limited food supply. He returned twice to Iceland and in 1875 he managed to cross the ice cap with five Icelandic assistants in a snowstorm. They returned from the Highlands after 16 days of which 12 days were spent on the ice cap. Watts then went to Askja caldera that had erupted the year before and climbed other mountains. He intended to climb even more but had to give up as his shoes had become too bad (Watts 1876/1962). Watts motivation was ‘to wander around the unknown or isolated and out-of-the-way places of the Earth’ (1876/1962, p. 44). He admired waterfalls and describes Vatnajokull as ‘silence, sublime and ¨ flawless’ (Watts 1876/1962, p. 54) illustrating the influenced of Romanticism and the 525 530 535 540 545 550 555 560 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:11 Making Wilderness 15 Figure 4. The most popular tourist destinations in Iceland in the late nineteenth century and Watt’s travel route over Vatnajokull in 1874. ¨ 565 570 575 admiration for the sublime in his written accounts of the Icelandic landscape to a British audience. In Iceland, romantic poetry and nationalism went hand in hand and Icelandic nature and the Highlands became glorified in poems and writings. Such ‘nationalization’ of nature has strong parallels with the development of the national parks movement throughout northern Europe and North America in which wilderness came to embody national myths and identity (Frost and Hall 2009). The Icelandic Romantic poets played an important role in changing the meaning of the Icelandic nature and landscape in general, as well as the Highlands. But, as in other countries where national identity became entwined with wilderness, few Icelanders had traveled in the Highlands so the knowledge of them was not from a personal experience but through the Romantic vision of sublime wild nature in art and literature. In addition, with increased scientific knowledge the social knowledge started to change, the mythologies of the Highlands were transformed and became less threatening than before. The wilderness as a tourist playground Transportation in Iceland was historically very poor, both within the country and between Iceland and Europe. Postal services started in 1776, both inland and between Iceland and Denmark, but initially there was only one delivery a year. In the late nineteenth century, steamships started to sail to the country. In 1873Á1879 there were 7Á10 trips per year, in 1898Á1903 there were 30Á35 trips per year, and in 1908Á1914 around 50. More frequent transport made Iceland more accessible to 580 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:14 16 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 585 590 595 600 605 610 615 620 625 630 foreign visitors. So at the end of the nineteenth century the isolation that had characterized Icelandic society for 700Á800 years ended and the country began to modernize, although the country was still poor and underdeveloped when compared with Western Europe. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Icelandic road system was very primitive with hardly any man-made roads. Bridges did not exist in Iceland until in the 1890s when two were built over the largest glacial rivers on the south coast. In 1897, stone piles marking the Kjolur passage were re-built, a total of about 165 km ¨ (Sæmundsen 1949a). The first automobile was imported in 1904. The primitive roads and the rough terrain were not suitable for automobiles. But roads and bridges were built, and gradually the farmsteads and the growing villages in the lowlands became connected together. The Highlands, however, remained roadless during the first decades of the century, and the ring road around the coast was not completed until 1974 when bridges were built over the large rivers coming from Vatnajokull. ¨ The Icelandic Travel Association (Ferðafelag I´slands) was founded in 1927. The ´ motivation was to help Icelanders to get to know other parts of the country and the wilderness, as well as to promote Iceland abroad. The Association built mountain huts in the Highlands and organized tours into the area. The first trip from the south into the Kjolur area by car was in 1930. One or two ¨ years later The Icelandic Road Administration cleared the route and a few years later a bridge was built over the main river. In 1933a car was driven north over Sprengisandur for the first time and the journey took six days. During the BritishÁ American occupation in World War II heavy all-wheel-drive American army trucks were brought to the country (Sigurdsson and Bjarnason 2003). These made access possible to the vast land of the Highlands as they were able to ford the large rivers and a new chapter in wilderness travel started (Huijbens and Benediktsson 2007). When Hekla erupted in 1947, the army trucks were used to transport scientists and curious travelers to experience the volcanic eruption. Subsequently some entrepreneurs started using them for commercial travel in the Highlands (Sigurdsson and Bjarnason 2003). Guðmundur Jonasson is considered to be ‘The king of ´ Icelandic truck drivers’ (Sigurdsson and Bjarnason 2003), most probably because of his discovery of the ford over Tungnaa (Hofsvað) in 1950 when he was on his way to ´ Veiðivotn (The Fishing lakes). Finding this ford was very important as it opened the ¨ way from the south into Sprengisandur and the northern and eastern part of the Highlands (Sigurdsson and Bjarnason 2003). Guðmundur Jonasson along with his ´ travel companions also opened up other areas in the Highlands with their explorations. They were the first to travel many of the Highland paths in their trucks, for example from Þjorsardalur to Kerlingafjoll in 1964, Fjallabak syðra in ´ ´ ¨ 1948, Vonarskarð in 1950, and in 1960 Emstur to Þorsmork, Landmannahellir to ´ ¨ Hrafntinnuhraun, and Laufafell to Syðra Fjallabak (Jonasson 1975). ´ In the 1950s, most of the highland tracks had been marked with stone piles. The classical ‘highland safari’ was developed and became the first significant organized tourism in the Highlands. Large four-wheel drive trucks that carried 20Á40 passengers were used and the travelers stayed in tents. Usually kitchen staff followed in a special kitchen truck where they made ‘Icelandic home meals’ for the tourists. In the tours, the main highland tracks were taken between destinations, both in the Highlands and the lowlands (Huijbens and Benediktsson 2007). In the beginning, Icelanders were the most numerous participants in these tours, but from {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:16 Making Wilderness 17 635 1965 on they became relatively fewer every year as the number of foreign visitors increased (Jacobsen 1975). ´ Ulfar Jacobsen (1975, p. 131) describes the difference between the early days and the situation around 1975: Before . . . one never knew what would happen or when one could not get any further and had no alternative but to turn round. Now only certain known routes are taken . . . Before one could drive around the wilderness day after day, without passing cars. Now not a day passes without one meeting many cars. 640 645 650 When all the ‘destinations’ and routes had been discovered and the paths were formed the mystic and the adventure faded somewhat. In the following years, vehicle tracks were made in the Highlands and huts were built (Thors 2010). Not just in special places like The Travel Association did, but by the hundreds, especially in the 1980s, most of them unlicensed (umhverfisraðuneytið and Skipulagsstofnun 1999). ´ Tracks that originally were laid by the pioneers and explorers were gradually improved by The Road Administration, and bridges were built on the most heavily used tracks (umhverfisraðuneytið and Skipulagsstofnun 1999). In 1968 and 1978 ´ accessibility improved considerably due to the construction of hydro-power plants at Þjorsa and Tungnaa in the southern part of the Highlands. Roads were ´ ´ ´ constructed and asphalted and bridges built over the large rivers that had been so decisive in limiting wilderness access. This opened the area up further and made many places in the southern Highlands much more accessible (Sæþorsdottir 2004, ´ ´ AQ14 2010a) (Figure 5). Figure 5. Present day road system. {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:19 18 655 A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. 660 665 670 675 680 685 690 695 700 It can be argued that the huts the Travel Association built and the tracks the pioneers laid, sometimes accidentally, were the infrastructure that the tourist industry built their classical ‘highland safari tours’ on and was what started the commercialization of the Icelandic wilderness. These tours were largely built on tourists gazing at the landscape and spectacular natural phenomena like Askja. At the beginning sightseeing tours were an important part of tourism in the Highlands. To some extent, this is still the case but since the late 1990s new ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ adventure nature-based tourism activities have been developed. Riding tours through the Highlands are now taken for fun rather than out of necessity. Activities such as hiking, ice climbing, river rafting, biking, hunting, and angling are all increasingly popular. Today all kinds of motorized vehicles are used in the AQ6 Highlands: Super four-wheel drive vehicles, motor cross, ATVs, snow scooters, and snow cats. They can drive over difficult terrain Á in snow and on the glaciers and have even conquered the highest peak (Huijbens and Benediktsson 2007). These activities serve a more segmented market and attract diverse target groups but also help to change yet again the meaning of the Highlands as a wilderness space. Due to new technology, new and better equipment appears every year which makes it easier to travel in the wilderness. New types of clothing, travel equipment, and dry-frozen food have made it more comfortable to go hiking and when compared to the luggage William Watts and his companions carried in 1881 on their trip over Vatnajokull it is now relatively easy to carry ‘all you need’ for a week or ¨ two. Good hiking shoes can now withstand multiple trips in the wild, a vast difference from the time of Watts who needed two pairs and did not manage to continue his exploration as he did not have more pair of shoes. The Highlands are an important resource for tourism and recreation in Iceland and those who visit the Highlands are a significant target group. About 53% of all French, 45% of Dutch, and 34% of German tourists that come to Iceland visit Landmannalaugar, the most popular tourist destination in the Highlands (Icelandic AQ3 Tourist Board 2008). In contrast, Americans can hardly be found there and Scandinavians are relatively few (Sæþorsdottir 2010a, 2010b). The Highlands are ´ ´ especially important to those tourists who spend a long time in the country (Capacent Gallup 2008). Visitors disagree on how primitive the Highlands should be. Some appreciate its primitiveness, others are satisfied with limited facilities, whereas still others want more and better facilities (Sæþorsdottir 2010a, 2010b). ´ ´ Research suggests that the visitors to the various destinations in the Icelandic Highlands are in many ways a highly diverse group. This is supported by the work of Sæþorsdottir (2010a), where results from six nature destinations in Iceland were ´ ´ analysed using Stankey’s (1973) ‘wilderness purism’ scale. The results showed that strong purists are in inaccessible pristine areas, while neutralists and nonpurists are in the popular accessible destinations. As the value for recreation and tourism in the Highlands lies in the naturalness and the primitive wild the construction of power plants reduces their value for this purpose. Examples show that the conflict between tourism and power plants is not insurmountable as power plants do not totally ruin the wilderness experience of all visitors, even though the experience will be reduced. It is hard, or even impossible, to find the exact balance between development and wilderness tourism, but there are certainly limits as to how much development is acceptable. {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:21 Making Wilderness Conclusion: the future of the Icelandic wilderness 19 705 710 715 720 725 730 735 740 745 The history of human settlement in Iceland reaches back only 1200 years, but during that time humans have made clear marks on the island and changing perceptions and uses of the Icelandic wilderness have revealed a range of attitudes toward nature (Saarinen 1998) as well as the ways in which wilderness is socially constructed. At the beginning of settlement, the whole country was ontologically a true wilderness from a classical empiricist perspective. After settlement, the lowland was transformed by human action into a treeless, cultural landscape in about 60 years. Due to natural forces like climate, limited soil, and vegetation, as well as volcanic activity, the Highlands remained unsettled. But people still traveled through the Highlands. The inhabited land in Iceland is in the lowlands along the coast and in the valleys stretching inland and the geographically shortest route between the opposite land quarters is through the Highlands. Therefore, people traveled through the area despite it being an uninhabited world of wilderness and natural hindrances. At the beginning of settlement traveling through some of the Highland routes was quite common, but as time went on and conditions changed traveling in the Highlands became less and less frequent and almost disappeared for some centuries. As a result the social construction of the Highlands changed (Table 2). The Highlands became a forbidden land of outlaws and trolls. Consequently, even though it was not objectively wild unspoiled nature anymore, subjectively it was a wild dangerous place and regarded as wilderness. This socially constructed space still exists today. The folktales and stories are still alive in the discourse both among Icelanders as well as among foreign visitors and are used and reinforced by the tourist industry and other business interests in many ways. The meaning of the Highlands changed further (Benediktsson 2000) with the Enlightenment as natural scientists studied the natural phenomena and mapped the area. The natural forces became understandable and volcanic catastrophic events were not considered to be a punishment to the inhabitants. Natural scientists explored and mapped the Highlands and attempted to refute the existing representations of the Highlands. They denied for example the existence of outlaws, but even though no populous outlaw communities were found in the Highlands, occasional dwellings were found which proved that the outlaw stories were not pure fiction. This is a very clear example of construction-as-refutation where scientists attempt to refute wrong and misleading beliefs about the ‘nature of nature’ by replacing a supposedly ‘false’ version with a ‘true’ version. With the development of Romantic visions of landscape, foreign travelers started to visit Iceland not only to study its natural phenomena but more and more to fulfill their curiosity as to its natural wonders and also to enjoy the beauty of wild nature. The Romantic movement and growing nationalism further modified the social construction of the Highlands. The picture of a sublime Highland wilderness was created, but it could only be admired by the occasional traveler or vicariously from literary and artistic renditions as access remained difficult and limited. In the middle of last century another major change in the social construction of the Highlands occurred when the area became more accessible. After World War II 4 )4 army trucks made it possible to conquer the mystical interior and since then the Highlands have become increasingly accessible each year. The consequence is that in the high season some destinations in the Highlands are now overflowing with tourists. There have been other influences as well. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] 20 Table 2. The changing constructed natures of the Icelandic Highlands. Constructionist arguments Economic/ material relations Eleventh century Twelfth century Thirteenth century Fourteenth century Fifteenth century Sixteenth century Seventeenth century Eighteenth century Nineteenth century Twentieth century Twenty-first century A. D. Sæþo´rsdo´ttir et al. ‘Barren’ highland landscape promoted as indicative of high naturalness by tourism industry A place of few resources Hydrological and geothermal resources utilized Highlands as a route of accessibility and connectivity Limited travel, accessibility Increased access and connectivity as a between different quarters of the country and connectivity result of tourism and energy development Representational A land of extremes of nature A land of outlaws, elves, ghosts and trolls Romanticisation and commodification of perspectives folk beliefs An unknown space Scientific, geological and environmental assessment A landscape of fear Romantic portrayal of sublime nature in books and writing Removal of trees and vegetation as a result of grazing and clearance for agriculture and for industry Highlands had little economic value for grazing Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:22 {TPOG}articles/TPOG643928/TPOG_A_643928_O.3d[x] Friday, 2nd December 2011 21:11:23 Making Wilderness 750 21 755 760 765 770 775 780 785 790 795 invasion of hydro-power production has further transformed the notions of place and decreased naturalness. Significantly, the material and representational construction (Demeritt 2002) of the wilderness properties of the Icelandic Highlands should not be regarded as separate categories. Instead, they have become entities that have, most of the time, been mutually reinforcing. However, the potential for competing constructions of the Highlands is arguably increasing as a result of greater energy and tourism development and therefore more competing sets of interests. Yet, even though human influence in the uninhabited area in the center of Iceland has been ´ considerable (Olafsdottir and Runnstrom 2011), the subjective romantic vision of ´ ¨ the wilderness does not seem, at least so far, to have been seriously affected (Sæþorsdottir 2004, 2010a, 2010b). Surveys conducted at tourist destinations in the ´ ´ Highlands show that most of the visitors still experience the area as unspoilt wilderness characterized by natural, wild landscapes (Sæþorsdottir 2007, 2010b). ´ ´ This demonstrates that the visitors to the Highlands see what they want to see and create and maintain in their mind the image they have of the Highlands. The tourist industry re-images the Highlands as a destination which functions as both a marker and an attraction. Visitors absorb both induced and organic images and create their own personal image of the Highlands after their travel there which gives it a new personal meaning. These images are also now being reproduced via both word-ofmouth and increasingly via web pages, blogs, and social networks on the Internet. Both reinforcing and potentially creating new understandings and culturally coded concepts of wilderness in Iceland. It is too early to tell but even the well-reported impacts of ash cloud from volcanic eruptions may only further add to the wilderness mythologies of Iceland but they do reinforce some longstanding images of Iceland (Table 2). The wilderness of Iceland is nowadays perhaps more a subjective and social idea than a reality in a natural science sense. Nevertheless, the idea of wilderness and its social construction remain important as part of the cultural economy of the Highlands and the country as a whole. For example, the notion that the Highlands are wilderness is an idea that is sustained by the tourist industry, as well as the tourists themselves. The wilderness consists of hybrid spaces that are all together natural, social, political, and cultural (Mels 1999). As there is more than one representation possible, a plurality of meanings of the Highlands exists in Icelandic society, one possibility is utilization either for power production or for tourism, or both sectors living in harmony, and the other possibility is conservation either for the sake of nature herself (biocentric attitude) or for the experience and pleasure it gives humans (humanistic attitude). Either way, the current growth in tourism in the Icelandic wilderness, even if it does utilize some of the images and representation of earlier understandings of the Highlands, is undoubtedly leading to the development of a new way of knowing Icelandic wilderness. Although not fully formed it is marked by the conscious commodification of image and the acceptance of a more permanent human presence in the wilderness. Not necessarily of people per se but of their structures and artifacts. 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