My forefather Einar

I am named after my great grandfather, Einar Jóhannesson. He was born in the year 1862, the youngest of eleven siblings, nine of which lived to adult age. Einar was a fisherman in the Westfjords, became a "foreman" on a fishing boat, the captain of the crew. Until early 20th century, Iceland's fishing fleet mostly comprised of small open rowing boats, typically with a crew of six or eight men. The boats and fishing gear had not changed much for centuries. This was a primitive and dangerous occupation.

Einar married my great grandmother, Ragnhildur in 1885. They lived in different places in the northern Westfjords, for a number of years in Bolungarvík, which is just north of Ísafjörður. Just outside Bolungarvík, an old fishing station from my great grandparents' time has been renovated and rebuilt and is today a museum.

I visited the Ósvör museum a few years ago and I very much recommend it. Take some time if you stop and imagine how life was just over 100 years ago. Make sure you get a chance to listen to the museum curator, a great storyteller. We stayed for more than an hour as he told us about the daily life of the fishermen.

In these times, people lived all around the Westfjords, the area was known as a "chest of food", because of the fishing grounds, birds and seals, that helped people survive the long winters.

This is the kind of boat my great grandfather was on. This one could be rigged with a mast and a basic sail, which made life a little easier if the winds were favorable.  If you come to Bolungarvík as a tourist, it is most likely summer time , but it was the winter season that was most important for the fishermen, many of whom were farm hands in the summer time.

Skálavík, probably spring time.

Einar and Ragnhildur also lived in Skálavík, a tiny bay that faces the open ocean of the North Atlantic. It lies close to the fishing grounds, which mattered as it could save hours of rowing, but it must have been windy and bleak in the harsh winters. 

Later they moved to Ingjaldssandur in Öndunarfjörður, where they lived on a small farm called Álfadalur. This is a more inviting place than Skálavík, and this is where my grandmother Elísabet spent childhood years.

Ingjaldssandur, Álfadalur was to the left, close to the sea.

I am not sure if Einar was still on a boat crew, but he probably kept on fishing, along with farming the homestead. Slowly but surely the times were changing in the early 20th century. The fishing villages grew bigger and the rigid social structure of the conservative farming society loosened. The boats got motorised but the sea was still treacherous. In September 1921 the motor boat Valþjófur caught a storm and went down with a crew of four, including Einar's son Pétur, the brother of my grandmother, and the captain of the boat, Kristján, who was Einar's son in law, married since two years to my grandmother's sister, María. María was left with a two year old son and pregnant. But she was a strong and determined woman. She had the wooden house that Kristján had just built taken down and shipped over the fjord to the hamlet Flateyri, where she earned a living by selling accommodation and meals to workers. You can still see her house in Flateyri, named Maríuhús. She managed to raise her two children well, and her son later became the 'Speaker' of the Icelandic Parliament.

The book Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalmann Stefánsson (available in English and other translations) is a great account of these times in the Westfjords and the harsh lives of fishermen, and it is also a beautifully written quite superb novel. (see a review).

Take it with you when you travel to the Westfjords, a region of Ieland not to be missed! I read it last fall, and it is one reason why I have wanted to learn more about my forefathers and their lives. I'll write some more as I manage to assemble more pieces of their history.

Remains of a fishermen's hut in Breiðavík.