Words by

Vera Illugadóttir

Photo by

Lemúrinn

In the years 1900-1910, several teams of surveyors from the Danish Geological Survey institute travelled around Iceland, taking photos and working on a map of the country. In 1985, the Danish Geological Survey presented its Icelandic counterpart, LandmÒlingar Ísland, with the Danes’ entire collection of 555 photographs on glass plates. The photos are a remarkable resource, both for their unusual perspectives on Icelandic landscapes and towns as well as their documentation of the surveyors’ `road-trips’ in Iceland. We encourage everyone to browse the full collection on lmi.is.

A good surveyor needs to be a good climber.

Surveying Iceland’s barren landscape.

The surveyors set up their camp°

Icelandic family.

Reykjavík, circa 1905.

Lemúrinn is an Icelandic web magazine (Icelandic for the native primate of Madagascar). A winner of the 2012 Icelandic Web Awards, Lemurinn.is covers all things strange and interesting!