Island Life: News From The Icelandic Countryside

People in northeast Iceland simply cannot shut up about their warm and sunny weather. Campers in Atlavík and Höfðavík for the month of June numbered 4,430 in June, compared to just 1,300 during the same month last year. A large portion of these people are Reykjavíkings fleeing the cold and rain in our corner of the country. Nice of them to accommodate us.

Meanwhile, in the Westfjörds, sheep farmers are facing a crisis. Overproduction when compared to decreasing demand has meant that they will likely have to significantly decrease the amount of sheep they raise next year. This is an ongoing trend of a particularly difficult trade to be in right now.

On July 21, Selfoss residents celebrated the 5th anniversary of the Bobby Fischer Centre, a memorial mini-museum devoted to the chess whizz, who died in Iceland of kidney failure in 2008 after less than two years of living here. He’s possibly one of the most classic examples of “separating the art from the artist”, when you consider his long history of anti-Semitic remarks and openly celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Pobody’s nerfect!