We All Live Somewhere

 

I have always been fascinated by the way people live - their homes, their furnishings, their customs. Last summer, on our road trip across Canada, we visited L'Anse aux Meadows, the site of a Norse settlement in Newfoundland. Those Norse settlers sailed from Greenland, but were originally from Iceland. So it was with great interest that we visited Laufas, near Akureyri on the northern coast of Iceland. Turf houses have existed here for 1000 years, rebuilt, added to, and altered over the years as styles and materials changed. 

Although the gables in the photo above looks like three separate buildings, they are all part of a large home that housed up to 30 people depending on the time of year. There are two more gables to the house not shown in the photo. You can see that there is only one door above. Constructed in the mid-1800s, the interior is furnished in the style of around 1900. The inside goes on and on, room after room, like a maze. Some have wooden floors, others are packed dirt. Altogether fascinating.

 

From the back of the house one can see that it is almost buried in the ground. The windows in the lower section look out from full height rooms, and the smaller ones at the top light a large open attic for sleeping quarters. 

The setting is magnificent with snowy mountains all around, sloping green fields going down to a marsh where eider ducks nest, and to the fjord beyond. 

Some rooms, like this dining room, have wood paneling on the walls, others are turf. It would be very cozy to sit down to tea at this table with its pretty cloth and porcelain dishes. 

Laufas was the home of the local priest for many many years. The last priest moved out in 1936 and the current priest lives just metres away. A wooden church, built in 1868, has a carved altar from the 17th century. 

From the eider ducks nesting on the marsh, soft down was collected, washed, and sorted in a workshop in the house. This was intensive labour and continues in much the same fashion today, a very sustainable practice. It takes 50-70 nests to provide enough eiderdown for one fluffy warm duvet! 

I was surprised at the amount of light in the house. The bedroom is at the back, where most of the house itself is hidden in thick turf and grass. 

In this room the pastor studied and received his parishioners. There is a separate door that enabled people to come more or less anonymously, not having to enter through a main door. Woven hangings decorate the wall and provide a bit of warmth in winter. 

All of the turf walls were constructed in a herringbone pattern, surely a laborious effort. 

Using earth to insulate homes was not uncommon. My paternal grandmother lived in a sod shanty during her early years of marriage. Nowadays, earth-berm homes, adobe shelters, and others are built as sustainable practices. People from long ago used what they had and adapted to the harsh environment to live as comfortably as possible.