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It may be the start of summer, but in the far east of Iceland it’s still bitterly cold, an Arctic wind whipping along the fjord and lashing the signal flags adorning our ship. Nevertheless, the bridge of the fishing trawler Blængur is packed to the gills. Dozens of passengers from the nearby town of Neskaupstaður jostle for a view out of the windshield, eager to gauge how we are faring against the competition.
We’re here to take part in an unlikely race between fishing boats — once up and down the Norðfjörður — to mark Sjómannadagurinn (Fishermen’s Day), an annual nationwide celebration usually held on the first Sunday in June. There are four trawlers competing, filled with local families, many employed in the local fish-processing plant, and a handful of tourists. No tickets are required; anyone wishing to take part can just turn up on the dock.
With his hand pressed on the throttle, the trawler captain Bjarni Hjálmarsson tells me we’re at a disadvantage. Our vessel is the oldest of the four — built in 1974 — and powered by the weakest engine. Sure enough, after speeding back down the fjord at 15 knots, we arrive back in port last.
Still, we are enthusiastically greeted by a small group of supporters on the dock, cheering as the ships moor up. Back in the centre of the small town, home to about 1,500 people, Fishermen’s Day celebrations are in full swing. Some people are dressed up as sea creatures, others are racing rowing boats in the harbour.
Outside the Beituskúrinn (the Bait Shack), a café/bar right on the wooden dock, the long tables are busy. And there are tugs-of-war, with teams positioned either side of the dock so that losers are inevitably pulled into the water. At just 7C, it’s quite the punishment.
Elsewhere, under-12s are taking part in a fishing competition. As I watch, little Helen Kara Bogadottir yelps excitedly when she hooks a starfish. There are prizes for the heaviest fish, the largest catch and the most species hooked.
Neskaupstaður, on a peninsula jutting out into the Norwegian Sea, is the most easterly town in Iceland and virtually everyone here is linked directly or indirectly to the fishing industry. Over lunch — a stew of cod, white ling and Arctic char — I meet 74-year-old historian Smári Geirsson. He explains how Icelandic sailors have, for centuries, celebrated the end of the fishing season at the beginning of summer, but it wasn’t until 1938 that an official holiday was established.
“On this holiday, the memory of drowned sailors would be honoured, and they’d try to increase the nation’s understanding of the risky work sailors do,” he tells me. “It wasn’t long before Fishermen’s Day was celebrated in all fishing villages across the country.”
That evening, I join much of Neskaupstaður’s adult population in the town’s night club to watch pop band Faeribandid lead the celebrations. It’s well after midnight when I head back to my hotel, the sun still illuminating the sky. Either side of the fjord, hulking mountains rise sharply, their jagged ridges lost in the low clouds, and their lower slopes carpeted in purple-flowering lupins.
The following morning, with heavy heads, locals attend a special mass at the town’s Norðfjörður Church, where they pray for and honour fishermen who have died at sea. Later, en route to the little airport at Egilsstaðir, where I’ll catch a flight back to Reykjavík, I pass a memorial to drowned sailors. It shows a man on his knees, praying and looking up the hill towards the townspeople’s houses and the heavens beyond. There are statues like these dotted all along Iceland’s twisting coastline — poignant reminders of the precarious relationship these people have with the ocean that feeds them.
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