Hey guys!
So in continuing my little series about July in Iceland this past year, today I'm going to be making my first ever addendum to the "things I've noticed" series about a country I've already written about. There are a few more elements of Icelandic culture and history that caught my eye while I was there last summer that I wanted to share really quickly. Hope it's interesting and enjoyable!
1) Just how important swimming pools are in Icelandic culture.
This was definitely something which had been mentioned multiple times during my first Icelandic program in 2016, but I didn't quite get the extent of it until this past summer. Sofia and I were living less than two minutes on foot away from Sundhöllin, one of the main swimming pools in the city, and we also payed a visit on one occasion to the lovely Vesturbæjarlaug over on the other side of town. But Sundhöllin became a true staple of our experience, a place that we'd go up to four or five times a week at points, to relax, blow off some steam, take our minds off of things, hang out with friends, or just chat. And that's very much how swimming pools are in Iceland.
Even the tiniest of far-flung, windswept fishing villages will proudly sport a swimming pool, and they are important community meeting points across the country, the Turkish hamam, Finnish sauna, or Chinese tea houses of the situation. Retirees catch up on the latest gossip while they swim laps early in the morning; children energetically make use of the diving boards and slides in their first hours off of school; families make weekend afternoons together out of it.
Most Icelandic swimming pools consist of hot pots (usually around 38-40 Celsius/100-107 Fahrenheit), cold pots (around 12 Celsius/53 Fahrenheit), and the main swimming pool itself (around 26 Celsius/80 Fahrenheit), with the idea that patrons will move between the different temperature extremes and benefit from the related circulatory aid, much like in Finnish saunas. It's truly refreshing and can even leave one feeling pretty tired afterwards!
Also, let me take a moment here to say that the rumors are true - you have to shower naked at the pool before you go in. The water all comes from natural geothermal or glacial sources, and it is treated with extremely limited chemicals, so it is trusted that everyone will do their part in turn to keep the water clean - which is to say, thoroughly clean themselves. I know for some people this can be super nerve-wracking, but rest assured that the showers in Icelandic swimming pools are extremely non-judgemental and relaxed places. One of the benefits of this is that Icelanders grow up very comfortable with their own and each other's bodies, and discomfort in these environments is nearly non-existent.
2) Iceland and Finland have many parallels in their historical control by mainland Nordic powers, but it has resulted in two very different contemporary linguistic situations.
For context, Iceland and Finland were ruled over by the monarchies of Denmark and Sweden respectively for periods of several hundred years, which was hugely influential in their development, and their ties to the rest of the Nordic world. Whether or not these periods of control could be considered colonialism is a subject of much debate in Iceland and Finland alike, including among Icelanders and Finns themselves. But suffice it to say that these periods were important.
However, in contemporary Finland about 5% of the population, particularly on the southern and western coasts, continues to speak a unique Finnish-influenced dialect of Swedish as their native language, which enjoys equal official status and state protection as the Finnish language. In Iceland, though a more pan-Scandinavian influenced version of Danish was a required subject in schools until recent decades, no significant portion of Icelanders use Danish amongst themselves or as a native language anymore.
I thought of several reasons that could have contributed to this: for one, the simple matter of population. Finland's population has never been huge, it's only about five million today. But Iceland's contemporary peak population is about 350,000. With numbers that (relatively) low, which have historically been even lower, it's simply difficult to maintain a minority population with a distinctive identity, using a different language than the main one.
Another is geographical isolation and logistics. Finland is much closer to Sweden, particularly the areas that retain high numbers of Swedish speakers today, and so creating cohesive transportation and trade routes and spheres of influences from Stockholm was much easier, compared to the thousand or so miles (2,000 or so kilometers) which separate Iceland from mainland Europe, especially with the duration of transportation during those days. So laying down comparably solid influence was difficult.
Then, Iceland has had a tremendously rich and strong literary tradition throughout its history - even while the vast majority of Icelanders lived in poverty for many centuries working in nearly squalid conditions on turf farms across the country, people were educated to be literate, so that they could read epic poems and sagas aloud to their families while they worked, particularly during the kvöldvaka (evening-wake) during the long winters. This literary history and inadvertent country-wide standardization of the language gave it a uniform legitimacy. In Finland, in contrast, Finnish remained a spoken language only until the 14th century, when Protestant monk Mikael Agricola published a Finnish translation of the New Testament of the Bible, and was not standardized until the nationalist Fennoman movement became prevalent during Russian control in the 1800s.
And finally, Icelanders have historically been distrustful of the higher classes, and sought to make themselves as distinct from the upper echelons of society as possible. Not to say that Finns historically were more differential, but the aristocratic caste system was something which was more entrenched, enforced, and therefore accepted. So it stands to reason that Danish, which was largely used by and associated with the higher classes and colonial administration in Iceland, would be largely shaken off and often resented in the years following independence (it is important to note, however, that not all Icelanders hate Denmark by any means; in fact many continue to study Danish in school even without being forced, as many jobs require proficiency in a mainland Nordic language, and large numbers of Icelanders live and study in Denmark, particularly in Copenhagen).
That's all I could think of for now. I will add anything else that comes to mind.
Best wishes and good vibes to all!
Nico
So in continuing my little series about July in Iceland this past year, today I'm going to be making my first ever addendum to the "things I've noticed" series about a country I've already written about. There are a few more elements of Icelandic culture and history that caught my eye while I was there last summer that I wanted to share really quickly. Hope it's interesting and enjoyable!
1) Just how important swimming pools are in Icelandic culture.
This was definitely something which had been mentioned multiple times during my first Icelandic program in 2016, but I didn't quite get the extent of it until this past summer. Sofia and I were living less than two minutes on foot away from Sundhöllin, one of the main swimming pools in the city, and we also payed a visit on one occasion to the lovely Vesturbæjarlaug over on the other side of town. But Sundhöllin became a true staple of our experience, a place that we'd go up to four or five times a week at points, to relax, blow off some steam, take our minds off of things, hang out with friends, or just chat. And that's very much how swimming pools are in Iceland.
Even the tiniest of far-flung, windswept fishing villages will proudly sport a swimming pool, and they are important community meeting points across the country, the Turkish hamam, Finnish sauna, or Chinese tea houses of the situation. Retirees catch up on the latest gossip while they swim laps early in the morning; children energetically make use of the diving boards and slides in their first hours off of school; families make weekend afternoons together out of it.
Most Icelandic swimming pools consist of hot pots (usually around 38-40 Celsius/100-107 Fahrenheit), cold pots (around 12 Celsius/53 Fahrenheit), and the main swimming pool itself (around 26 Celsius/80 Fahrenheit), with the idea that patrons will move between the different temperature extremes and benefit from the related circulatory aid, much like in Finnish saunas. It's truly refreshing and can even leave one feeling pretty tired afterwards!
Also, let me take a moment here to say that the rumors are true - you have to shower naked at the pool before you go in. The water all comes from natural geothermal or glacial sources, and it is treated with extremely limited chemicals, so it is trusted that everyone will do their part in turn to keep the water clean - which is to say, thoroughly clean themselves. I know for some people this can be super nerve-wracking, but rest assured that the showers in Icelandic swimming pools are extremely non-judgemental and relaxed places. One of the benefits of this is that Icelanders grow up very comfortable with their own and each other's bodies, and discomfort in these environments is nearly non-existent.
2) Iceland and Finland have many parallels in their historical control by mainland Nordic powers, but it has resulted in two very different contemporary linguistic situations.
For context, Iceland and Finland were ruled over by the monarchies of Denmark and Sweden respectively for periods of several hundred years, which was hugely influential in their development, and their ties to the rest of the Nordic world. Whether or not these periods of control could be considered colonialism is a subject of much debate in Iceland and Finland alike, including among Icelanders and Finns themselves. But suffice it to say that these periods were important.
However, in contemporary Finland about 5% of the population, particularly on the southern and western coasts, continues to speak a unique Finnish-influenced dialect of Swedish as their native language, which enjoys equal official status and state protection as the Finnish language. In Iceland, though a more pan-Scandinavian influenced version of Danish was a required subject in schools until recent decades, no significant portion of Icelanders use Danish amongst themselves or as a native language anymore.
I thought of several reasons that could have contributed to this: for one, the simple matter of population. Finland's population has never been huge, it's only about five million today. But Iceland's contemporary peak population is about 350,000. With numbers that (relatively) low, which have historically been even lower, it's simply difficult to maintain a minority population with a distinctive identity, using a different language than the main one.
Another is geographical isolation and logistics. Finland is much closer to Sweden, particularly the areas that retain high numbers of Swedish speakers today, and so creating cohesive transportation and trade routes and spheres of influences from Stockholm was much easier, compared to the thousand or so miles (2,000 or so kilometers) which separate Iceland from mainland Europe, especially with the duration of transportation during those days. So laying down comparably solid influence was difficult.
Then, Iceland has had a tremendously rich and strong literary tradition throughout its history - even while the vast majority of Icelanders lived in poverty for many centuries working in nearly squalid conditions on turf farms across the country, people were educated to be literate, so that they could read epic poems and sagas aloud to their families while they worked, particularly during the kvöldvaka (evening-wake) during the long winters. This literary history and inadvertent country-wide standardization of the language gave it a uniform legitimacy. In Finland, in contrast, Finnish remained a spoken language only until the 14th century, when Protestant monk Mikael Agricola published a Finnish translation of the New Testament of the Bible, and was not standardized until the nationalist Fennoman movement became prevalent during Russian control in the 1800s.
And finally, Icelanders have historically been distrustful of the higher classes, and sought to make themselves as distinct from the upper echelons of society as possible. Not to say that Finns historically were more differential, but the aristocratic caste system was something which was more entrenched, enforced, and therefore accepted. So it stands to reason that Danish, which was largely used by and associated with the higher classes and colonial administration in Iceland, would be largely shaken off and often resented in the years following independence (it is important to note, however, that not all Icelanders hate Denmark by any means; in fact many continue to study Danish in school even without being forced, as many jobs require proficiency in a mainland Nordic language, and large numbers of Icelanders live and study in Denmark, particularly in Copenhagen).
That's all I could think of for now. I will add anything else that comes to mind.
Best wishes and good vibes to all!
Nico
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