Northern Iceland through Art
- LD
- Jun 23, 2019
- 9 min read
To mark the beginning of summer and the end of my first year of vet school, I spent two weeks in Northern Iceland to help with the lambing season. I lived in a small house right on the shore of the Atlantic. The nearest city was Kópasker, home to 120 Icelanders. I came during peak lambing season. The farm, Reistarnes, was home to roughly 600 sheep and 1000 lambs. Most of the lambs are born during a 3 week period which overlapped with my visit. I therefore had the opportunity to help fix dystocias (difficult births), identify sick lambs and sheep, bottle feed lambs as needed, switch lambs as needed, etc.
I lived at Reistarnes for 3 months in 2016 and had an incredible, challenging, and rewarding experience. It undoubtedly shaped me into who I am today. Stepping off the plane in 2019 I had more of an idea of what I was getting into, and I was ecstatic to hear the sounds of the Icelandic language, the annoying Kría, and the breathtakingly savage environment.
In this post, I am going to share some of my artwork-and some pictures-to try to share my experience. Now that I have finally sat down to do this post, I am realizing I have so much to say. I should have made multiple blogs while in Iceland, but hey-hindsight is 20/20.
Let's start with the animals I spent the most time with: the sheep. The Icelandic sheep are a little different than the normal Dorset or Merino sheep you may think of. Icelandic sheep are bred to survive the harsh weather of Iceland (for reference, it snowed on 4 different days during my MAY trip to Iceland). They are more independent than the sheep I have worked with in the US. They spend most of the summer (end of May to beginning of September) in the highlands of Iceland. The highlands are rugged. There are many boggy areas where lambs will venture into and not return. The wind is harsh and the food is not lush as you may expect from seeing pasture in the US. The lambs grow up on the wild berries and vegetation in Iceland. Icelanders take pride in the life of their lambs and say that you can taste the wild berries when you eat the lamb.
Additionally, I particularly love the Icelandic sheep breed because they come in a variety of colors. They are predominantly white, but there is also brown, black, fawn, spotted, only the hair around the eyes colored, tri-colored, etc. You can see some of the diversity below.
My days in Iceland had a nice pattern. I would wake up at 6:30, eat breakfast with Kidda, check the sheep, feed and water the sheep, and then wait. We would wait for sheep to give birth. Every 10-15 minutes we would get up and walk around and check all the sheep and lambs. If the sheep had an amniotic sac visible, it was about to give birth and we would keep an eye on it. We checked to make sure it had a correctly presented lamb (front feet out in front of its head in the diving position) and we would make sure it did not take too long. If it stayed the birth canal too long it can asphyxiate and also cause pain to the dam. If the sheep had a red chalk spot on its back, it was identified as having only one lamb. Ultrasound is performed by the vet on all sheep to check the number of lambs expected by each ewe. Sheep are usually more than equipped to care for two lambs and thus it is capable of raising two lambs. The sheep that are supposed to have one lamb are usually given another lamb to raise. Sheep are pretty easy to trick into adopting a new lamb so long as the timing is right. We would find a lamb that wasn't getting enough care from its mom, dunk it in water, and present it to the new mother. We presented the orphan lamb once the feet of the lamb being delivered were visible. This ensures the right hormones are being released in the dam that promote bonding and maternal instinct. The water dunking helped stimulate the mother to lick the orphan lamb clean and thus bond with its new adopted baby.
Yet, in between all of this, I had plenty of time to doodle. And so, here are some sheep drawn in the sheep house. As you can see, the Icelandic sheep have horns on this particular farm. I found the horns extremely useful from a management standpoint. I was able to just hold the sheep by the horns with one hand and do whatever else was needed with my other hand.
Spending so much time in the sheep house also meant I spent a lot of time with lambs. And here's the thing about lambs: they are cuter than books and cartoons make them out to be. They are actually the cutest animals on earth. No. doubt. They wag their tails whenever they nurse. They have these big, knobby knees and huge eyes. They come in every color and their coat is soft and thick with curls. They are similar to about every other animal in that they run around and hop in the air and play with the other lambs until suddenly they get too tired and they all take a nap. Usually on top of each other or on top of their mom.
Similarly to the sheep, I had ample time to sketch the lambs.
The first sketch below is a series. It shows a lamb (or three, depending on your perspective) running away. I drew this because most of my interactions with lambs ended in this way. They run like rabbits. They sort of just hop away using their back two legs in unison to explode off the ground. Then they slowly transition to a trot until they end at a walk. Seeing how they use their back legs a lot to run, its easy to see how the [back] leg of lamb is the most common cut of meat from lamb.
The next drawing is a sketch I did on my way home from Iceland. I wanted to draw one lamb in detail and write some notes on the sketch.This lamb is fawn color. It has a dark brown, almost black body with tan ears, chest, belly, feet, and muzzle. In this sketch, you can see that the lambs all have a signature mark in their ear. Every farmer in Iceland cuts notches on the ears of their lambs. It's the same concept as branding/ear clipping in the US and rest of the word. The mark is permanent and allows farmers to sort out their own lambs from their neighbors when they round them up in the fall. Kidda's mark is a notch in the right ear and a horizontal cut in the left ear. In addition, all sheep and lambs get a metal clip in their ear that identifies them.
Now, let's explore the horses. I grew up riding horses. When I was about 13 my mom and I switched to riding Icelandic horses. I think that is where my initial fascination with Iceland started. I have my mom to thank for that. Icelandic horses are an incredible breed. They are five gaited; they walk, trot, tölt, canter/gallop, and flying pace. The tölt is the gait they are most famous for it is a very quick and comfortable four beat gait. A four beat gait just means that one foot hits the ground at a time. This creates a very smooth gait that you can sit to. This means that you do not bounce up and down in the saddle and you can just sit to this fast gait. Many horse breeds lack a fast, four beat gait that you can sit to which makes the undesirable for long distance trail riding.
The Icelandic horse is intricately tied into the culture and landscape of Iceland. When driving through Iceland, you can't go very far without passing a field with some horses in them. Like the sheep, they come in almost every color. Horses were used as the primary mode of transportation for many years in Iceland and they were used to cross the many rivers of Iceland. Sheep farmers, like Kidda, use the horses to round up the sheep from the highlands in the fall. Other people keep horses for pleasure riding and showing.
Iceland has very strict import and export laws to ensure that no diseases and no mixed Icelandic breeds begin. Once a horse leaves Iceland, it cannot re-enter the country. No other horses are allowed to enter the country. This, in combination of years of natural selection and surviving in the harsh Icelandic climate with no natural predators, has led to the creation of an incredible breed. The horses are are incredibly hardy (at Reistarnes, the horses stay outdoors year round and love it). They do not need much food to survive and thus are easy keepers. They are extremely smart on their feet and are great for riding through the harsh, rocky, and treacherous terrain. They are not flightly like many horses in the US because they have no natural predators. This makes them extremely level headed. After years of selection for personality and level headedness, they have great personalities that I like to akin to large dogs.
I got to ride the horses in the Reistarnes herd and a few others when I came in 2016. I can vouch for their incredible sure footedness, stamina, and great personality. One of my best memories was riding at the front of a herd of horses as we raced through the Northern Iceland coastline as the horses picked their way easily around the rocks. I could talk about this for hours, but instead, enjoy these pictures of the Reistarnes herd. These pictures were taken at 10pm when I went for a solo walk to visit them.
The Reistarnes herd was about a 40 minute walk from the house. I was busy with the sheep most of the time during the day, so I did not sit and sketch the horses. Admittedly, I also did not want to sit in the field as the cold wind blew across my paper and numbed my hands. However, I did watercolor two of the horses while I sat in the airports.
Last but not least, let's take a look at the landscape of Iceland. While in Iceland, I really only stayed at the farm. I was there to work the lambing season, so I did not have a plethora of time to travel and see the nearby points of interest. Additionally, the nearest city and grocery store was 80 minutes away by car, so any trip to the city was a day trip by necessity. I did drive through Husavík, Aukereyri, and Reykjavik, but these were only fleeting moments. Most of my drawing was done in the rugged countryside of Northern Iceland. The only website I can find that mentions the peninsula of Melrakkaslétta where I lived says that the "charming and striking atmosphere of abandonment lingers everywhere" (http://www.diamondcircle.is/melrakkasletta/). For me, I am usually overwhelmed by the raw beauty of the nature.
Below are some images from my walks around the farm. I hope you can appreciate the stunning beauty of Iceland. I was humbled by the nature every day. I drew the below picture by the coast one afternoon.
One day I hiked up to the top of a small mountain that overlooked the peninsula. Unfortunately I am at a loss to remember what the name of the mountain is...I'll get back to you. But the view was incredible. I painted at the top of it, but my hands were quickly frozen because the wind was fierce and it was very cold. I think I need to get little glove mitten things for days like that. It is not my favorite painting, but I enjoyed the process. I think I just needed a larger paper. I could have done a better job scaling the picture. Every time I paint, it's a lesson!
The last landscape drawing I did was a drawing of an tower thing. Honestly, I do not know what it is exactly, but I think it is an indicator for the harbor that was adjacent the farm (I need to ask better questions it seems...). The harbor, Nyhöfn, used to house ships as they came in for a night or two. This tower was painted a faint yellow, I am assuming so that boats knew how far to enter the harbor/where the harbor was. During my two week stay there, we actually saw a sailboat parked in the harbor. It still gets some use to this day!
Before I sign out on this extraordinarily long blog post, here is one last drawing of a bird. The birds in Northern Iceland are incredible. A birder's paradise. As I walked around Iceland, I could practically hear my birder friends yelling at me to make more use the experience and figure out what each bird was...but alas I am simply not a birder. I lack the patience to identify each bird. I enjoy drawing them much more. This bird was found dead, which while morbid, provided me a great time to look at the color and feathering of the bird up close. This bird was a semi-palmated plover.
Thanks for reading and looking! If you have any questions, please reach out! I'll do some drawings or research or whatever is needed to answer your questions. I'd love to help anyone understand Iceland or agriculture a little better. If you like the style of any of the drawings and would like a commission, I have some openings for commissions as of the end of June.
See you soon! The website and blog will be more active now that I am out of school and into summer!
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