Yes, I know, it’s a bizarre title, but I promise it will make sense, and there’s a fairly strong possibility that you’ll be interested – and maybe amused or even intrigued – in what I have to say.
This Icelandic saga (pun intended) is the result of something I read in my newspaper a couple of days ago. I find I am increasingly reminded of past travels when I spot a headline or a news story.
Only last week a report on system-built houses (‘prefabs’ for those of an older generation) took me back to the Caribbean island of Nevis, the Shetland Isles, and Orlando. That convoluted tale will have to wait, however. The Icelandic Sheepdog demands our attention.
What caught my eye was a report that the Kennel Club has recognised the Icelandic Sheepdog as a pedigree breed, in order to ensure its survival as numbers are dwindling.
I was immediately transported back in time, to the mid-1960s, and my first visit to Iceland. My guide/interpreter was a jolly chap with a fund of tall stories. He told me, for instance, that there were no trees on Iceland. And, also, that there were no dogs. That last piece of information was so surprising that I had to ask why not.
“Because there are no trees for them to pee against,” he said.
I had fallen into a trap which he admitted later that he set for gullible visitors, and I have to admit I was extremely gullible in those days.
However, setting aside that silly joke, why were there no dogs in Reykjavik?
It transpires that in 1924, fearing the spread from dogs to humans of a then-fatal tapeworm disease (called ‘echinococcosis’, since you ask), the Icelandic government banned the keeping of dogs. Hundreds of pets were rounded up and shot.
In the wild outdoors – of which Iceland has more than its fair share – working dogs were permitted, as long as they were licensed and vaccinated. So, the Icelandic Sheepdog was reprieved.
I discovered this on that first memorable visit to a destination which is fascinating in the true sense of the word. I discovered, too, that Iceland makes a tidy profit exporting bananas – grown in glasshouses heated by natural thermal springs – which are also used to heat houses in the capital and elsewhere. I learned that Althing, the Icelandic Parliament, is the oldest in the world (the second oldest being Tynwald on the Isle of Man).
When we visited the Westmann Islands, off the south coast of Iceland, the jolly guide introduced me to the Mayor and the Chief of Police, so I could ask permission to visit Surtsey, a volcanic island which had emerged from the sea in 1963 and was still unstable and hot to the touch.
As neither the Mayor or the Chief of Police had visited the island, they used my request as an excuse to do so. A couple of days later, as our boat approached Surtsey, a group of resident scientists ran towards us, waving us away and ordering us to keep off.
The Mayor shouted back, as did the Chief of Police. Though my understanding of Icelandic is non-existent, I have a pretty good idea of what was said, judging by the expression on the Mayor’s face.
Whatever was said, it was enough to cow the boffins who reluctantly allowed us to land. My main memory is of sitting down on a rock, then leaping up smartly as it burned my bottom, and of the fact that tiny green shoots were appearing on the black lava, evidence that seeds had been brought to the island by birds, and that from such tiny shoots a new landscape would, literally, emerge.
Determined to protect the undefiled environment, the boffins hovered around us like anxious sheepdogs.
Which, neatly, brings me back to the subject that started off this episode of ‘Now & Then’ – the Icelandic Sheepdog.
The ban was lifted in 1984, shortly after all farming and livestock rearing was ended in and around Reykjavik. But was it too late to save the dwindling breed? Fortunately, not, thanks to the efforts of a few Icelandic enthusiasts.
Those efforts have now been recognised by the Kennel Club. So, as the old Icelandic Sagas would never have said: “they all lived happily ever after”.
P.S. In case you’re wondering about the lack of trees on Iceland, the native species were decimated by the Vikings, who cut them down for fuel and boat building. Very few remained, which is why my jolly guide could claim there were no trees, and almost get away with it.
Somebody told me, a few years ago, that the Icelandic Government had established a National Forest, with local and imported species. He claimed it was slightly smaller than a football pitch, but I thought it would be gullible of me to believe him.
