The whole world was grey and black, from heavy clouds in the sky that threatened rain to the dark sands of Djúpalónssandur. The beach was strewn with rusting wreckage left as a memorial to a tragic shipwreck in the early 1900s. We meandered around the twisted metal, feet sinking into black lava rocks rolled smooth by the ocean. The beach was impressive and rugged, with kittiwakes soaring above us to the cliff sides and the steady hum of ocean waves against the black sand, but our goal was a trail to Dritvík, a cove about a kilometer from the beach.

It was not an ideal day, with wind blowing relentless across the imposing terrain. I had the feeling that ideal days in Iceland should not be waited upon, but even so, few tourists had ventured out, so my spouse and I were mostly alone to carefully maneuver our way through the rocks.

Steep up the cliff and then flat at the top, I found the land eerily similar to the high plateaus of Northern Arizona and southern Utah, if those places were smashed right up against Idahoan volcanic rock fields. I felt strangely at home.

Eventually the trail dropped down into waving grasses and a protected ravine. The beach was awash in shades of black, grey, and bone white, stark against the emerging spring green at the edge of the boulder field.

Before descending, we paused for a moment at the interpretive sign describing the two hundred or so years of history where twenty to fifty boats and over two hundred men lived and fished in the cove for weeks or months at a time. I thought I must have read the sign wrong.

The men?

I’m not generally given to punk tendencies, but in that moment, I have never wanted to engage in vandalism more.

The sign was just plain wrong.

In all the years that Dritvík was in use, upwards of 50% of fishing crews were female and some women even led all-female crews. Anyone who proved themselves capable was not going to be turned away¹.

Dritvík was not a cove where only men fished and lived. This was a place where adult women and men, and occasionally teenagers, entrusted their lives to a foreman leading small six-oar rowboats, open to the ocean, to fish in an unforgiving landscape. Navigation was difficult and accidents were many.

One poet/seawoman, Látra-Björg, captured the dangers succinctly in a short poem:

“I laugh in the face of all danger

While tossed on the wild strong sea.

If I reach shore now or never

It’s all the same to me.”

The Icelandic seawomen who faced this danger, rowed the boats, caught the fish, processed the fish, made the life-or-death decisions, or suffered the consequences of the decisions of their foreman, have a unique place in history, especially given the rest of Europe’s association of women at sea with bad luck.

In contrast, the Icelandic seawoman could be fiskin.

To be fiskin in Iceland is a compliment that can be given to any gender. Margaret Willson writes,

“Being fiskin reflects a deep sea knowledge that goes beyond the rational. This sea knowledge is seen as an all-encompassing, almost sacred embodied relationship of more than just the mind, something imbued in the body, uniting the sea and sky and connected to the gods… Sea knowledge encompasses a state of awareness that rejects no information, be that coming through observation, intuition, weather skills, or an understanding of the supernatural assistance presented through dreams.”

Foreman Thuridur, a legendary seawoman of Iceland, was fiskin. She was also the reason I was hiking to Dritvík.

Foreman Thuridur fished off the coast of Snæfellsnes, wearing pants instead of the legally mandated woolen skirts. She had a near mythical weather sense. She led her crew with a miraculous level of safety, never once losing a crew member in sixty years. She defended her rights, by going to court if necessary. She was paid an equal share for her labor due to a unique law that guaranteed equitable pay to all who fished regardless of gender, though the inequitable farmhand system of Danish rule meant all her shares went to the farm holder. She was able to support both herself and her mother by catching bonus fish, and, once she was too old to work, she lived out the end of her days in poverty, a fate shared by many seawomen of the time¹.

At Dritvík, I imagined Foreman Thuridur, strong, trusted, in command, predicting the weather, carrying the responsibility for her crew and boat. She would have experienced respect and freedom in a way not so available on land. Her boots would have held up sure against the rocks that slid out from under us as we toddled over the landscape. She would have had the knack of it. Her wisdom kept the fishers safe and the fish plentiful, since many a foreman would follow her choice to stay in or go out. She must have been a very capable person. She was fiskin.

To engage fully, deeply, in any discipline offers a path toward being fiskin. To navigate the hidden dangers of a potentially hostile and yet awesome landscape offers a path toward being fiskin. To be fully connected to both rational and intuitive sources of knowing offers a path toward being fiskin. To be so fully oneself that one can trust in their choices offers a path toward being fiskin. It must be something, to be worthy of this word. It seems worthwhile to try.    

¹Willson, Margaret. Seawomen of Iceland : Survival on the Edge. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016.

Title Photo by Tabea Schimpf on Unsplash