No ordinary venue, like Iceland..

International Polar Year involvements again gave me the opportunity for international polar travel – this time to Akureyri, Iceland. Halldor Johannsson coordinated support from the Northern Research Forum, University of Akureyri and Arctic Portal to support an Executive Committee meeting for the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists.

APECS is all about providing networking, information and opportunities for emerging polar researchers. APECS President, Kriss Rokken Iversen from Norway, likened our Executive Committee work to fieldwork in international science politics and management. I’ve met and worked with some amazing, inspirational people, been exposed to many facets of Arctic research and experienced some unique places first hand.

Outside of very fruitful work sessions and meetings, highlights included: swimming laps in an outside pool (heated by geothermal hot water) while it snowed; eating hardfiskur, herring, the best trout I’ve ever had and hakarl (putrid shark) with Brenniven chasers at Halldor’s home; dining at the world-class Frederik V restaurant; learning about Iceland’s current situation and history from Halldor and Ragnar Baldursson, Icelandic diplomat and represetnative on the Arctic Council; a blustery soak at the Blue Lagoon en route to flying out; and, above all, the people we met and wonderful hospitality of Halldor and Fanna.

Iceland has a fascinating landscape and history of discovery, occupation, natural disaster, plague, foreign rule and now status as a world-leading economy. Modern Iceland has an enviable combination of a very high standard of living, no unemployment, essentially no crime, abundant tasty fish and lamb, thriving local fashion and music scenes, and friendly multi-lingual people. Iceland's disproportiate succes at Miss Universe pageants is at least partly explained by Viking settlers taking their pick from Scottish and Irish villages on the way over..

Independent only since 1944, Icelanders fled in the mid 20th century due to the harsh lifestyle and grim prospects. Not so now, as Icelanders are gaining a reputation for ther savvy harnessing of natural resources in the form of hydro- and geothermal power and abundant hot water for heating. Iceland is energy self-sufficient, and ‘exports energy’ in the form of Alumnin(i)um which would otherwise use a lot of some other country’s energy to produce.

Iceland’s most famous export is arguably the guttural growling, squealing, yelping and dynamic range of the singing free spirit Bjork. I’ve loved her music for years, so it was cool (but no doubt clichéd for the locals) to hear her album Post playing in the airport, and to look her up in the phone book. The Icelanders use a patronymic naming system and no family names. Bjork Gudmunsdottir literally means Bjork-the-daughter-of Gudmun, and women don't change thier name on marriage. Even in a country of only 300,000 people, this can easily lead to lots of people with the same name! So phone book listings are alphabetical by first name then last name, middle name, occupation, address.

Halldor was a wonderful host, ensuring a very fruitful meeting and memorable experience in Akureyri and Iceland. We’re all very optimistic now about the future of APECS after IPY. It was really great to work again with Dave Carlson, Jen, Jose, Hugues, Kriss, Narelle and Peter – top people all of them. I think we'll all be recommending Iceland as a destination too! In the end it was no joke that if we needed anything at all in Iceland, all it needed was Halldor to make a call - takk fyrir, Halldor.