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This last year I took a late winter trip around parts of Iceland.
I could have gone to Hawaii to get away from Winter in Iowa but
it turns out that, by luck, Iceland was a good winter escape too.
My purpose in going to Iceland was to find good horses to bring
back to America and also to look in on friends there.
One would think of Iceland as a last choice place to go to in
the winter. However, it occupies a unique place in the world where
it receives the warmed Carribbean sea waters as they circle around
towards the north in the large flow of trade currents across the
North Atlantic. So yes, they get winter but it is often moderated
by the warmer trade waters flowing by the Island. Iceland certainly
gets winter. However, it depends on which direction the weather
blows in from. Of course, when it blows in from the north, it
blows in directly off the pole with a real cold!
Often their winter temperatures vary 10 degrees back and forth
around frost. It depends also where on the Island you might be.
Last winter was milder than normal with little build up of snow
in the low areas. The mountain tops of the highlands were snow
covered but the normal deep snow coverings of the vast highland
pastures was not there. It is remarkable. Global warming? The
lack of snow matters in ways to the farmers of Iceland this year
in practical ways.
I visited looking for horses so the talk with farmers and horsemen
there was of horses on their farms. What I was finding was that
all over Iceland their farmers had more lost horses than usual
up in the highland pastures above their farms this year. These
were lost horses from their herds that had not come down to their
home farms in the valleys of Iceland. These horses were just out
on their own in the highlands running as wild groups up in the
mountains.
In the normal cycle of the Iceland farm year, livestock is turned
out the back gates of their farms during the summer to graze the
enormous communal pastures of their highland mountains. The working
Icelandic farms can be big areas by American standards. However,
when combined with the highland areas which the farmers of a district
share, the farms and their farm management is vast in scale way
beyond our own midwestern farms here, even as our own farms become
corporate, consolidated and big.
In the annual cycle of life there, the communities of their farm
districts gather together to go out into the highlands during
the fall before winter does start with furry, gathering their
grazing sheep and horses down from the highlands. These are big
annual community events in Iceland. As the highlands begin to
cover with snow in November and December, the livestock is usually
down more towards home and by winter they are held in close-by
paddocks for winter feeding with hay.
This year, the winter was so mild around Iceland that many farmers
were remarking how many of their horses were not home yet from
the highlands. One farm I was on keeps about 300 head of sheep
and also about 100 head of horses. Their sheep were home and their
horses were mostly home except for about 30. These 30 horses were
not found in the fall round-ups and were still out grazing in
the highlands.
Horse breeding is serious stuff in Iceland so it weighs on the
minds of most farmers when they have horses left out there in
the mountains during this time of the year. This was happening
everywhere I was traveling.
The last few days I was in Iceland I got in on a little adventure
related to some of these lost horses. On one farm with about thirty
missing horses, it was decided to go out on expedition up to the
highlands and search for these horses. The farmer had flown the
area in a small plane six weeks ago to spot horses only seeing
a few of the total number. He had mares, foals and young horses
that he was in earnest over and wanted to locate before any really
big storm might come along to cover the area. So we prepared ourselves
with serious clothing and the best stock horses of the farm to
go out for this adventure. It was a decent winter day with some
broken sun light down in the valley and temperatures above freezing.
Some wind blowing too.
Once we were prepared and mounted, out the back gate of the home
farm we rode as three horsemen together in pursuit. The farm valleys
in Iceland are all dramatic places. Usually running with a glacial
river that drains down from interior snowfields and glaciers.
And also rimmed or edged with towering mountain ridges that define
the valleys.
The valley we climbed out of with our horses was about a mile
wide with 2,000 foot mountain ridges on either side. Not exactly
shear, the ridges are a climb and up we went on these Icelandic
stock horses. The footing was incredible..bad and alarming. Lava
scree, rock, mud, thawing ice sheets, creeks, dry creeks, lava
fields of uncovered rock, moss-covered lava fields, sod-covered
lava, some sod areas in between rocky areas. The horses just climb
on and up over it all. Going along, they just continually define
what sure-footedness in horses is all about, as they would go
on and up.
Some will know the farmer as, Sigurdur Oddur from the farm Oddstodum
in the Borgarfjordur area in the southwest of Iceland. The strategy
of the hunt for these lost horses was to work up to high ground
where we could look into the swales, low areas, and behind mountains
and ridges of the highlands. The area is really vast. It extents
to be the equal of two or so Iowa sized counties surrounded by
snow capped high mountains around its horizon.
So, in strategy, we worked towards ridge tops and prominances
to find high-ground to look out from. The horses were out there,
the question was where in this highland landscape were they?
We rode for the morning to get up to points where we were able
to sight our first group of clustered horses. They were three
or four standing together grazing behind an outcropping of rock
that was protecting them from the wind which was starting to blast
further out on the highlands. This group was sighted by binoculars
probably two or three miles from where we were looking down into
their meadow area. We skirted along another ridge towards this
area of the first horses to seek out another high point and also
to look down behind into another area. From the next high point,
we saw another group of horses out much further from the first
group we located. This was probably a group of 9 or so horses.
The distances were great and it was difficult to really determine
the numbers. In the landscape, the horses stay hidden against
it until you really come across them and look at them directly.
The day was about half done as we finally located these two groupings
of horses. The weather also was turning toward foul with a spitting
drizzling rain moving in off the mountains blown by a wind that
was about 30 gusting to 40 mph.
We set our plan from the cover of our high point. The plan was
to circle wide of the first group and drive it over to the second
group and sweep them all back along towards the valley that we
came out of and down to the farm.
These horses we had found were living as separate groups within
eyeshot to each other up in these areas. The day after this one
we came back to the ajoining areas beyond this area and found
other groupings of horse too, all of which were within a distant
eyeshot of each other. Each group being a collection of mares,
foals, young horses and geldings. They coexisted together in the
larger highland areas as groups of their own. They would move
about as their own groups but they seemed also to stay in general
areas of their own. Each grouping evidently with its own ordering
of mares, young horses and geldings and not mixing with the others
groupings in the general area.
The horse I rode was a steady enduring worker. Climbing out of
the valley up into the highlands, he just kept on a set forward
movement as we climbed on over an incredibly rough landscape and
footing condition. Rough rock and ice the whole way. Always a
changing in footing as we went along. There was no path. You just
went across as you needed to go either up or down or across. As
you would go along, every low place drained water.
This time of year the water was frozen, which on the steep sides
of hills, meant water froze into sheets of ice three or so inches
thick across the ground.
The horses would just stride across with out missing a step or
without slipping even across the slope of a hill. You get to the
point after riding for sometime in these conditions where you
just stop worrying. You guide generally and just let the horse
do its work. These horses, as they have lived for so long in the
mountains of Iceland, are the embodiment of what “sure-footed”
is all about.
The horse I rode loved this work. Herding other horses obviously
defined this horse’s life for him. When we came close to
the free horses that we were to gather, this horse I was on really
went to work then. He was amazing.
Even after hours of climbing into the highlands, his energy for
herding was endless and even in the end back down in the home
valley he was seemingly untapped . Still always there to draw
on to chase, cut and drive the herd of these loose horses we were
gathering. To understand this, you have to see him being ridden
at full speed across this landscape to cut one group in one direction
only to be turned another way to run and drive another group.
Driving the loose horses is mostly about squeezing them with
your presence to shape their direction and speed across the landscape.
Sometimes there will be some stronger horses that will try to
head off in their own way from the herd as it is moving. For these
you just have to run to get out ahead of them and turn them with
your own presence of energy. This horse I rode loved this work
and would just freely fly at a run, never missing a step across
this wild footing to outrun any break-away horse. I got to ride
him for two days and I was completely honored by the experience.
-Doug Hamilton
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