Learning Icelandic in the Westfjords: Heather Storgaard

Learning Icelandic in the Westfjords

by Heather Storgaard

I am currently studying for an Undergraduate degree in Culture, Heritage and Politics, which comes under the Institute for Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Part of the general aim of the Institute is to place Scotland in the context of the rest of the North, which is a theme that runs through both my courses and my own personal interests.

Coming from Northern Scotland and married to a Dane, I experience the linguistic and cultural connections between Scotland and Nordic countries every day. I already speak fluent Danish, but have a particular interest in the now dead Norn language of Shetland and Orkney. Norn was very close to modernday Icelandic and Faroese, which led me to look into culture and language summer courses in both countries. Unfortunately, most summer courses running this year and focusing on Nordic cultures and languages are funded by the Nordic Council, and therefore closed to non-Nordic citizens. However, I did find a language course open to all at Háskólasetur Vestfjarða, Ísafjörður. As two thirds of Iceland’s ca 350,000 people live in Reykjavik, I was intrigued to try a summer school in the Icelandic countryside, just outside the Arctic Circle.

One of the main advantages of learning Icelandic in the Westfjords turned out to be the small size of the town. On my way here, I couldn’t get through to the bus company that runs a shuttle from the airport. A master’s student originally from Texas very generously lent me his van, leaving the keys in the glovebox and allowing me to get to class on time. Our teacher, Ólafur Guðsteinn Kristjánsson, or Óli, had also arranged that local businesses would support our language learning. Signs were placed in nearly every shop window in the town, promising that the staff would stick to Icelandic, even when they themselves were non-natives. Back when I was learning Danish, it often felt like a battle to be allowed to speak it in shops or restaurants, as everyone would so readily switch to English, so this scheme really helped me feel comfortable practising Icelandic. This would of course be hard to pull off in a city, but in Ísafjörður it felt like almost everyone supported our language journeys. After a week, we knew the barman at the local pub (originally from Buckinghamshire) and were greeting the locals we saw every day.

During any free time I could find (the course was intense!) I was exploring the beautiful Westfjords. I ran from my Saturday afternoon grammar class to the docks to take a boat trip to a nearby island, hiked up a mountain and kayaked in the fjord. Experiencing Iceland was vastly different from my previous times spent in the Nordic countries, in famously-flat Denmark, and I could at times forget that I wasn’t in Scotland. Other than

landscape similarities, this was helped by the abundance of Irn Bru, Tunnocks wafers and fish and chips!

The trip was, however, not untouched by the pandemic. My flights from the UK (and at one point Ireland!) were changed four times, and then, while here, I found out that a man with whom I shared a kitchen in my accommodation had tested positive for the virus. I was in the coffee room at the university centre when I was informed, and Óli took me straight out of the university centre and to an empty apartment on the docks belonging to another member of staff, to figure out what to do. By the late afternoon, after three phone calls and two different website live chats, it was decided that my contact with the person who had tested positive was not significant enough to warrant testing and isolation, as I was fully vaccinated and displayed no symptoms. I spoke with Óli and Gunna Sigga, the lovely receptionist who I had chats with in Danish, about the situation and decided not to attend the final class the next morning. I could have attended, but it didn’t feel right to me to put others at risk unnecessarily. Óli solved this by teaching the class both in person and on zoom, with me watching from a couple of streets away.

Despite knowing my teacher, the staff at the university and my classmates for only a week I really felt I got to know them and Iceland. I also felt incredibly supported and in safe hands even in a very stressful situation, so I really want to say the biggest thank-you to them. The grant from CoScan also helped with the ever-changing flights, accommodation bookings and managing extra costs, so thank you to CoScan too. Takk og verið þið blessuð og sæl!

Vigur windmill Photo: Heather Storgaard