Laxá
- Gunnar Birgisson
- Mar 28
- 3 min read
by Gunnar Birgisson
Icelandic Roots welcomes a new guest writer, Gunnar Birgisson. He expresses his thoughts about the rivers in Iceland and why Laxá is special.
Iceland is replete with rivers. Anyone who spends time in the country will see this. Well, except those people who just drive between Keflavik and Reykjavik, as there are no rivers on the Reykjanes peninsula. In the rest of Iceland, however, there are lots of rivers—short, long, narrow, wide. And there are several different types.
The biggest and worst type of river in Iceland is the glacial river: Jökulsá. They originate in the highland glaciers. The glacial melt sweeps up gravel and dirt as these rivers rumble down from the highlands. They are gray or even muddy in color. These aren´t the rivers that appear in artists' oil paintings. There are fish in some of these rivers, but these are tough fish who have learned to survive in rough neighborhoods.
Other rivers flow from springs, lakes, and surface runoffs. Their waters are typically
blue, and more translucent. They sparkle in the sunlight. Trout swim freely in many of these rivers. They are good candidates for an artist's canvas.
A subcategory of these are the most elite Icelandic rivers, the Laxá, or salmon rivers. These rivers are one of the jewels of Icelandic nature, typically scenic, and often gorgeous. Meandering down a valley lined with farms or cutting through a lava field, occasionally dissected by smaller waterfalls, they flow gently toward the sea. And up those rivers, the salmon come to spawn. These fish number only in the tens of thousands, far outnumbered by the wretched creatures caged in the fish farms to be found in so many fjords and inlets.
The salmon rivers are a last respite for the wild, where rivers aren’t dammed, and where the water flows in largely the same way as before the settling of Iceland. The salmon continue their amazing migration to launch the next generation of their species.
The opportunity to fish in these rivers attracts not just local fishermen but people from all over the world. The experience is sublime: standing on a grassy riverbank, or perhaps wearing waders and being up to the thighs in the water, rhythmically casting the line back and forth until the knitted fly finds the right spot, contemplating where the fish are and how they are moving through the river, where they might be resting, feeling the breeze and watching the current, and then maybe feeling the tug on the line and proceeding to wrestle with the fish and bring it ashore. It’s a meditative experience, timeless and soulful, and many have said they had a great day on the river even without catching a fish.
But it’s expensive. The rivers are privately owned, and it may cost more than $1,000 per day for the right to fish in them. I get my bliss from Icelandic nature elsewhere.
Gunnar is an Icelander currently living in Texas. He was active in the Icelandic Association of Washington, DC and served as president for seven years. While in DC he worked as a lawyer, but is now retired from full-time work and dedicating himself to various writing projects, including co-authoring a graphic novel to be published this year in Iceland.