Ásbrú

Last week I heard a rumor that they were changing the name of where I live, again. When the base was here, it was called officially called Varnarstöð (defense place). When the military left, everyone started calling it Vallarheiði (the high field I guess or the plateau). Place naming conventions in Iceland are usually either based on the physical appearance of a place or an association with a historic person, so Vallarheiði fit with the former pattern, and I kind of liked it. Well, someone did not, I guess, because the township here has decided to rename this Ásbrú. 

In so doing, the township is drawing on another naming convention, one far more familiar to me from Southern California. Housing construction companies, when building their gigantic track home developments, have a penchant for coming up with evocative names for their creations: Windy Meadows, Live Oak, Kingstowne, Huckleberry. The list goes on and on. A drive through one of these towns, past all the cleverly named developments, is an emotional roller coaster, each name conjuring up images that vary from sentimental to nostalgic to comforting to emboldening. And of course they do not have to have any relationship to the place at all, a development in Las Vegas can be called Running Springs even if their isn't water to be found for miles and miles. The names are marketing strategies, and many times they serve to actually mask that which has been done: call a development The Oaks after all the oak trees have been cut down, for instance. Or a street after the Native American tribe that used to live there. 

OK, so perhaps I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this, but I can't help it, Ásbrú strikes me the same way. I can see that this land formation has sort of a bridge shape to it, it rises and falls in a nice curve, really, and it is not all that high. The Ás part comes from the idea in Norse mythology that there is a bridge between our world and the world of the gods, the Æsir. I know the township came up with this name partially because of our Vikingaheimar project, and indeed I think there will be more and more of an identification with the Viking Age here in town over time. That might be OK, Reykjanesbær lacks a sense of history in a way other parts of Iceland do not. 

But still it seems weird to me, given that the Nato Base was here, and now the airport is here, as if these things are the Æsir of the modern period.  

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