Thingvellir

Over the mantle of our livingroom fireplace was a painting my mom had gotten from her family on her wedding day, a picture of Lake Thingvellir from the south shore, Hagavík, where my grandfather had grown up, and where he met my grandmother. 

In the painting, the Axá waterfall was visible in the distance, along the cliffs, as was the church and farm house on the field below. I spent untold hours as a child staring at that painting, and can remember every detail of it. 

Two years ago, when the house I grew up in was being remodeled, that painting got misplaced. We haven´t seen it since. 

This morning I was looking at the front page of Frettablað, which shows a photo of the farm house at Lake Thingvellir. It burned down yesterday. 

Which has got me thinking about permanence. Because Lake Thingvellir was recently recognized as a Unesco World Heritage Site, not only for its historic importance, but also for its natural beauty. And yet there is nothing there, nothing there to show the world why this is a special place. Visitors who go there, and people who paint it, always include the farm house that burned down, not because it was so historic or important, but because it was the only thing in the landscape, the only tangible. That picturesque building has now burned down. 

Now what is there, what will be there to testify to the power of the place, to shape a nation, to shape history, to shape the landscape? I do not know what they should do to 'interpret' Thingvellir, I really don't. I was talking to the Park Ranger about it at a conference a few weeks ago. More signage? A better interpretive center? More Rangers, more programs? They cannot recreate anything from the original Althingi, because in point of fact, archaeologists don't even know exactly where they met (I have my own pet theory that it is not in Almenningagja). 

But it seems to me at the very least there needs to be a statue erected, perhaps now that the farm building is gone. The flag pole marking the 'log rock' was never really sufficient. 

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