DON MOWATT'S TRIP TO SKRUDUR GARDENS ICELAND

In July this past year Carolyn and I took a cruise to Scandinavia from Iceland to Denmark via Faroe Islands and Shetland.

 When we were in the north of that astonishing landscape of fire and ice, we visited a special garden that I describe below. The garden was a gift by one thoughtful person to a group of young people in his care that expanded to a village, a region, a country and eventually to thousands of visitors from all over the world.
  As O.Henry pondered in his marvellous Christmas story “The gift of the Magi”, a simple gift can sometimes become as significant as those brought by wise men to a newborn in Palestine two millennia ago.

  I wish you all from this house a Happy Christmas and a peaceful, happy New Year.

Skruður Gardens 

In the north western tip of Iceland, just below the Arctic Circle, lies Isafjordur, a port town of wooden houses with corrugated tin roofs built decades ago by fishermen for their families.

From there in several directions, roads lead off to tiny villages in dramatic landscapes of high mountains, valleys and waterfalls.

Ancient tales of strange shaped creatures, the Huldufolk, are still remembered by the older settlers… spirit folk who preside over the countryside keeping inhabitants wary and watchful.

Over a century ago, a Lutheran pastor, Sigtryggur Gudlaugsson, created a garden plot to assist troubled youth in the area. In the lonely years between elementary education and full time work, young people with idle time on their hands chose problematic pastimes too often resulting in crime and injury. Their pastor offered an outlet for their attention, gathering a number of his young parishioners to grow plants from seeds in a plot the size of a large city block but away from the nearest village. Flowers, shrubs, trees were planted and gradually paths, statuary and a stone building were added and the project flourished. 

With more than 5,000 species, the gardens -the oldest botanical collection in Iceland- are filled with horticultural treasures including sea thrift, moss campion and wild thyme.

Today tourists make their way here to this garden oasis bounded by the mountains and in 2009 Iceland issued a postage stamp commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of this special spot in the wilderness. An Icelandic Eden born from a single seed of an idea by a village priest. A safe refuge in a land where the spirit folk are still known to wander and disrupt.

“And on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits… And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22)
(The gift of the typing and formatting came from my son Lachlan.)

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Skrudur Gardens

Skrudur Gardens

Skrudur Gardens

Skrudur Gardens