A Trip to Djúpavík
In June 2024, Pietro Calabretta, Ortzi Laborde, Mathilde Morin, Valentine Salazard-Sgambato, and Alicia Vogt were invited to attend the opening of the Basque Center in Djúpavík. Here, they share their impressions of the trip.
We leave our wet shoes at the entrance. A tall, magnanimous man shows us into the red house that his family has rented from the neighbors, serving as an extension of the hotel, which is already overflowing with foreign visitors. It’s 5 degrees, no more, in Djúpavík, where we’re staying from June 5 to 9, 2024. The landscape is picturesque: a waterfall flows down a cliff toward an imposing, though disused, factory and a few scattered houses.
We are five ethnographers following in the footsteps of Basque whalers as part of the Jules Verne international research program. In the fjords of western Iceland, we are trying to observe what unfolds during the opening of an exhibition dedicated to Basque whaling in the Icelandic Sea.
Once there, we discover that friends are waiting for us. They assure us that, this time, “we Basques” are safe, even though the current storm (really?) brings to mind the one that sank the fishermen’s boat—whose crew was then massacred in 1615 in “the neighboring fjord.” It was to address this “dark stain” on local history that the Association of Basque Friends of Iceland (Baskavinafélagið á Íslandí) was founded in 2012.
As part of an EU-funded project, the family that ownsthe Hótel Djúpavík is meeting with the Basque associationsof Albaola (Pasaia) andHaizebegi ( Bayonne) to co-create the Baskasetur —or Basque Center—in Iceland’s largest herring export plant, which operated from 1935 to 1955 and is now at the heart of future plans for a ghost town.
In the hotel dining room, from ambassadors to waitresses, from sailors to academics, everyone reveals their more or less Icelandic wool sweaters after taking off their winter coats. If you close your eyes, you can hear people speaking Icelandic, English, Basque, Spanish, French, Italian, and German: discussing superstition, business, genealogy, archaeology, the real estate market, land ownership, the road (the only one!), government policies, art, fishing, tourism, isolation, carpentry, territorial autonomy, heritage, collective memory…
Through the lectures, guided tours, and workshops we attended, a Basque-Icelandic connection began to take shape, which we sought to explore through interviews. Why is the massacre of the Basques—which was followed by a law authorizing “the killing of all Biscayans who enter the western fjords,” repealed only in 2015—still the subject of so much discussion today? The related issues of guilt and resilience can prompt reflection on current challenges, whether they involve resource exploitation, restrictive immigration policies, identity-based isolationism, or historical genocides.
What will be the key issues as construction of the Basque Center continues? Stay tuned…
Pietro Calabretta, Ortzi Laborde, Mathilde Morin, Valentine Salazard-Sgambato, Alicia Vogt
A Trip to the Eyjafjöll Volcano
To continue our journey, let’s venture further toward these volcanoes, which will be featured in Herlé Jouon’s documentary film Iceland: The Quest for Origins, featured on Haizebegi, here’s a captivating and informative listen: the France Culture podcast: In Iceland, the People of the Eyjafjöll Volcano
