From Siberia to show room. (A story of a tree from Siberia that ended up as a serving bowl in a museum in Iceland)
Introduction
Driftwood was the main building material of Icelanders from the settlement until the 19th century and longer where it was accessible, such as in the North and the Westfjords. Almost all wooden objects, large and small, inside and outside the house were made from wood that had been washed ashore. Boats, furniture, containers, tools and everything in between are evidence of human dexterity and resourcefulness. The cultural values of the treasures that are still preserved are invaluable in the history of a country and a nation. In times of waste, disposable items, speed and abundance, it is good to stop, provoke people to think and realize the value, creation, time and effort of past generations who had to prepare everything for their hands. The regional museums play there a major role with their artefacts, knowledge and education.
Did it drift aimlessly in the sea amidst icebergs and whales? Did walruses sharpen their sturdy teeth on its ends? Did weary seabirds rest their wings on the tangled roots that pointed into the air like masts on a ship? And what was it like to finally see land rise from the sea, thrash about and wallow in the huge waves, tightly embraced by the surf until a farmer helped it ashore and before long gave it an important role on his farm?
The heritage museum, Byggðasafn Húnvetningar og Strandamanna participated in the European Cultural Heritage Days 2021 with the project "Driftwood, boats and household items" where the primary processing of driftwood was shown and linked historically to the artefacts, skills that the museum's staff possess.
In our museum, tourists can therefor possibly see artefacts made from material from their own country, or with a style they are familiar with and follow the journey, seen in a context with environmental and historical changes through a story told by a tree!!!!
Impact on Europe is education about this remarkable connection between the countries of origin of wood and handicrafts and artefacts in Iceland, emphasis on educating children about diverse cultural heritage, the importance of handicraft maintenance and the connections between countries.
The story that follows is certainly fiction, but it is based on people's knowledge of driftwood routes, the language associated with its utilization and historical facts about artefacts owned by Byggðasafn Húnvetningar og Strandamanna. The idea is to use the story in museum teaching and make people think about e.g., environmental and historical issues. And not least work on a coloring book with pictures for the younger generations.
The illustrating drawings attached are part of the story, but the applications form does not accept such file.
From Siberia to show room.
(A story of a tree from Siberia that ended up as a serving bowl in a museum in Iceland)
Long ago I was a small, slender pine tree, standing in a grove with my friends and siblings in a beautiful, sheltering forest far, far east in Siberia. I can’t tell you how many years have passed since then; I only know it has been many ages ago. Perhaps this was around the time the volcanoes in Iceland spewed ash and cinders into the sky causing countless calamities on the European continent. Perhaps Peter the Great of Russia was about to be born, who later laid the foundations for the Russian Empire and built a new capital, St. Petersburg.
But how can it be that a tree from a distant continent is now a food bowl inhabiting a display cabinet at the Regional Museum in northern Iceland? If you have the time, I'll tell you my story.
My first years of existence were challenging. I had to fight for space in the forest with the other trees, some of which were trying to push me away and spread their branches to prevent the sunlight from reaching me. But I was lucky. I managed to stretch my roots into fertile and moist soil and soon I gained an advantage over the others. This happened in the summertime when the sun warmed us, the dark green needles soaking up its rays. At times I felt like I was the most beautiful tree in the forest. Everything was buzzing with life. Birds perched on branches and sang in unison, looking for attention before they made their nests. Squirrels leaped between branches and small animals sought safety in the forest.
When I was little, I was a bit scared of the stately moose that occasionally visited and rubbed their massive horns so forcefully against the smaller trees that their branches broke. Even reclusive striped tigers made their way into the woods and sharpened their claws on my bark, leaving deep cuts. That was bearable but I was not thrilled when they marked me as their territory by peeing on me!!!! Occasionally I woke up to a tickle that could turn into hives that moved up the trunk and I felt the nibble on the bark. These were mushrooms that felt I was the perfect home for them, but they did not know that autumn would soon come I would be able to get rid of them.
This is how the summers went by, but then winter arrived and that was no joke. The Arctic wind swept through the forests, carrying enough snow to cover the smaller trees. I was lucky to stand near larger trees that gave me shelter from the fiercest gusts, but the cold gave no breaks. Sometimes the frost was so severe, the whole forest groaned and cracked. The most fragile trees simply split in the cold and died. This is how the years went by. I grew tall and broad, even though I had my share of close calls. Forest fires wreaked havoc and destroyed everything in their path, but luck would always place them on the opposite side of the wide river flowing by the high bank where I stood.
The friendly summer breeze caressed the treetops and carried with it echoes from the big old trees deeper in the forest and told each other stories. Sometimes I could only make out a word or two, but occasionally I picked up stories that made my bark tremble. The stories told of a streak of light that shot across the sky, followed by a frightening flare and a massive storm that toppled trees and burned their bark, leaving bare branches and charred bark. Although ancient history, the story circulated among the trees, stirring up fear and dread.
On long, cold winter nights reflections of the snow drove the shadows farther in between the trees. The trees swayed peacefully and stoically watched constant movements of stars that decorated the dark sky. But there were more dangers in our lives. One crisp winter morning a dog's bark, some shouting and commotion broke the silence. Humans!!!
They traveled along the river on sleds pulled by restless dogs that excitedly yanked their collars and charged between trees yelping and howling. The men got off the sleds, pulled out axes and measuring sticks, and began pacing between us. Often they stopped, inspected the trees and made marks in the ones they liked best. My branches trembled with fear when I saw them slowly but surely approaching. They stopped and pointed at my trunk with animated gesticulations. One of them raised the ax and cut a large mark at the bottom of my body - the letter X. When dusk fell the men had marked almost all of the largest and most beautiful trees on the riverbank; then they disappeared. We knew what that meant. Soon they would return with their axes and saws to chop us down, one by one, and push us into the river. The Wind had whispered this rumor to us, having heard it from the old trees that were not beautiful enough to be chopped by the loggers' axes, but had watched their friends being pulled away.
The following summer arrived with a bang. Frost gave way to hot winds that melted the snow so quickly that the forest floor was suddenly flooded with icy slush. The icy water flowed down to the icebound river, which in turn began to swell up and crack at alarming speeds. Thick ice floes broke off and piled up top of each other, like a fleeing animal. And then it happened! We saw the wave surge in the distance. At first it was like a swollen bulge that touched both sides of the river, which then slowly amassed into a formidable wall that rose, widened and overturned everything in its path like a gigantic, ravenous monster. Rocks, ice, trees, soil - everything succumbed. I saw my friends buckle and disappear into the flood. I struggled as hard as I could, tried to hold on tight and not let the flood carry me away, but it was so strong. I felt my trunk bend and my roots stretch. Branches, rocks and water were pounding me and suddenly my crown was submerged, and everything went black !!!
I do not know exactly what happened next, but when I shot out of the water I was in the middle of the river tumbling back and forth in the muddy water. I came across broken trunks and ice floes that pierced my body and scraped off my bark. All around me were my friends who had faced the same fate and failed to withstand the massive flood.
Here and there mud-brown streams and tributaries filled with debris joined the raging river. At times I was stuck between the icebergs, sometimes full grown logs blocked the river and piled up into a horizontal, tangled mass of trees. This repeated itself time and again, each time breaking off my beautiful branches and carving my bark away. Gradually the entanglement of logs eased apart as the river widened and the current slowed down. Suddenly the environment changed. The banks I had passed were gone and nothing but the endless ocean and sky all around.
I drifted aimlessly, utterly ruled by the whimsy of winds and currents. A week in this direction, a month in the other. My only companions were the walruses passing by. They scratched their huge heads and playfully pushed me around with their long tusks, as if I was an empty barrel. Birds perched on my root, which was about the only reminder of the beautiful tree in the most peaceful forest that I used to be. Now my largest root end protruded like a mast into the sky, allowing tired birds to take a break from their aerial wanderings over the wet landscape and have a chat, mostly about food and where to find it. Gradually I drifted towards ice, which at first were isolated drifting icebergs, some of them the size of whole mountains. When freezing temperatures rose however, the ice thickened. I was stuck. The tight grip of the ice twisted and bent my body so it cracked and broke and I was convinced I would at every moment break apart. After a few days, the ice had turned into one continuous and immovable mass. I was certainly stuck now. All I could do was to wait and hope. In my long lifetime I had learned that Winter eventually comes to an end, what else could I do but to wait. Darkness, freezing storms, snow and hail surrounded for months. Slowly but surely gave way to increasing rays of sun, which melted the snowy blanket on my trunk and weakened the ice’s tight grip. Not enough though to release me from the ice prison, for the Arctic summers were too short and cool to tackle the immense ice sheet.
This is how it went year after year. I couldn’t make my way out to the open sea but struggled stuck in the ice back and forth in complete frustration, lonely as never before. One morning, however, a visitor came, white, large and hairy. He sauntered on the ice, with a belly full of seal, judging by the piece of seal skin in the corner of his mouth.
The big, handsome polar bear was taken by surprise when he saw my roots protruding from the ice. He stood still, then slowly approached with caution, sniffed and licked me with curiosity and poked me with his big paw. Having realized I wasn’t dangerous at all, he let down his guard towards me. First, he scratched himself vigorously, then chewed and gnawed where he felt like, and finally he sharpened his powerful claws on my smooth trunk, leaving deep bites here and there. Eventually he got tired of me or had become hungry again and strolled his way. I was left with new scars but the same old feelings of loneliness.
What goes through the mind of a tree that is virtually no longer a tree, only a polished trunk with a few root ends? No signs of bark, branches or anything reminiscent of the prosperous pine tree in the green grove? I let my mind wander to the years of growing up, the gusts of wind that played with the treetops and the many critters that made me their home and playground. I had ample time to ponder challenging questions: Where was I, where were my friends, how would this end????
In the midst of my ponderings, I began to hear familiar sounds. Loud cracks in the ice ..... Of course, I had heard it before and had felt the forces that overturned icebergs, but now it was different. The air was also changing, becoming so much warmer. In an incredibly short time, the icy grip released me and before I knew I was free. Free from many years of imprisonment. I bobbed around in a pond that grew ever larger. This was unexpected! I was certain this was the beginning of something exciting. Gradually the pond grew larger and now I drifted with the ice, which pushed me ahead towards the open sea.
From time to time I saw other trees pass by, birds begun to show up again, and now their conversations were not just about what to eat, but where the best locations were for nesting. Nesting was a very familiar topic to me so I did not have to listen for long to figure out that those birds had never nested in a tree!! At times whales and seals became my travel companions. I could sense the sea warming up and the currents seemed to carry me in one direction as opposed to their erratic ways before. The weather had also changed, not to mention the light that seemed endless. The long dark nights had given way to a sun that took no breaks but shone so brightly that my roots protruding from the sea began to take on color and dry a little. Then one morning after a calm night the reflection of the morning sun seemed a bit unusual, as if it split in two somewhere in the distance on some fault on sea level. The sun rose once again and everything was bathed in rays and I immediately forgot this vision.
I was observing a group of male eider ducks whose grandiose accounts on how handsome they were deemed by their female counterparts I found rather pompous, when the sun disappeared behind swift and menacing clouds. Darkening fog rolled in. What on earth was happening? The ocean waves grew larger, and in the distance I heard a terrifying rumble that resembled suppressed moans. They grew louder and louder, and suddenly I remembered where I had heard them before. These were the same sounds I heard when the flood hit my old forest, when the raging wave swallowed everything in an instant. What was hiding in the fog? Suddenly, a giant wave, a tsunami, grabbed me. The noise became louder and louder and suddenly the fog lifted. Straight ahead I saw a pitch-black cliff that we approached at breakneck speed. It was as the wave was enjoying this moment, as if she was the bride and the cliff the groom who patiently waited for her first and last kiss, the kiss of death. The bride rose up, her veil swelling tens of meters up and behind her. She opened her arms, holding onto me like a wedding bouquet, and threw herself into the arms of her lover.
The blow when I hit the rock was so hard I catapulted up into the air and then crashed onto the rocky beach, only to be caught by the suction of a ebbing wave. It used its dying force to retreat and join its sisters who rushed one after another far out in the sea. They bounced me between them like a toy. One moment I was gripped by rocky boulders, the next I splashed away from the beach. When they finally ceased, I was trapped between large boulders at the top of the beach. Once again I awaited my destiny. It dawned on me that my existence was first and foremost a wait, a wait for various forces to move me, as I could not move by myself.
I waited and waited under the sky-high cliffs that came alive in the spring when birds arrived. They nested on each ledge so narrowly that they kicked each other’s eggs out of the nest, painting my trunk with bright egg-red. I soon noticed I was not the only tree in the area. Scattered all over the shore were pieces of wood of all shapes and sizes, which the sea either gave or took, depending on its mood.
I however wasn’t going anywhere. I was so thoroughly pinned, I hardly budged when the surf repeatedly attempted to return me to the sea. The sea does not know defeat and one day it finally managed to move me. Day by day he weather intensified in the winter darkness. The waves grew larger and pummeled the rocky shore, causing the earth to shake from their force. Heaps of gravel and rocks were gouged off the shore into the sea; I was lucky not to be buried in the violent process! Finally, a wave towering all the others crashed upon the shore, then jerked me so forcefully that I came lose and was pulled out to the surf. I was carried away from the shore where the currents ferried me along the coastline. The cliffs that had been my first encounter with a new place disappeared into the evening dusk. Once again, I embarked on a journey that I had no control over. Before long, I sensed that the weather was going down and the ocean currents gradually changed. Ahead I saw new land appear in the faint glow of the day that had dawned. The waves I had drifted in this last leg of my travels behaved more politely than their relatives who had used me as their little toy for fun. These waves lay me gently onto a soft gravel shore where I managed to fasten myself with the remnants of my root. I was just beginning to wonder how long this stay would last when I heard voices. Humans ...... they were here too! My old fear soon disappeared. These men did not have axes, just ropes. I immediately started like them because they admired me and even called me "a beautiful tree". They looked around and said something about driftwood and I sensed that they were looking at the other logs that had also washed ashore, but that I was by far the biggest "tree"!! They discussed how I could be "rescued" from the beach, but that more hands were needed. As the day wore on, more men arrived and began to weave ropes around me according to the rules of the art they called a “screwdriver”. The men lined themselves up on both sides of me and started pulling me away from the seashore. It was a difficult task. They took breaks, passed around a tobacco horn, laughed and told stories and ...... talked about this beautiful tree that, “would be so useful. Without any twigs, timber for all purposes”. I was quite heavy so after a lot of pulling and cursing I was left lying on a flat bank above the shore, for the first time in a long, long time not surrounded by sea, ice or rocks.
It soon became clear to me that I was in a good place. The people on the farm all came to admire me. Guests on the farm made special trips to look at me. No one had ever imagined such a large driftwood tree could exist.
After lying on the bank during the summer, drying myself and sunbathing in the calm heat, I realized that changes were ahead when one autumn morning two men came walking from the farm with measuring equipment and saws. But now I was not scared like before. I felt that these men liked me. They measured me on all sides, wrote something down, talked about a boat, furniture, house building even a coffin. They evenly marked lines on the log and then grabbed the saw. I still remember when the teeth locked in and worked their way through with rhythmic strokes of the saw - ziggggg, zigggg - through one year ring after the other, until one end came lose .... But it did not hurt. I was much happier now that the wandering and waiting was over. Now my existence had a new purpose.
By evening the men had sawed me into many parts that lay splayed on the bank like a child’s used toys. One might think that the story of the most beautiful tree in the forest was over. No, this was just the beginning of a new chapter. Over the next few days, each log piece was placed on top of, sawing scaffolds where the men cut them lengthwise into boards varying in thickness depending on the purpose. One part, however, was not sawn but carefully split into very thin strips and later used in the boards of barrels and containers. The elderly farmer stroked every board he handled with great care and talked to them like his children. Day after day he stood in the barn, planning, sawing, tilting and folding. Gradually, I was turned into objects of various purposes. There was a boat for the neighbor, a closet for the church, a coffin around the little daughter, furniture, and a serving container - askur. The elderly farmer probably did not suspect then that some of the things he made from the beautiful wood from Siberia would survive him, his children, grandchildren and still live and testify to the skills and diligence he possessed, despite the poverty, lack of light, cold and other scarcities - circumstances beyond the imagination of those who will read this.
The artefacts made by farmer were widely distributed as they were highly sought after. I never went anywhere, though, because the farmer used the last boards from the big, beautiful tree that drifted on his shores to make me. That is how this story has been preserved. The farmer so artfully fused each wooden piece together, not one drop of liquid could escape the bowl. He spent many evenings carving decorations in the lid, intensely grateful for the best wood he had ever handled. Once finished, the farmer could not imagine selling me so I became part of the family. Every day, generation after generation I was filled with a meal and carried to someone anxiously waiting to eat the contents. Sometimes I was brimming with food, but all too often the hollow sound of emptiness could be heard when the spoon hit my insides and often tears of hunger mixed with the water porridge I was carrying. Once my insides had been thoroughly scraped, I was laid on the floor for the dogs to lick the rest so that nothing would be wasted.
Then one day I was no longer needed. I was placed in a chest in the attic where I picked up my previous occupation .... waiting. As luck would have it, I was found for what seems like an eternity later, by people who thought I was remarkable for some reason. And thanks to them, I am now here in this museum where I have met many objects that are from the same origin as me and have acquired a new role that we all take seriously and with great gratitude. We are exhibited as proof of the past where I, who was once a tree in a forest far away from Iceland, ended up as a food bowl, empty of food but full of stories.
Author: Gunnar Rögnvaldsson temporary director of the heritage museum Húnvetninga og Strandamanna in Hrútafjörður in Northwest Iceland.
Illustration: Gunnar Rögnvaldsson and Benjamín Kristinsson, curator at the museum
English version: Íris Olga Lúðvíksdóttir and Gunnar Rögnvaldsson
Webside:
Byggðasafn Húnvetninga og Strandamanna (reykjasafn.is)The heritage museum Húnvetninga og Strandamanna in Hrútafjörður in Northwest Iceland.
https://www.facebook.com/ReykjasafnMuseum
The beginning of the story / project is participation in the European cultural heritage days with the program “Rekaviður, bátar og búsgögn” where among other things immigrants were encouraged to attend and participate, to learn about the cultural heritage of the area. The cultural heritage has a strong connection to other countries on the continent, where the material, the driftwood, comes from and has possibly touched on its journey to the country. The craft used now and then, was brought with the settlers from Scandinavia and Northern Europe in its time and has continued to develop here, but due to the isolation of the country and individual areas, this development became slow, so some elements can be considered e.g., the capital letter (Höfðaletur) on the carving as Icelandic.
In our museum, tourists can therefor possibly see artefacts made from material from their own country, or with a style they are familiar with and follow the journey, seen in a context with environmental and historical changes through a story told by a tree!!!!
Impact on Europe is education about this remarkable connection between the countries of origin of wood and handicrafts and artefacts in Iceland, emphasis on educating children about diverse cultural heritage, the importance of handicraft maintenance and the connections between countries.