5:51 p.m. in Svalbarðseyri
5:51 p.m. in Svalbarðseyri is the smell of sheep dung wafting in the louvered window of our rented tiny house with a fjord view and a two-burner cooktop. The clouds hang iridescent over the pale gray water and I gasp each time I glance out the pane, sure I see droplets collecting into a rainbow. But no such prism materializes.
I dump a bag of pasta into boiling water. In the largest bowl I can find, I fork tuna, capers, and the green onions my husband has sliced. He chops a head of broccoli, using the small table as a workspace, happy enough to follow my culinary directions. He planned nearly one hundred percent of this foray to the North Atlantic and, I’m sure, appreciates a break from decision making.
After dinner, we’ll walk around the craggy premises, in the long, yellow-green grass that reminds me of the moorlands Catherine and Heathcliff roamed.
There will be no Northern Lights tonight. It’s only early September and the sky remains veiled. “We didn’t come to Iceland for the weather,” I’ve quipped periodically, trudging through the rain to see a waterfall—foss in Icelandic—as seven tour buses full of cruise passengers heave into the parking lot. “We didn’t come to Iceland for the weather,” I bellowed as we trekked the perimeter of a grassy crater against 30-mile-per-hour winds that nearly lashed my feet out from under me. “We didn’t come to Iceland for the weather,” I murmured, too low for anyone to hear, atop the edge of a cold basalt canyon, the river below that was supposed to flow crystalline blue raging muddy brown.
I rip lettuce and concoct a crude salad dressing out of a squeezed lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper. We listen to CDs on an ancient player, Icelandic medleys that are mostly imitations of American songs, familiar but unplaceable. We are relaxed as we clear the cutting board, the dull chef’s knife, and a mixing bowl from the small versatile table that, due to lack of storage, we’re sharing also with various detritus a couple accumulates while road-tripping all week: a box of tissues, a package of delicious marshmallow cookies called Lindu Buff Chocolate Bites, my cosmetics bag. Sleeping in as late as we want the next morning with no destination to hit except for a nearby geothermal spa feels like absolute luxury.
Wine, the same as everything in Iceland, is expensive. I’ve hauled a couple of duty-free bottles along from the Keflavík airport, nearly as far as you can get from our current town while remaining in this rugged island country. I’m sipping from a glass of Chardonnay, gazing contentedly at the few faded paperbacks that line the shelf next to a slippery leather loveseat. Blanched light surges in the windows, illuminating the maple paneling surrounding us, bathing the room in a warm glow. This dinner—in fact, the entire trip—is an escape from our challenges as parents to college kids. Here, we can put aside disagreements over launching our son and connecting with our daughter, and instead focus on sustaining ourselves with food mostly from the sea, exploring otherworldly terrain, and driving—1,700 miles total once we complete the journey.
After dinner, we take turns in the one-person foyer, bundling ourselves. Even a short stroll requires us to dress warmly in hats, gloves, and heavy coats.
We explore the hill behind our snug house. We are looking for three fosses we read we could find south of the property.
The wind has shifted and the air smells fresher, less like barn. It froths around us in soft whorls, heavy with moisture. Underneath my hiking boots, the ground gives, spongy with moss and clover. I toe puffballs to make them expel dusty spores, then jog to catch up with my husband, who strides easily ahead.
We do not find the fosses. They tumble, as it turns out, over a crimped cliff a couple of pastures down, past a wire fence, beyond our willingness to trek that evening.
From up here, in the looming darkness, our rental looks miniature but bulges with all the possessions I packed, including very necessary rain gear, the perfect Airbnb slippers courtesy of a trip to Japan six months ago, and the creams and topical JAK inhibitors my eczema-splotched, middle-aged skin requires.
Out here, though, none of that matters. There is no exhaustion, no claustrophobia in our rented Dacia Duster and micro living quarters, no worries about children and home. There is only the milky fjord below, and the ever-present wind ebbing from gale-force to a soft drift.
About the Author
Angie McCullagh's stories have been previously published in journals such as The Sun Magazine, Colorado Review, Wigleaf and others. She's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has received support from the One Story conference in 2023 and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2025. She lives in Seattle with her husband, son, and an emotionally fragile mutt and is at work on a humorous book club novel with a speculative element.
Illustration by Jane Demarest.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
