Þegar þjóðin eignaðist Geysi

Geysir í Haukadal á hátindi frægðar sinnar á 19. öld.

Geysir, frægasta náttúruundur Íslands, hafði verið í eigu bænda frá landnámsöld. Sumarið 1893 kom hingað ungur írskur auðmaður, James Craig að nafni. Leið hans eins og allra erlendra ferðamanna lá að Geysi. Hann kynntist einum landeigendanna sem reyndist í fjárkröggum og kom á daginn að hann var að reyna að selja stjórnvöldum hverasvæðið. Craig sá aumur á bóndanum og lofaði að kaupa landareignina sjálfur fyrir 100 sterlingspund, ef salan til ríkisins tækist ekki. Fór svo að hann eignaðist landið og er það skráð í dóms- og þingbók Árnessýslu vorið 1894:

Afsalsbrjef, útg. 9/4, fyrir hverunum Geysi, Strokk, Blesa og Litla Geysi, ásamt umhverfis liggjandi landi. Seljendur: Sigurður Pálsson, Jón Sigurðarson og Greipur Sigurðarson. Kaupandi: James Craig (junior). Verð 3000 kr.

Craig þessi átti síðar eftir að verða frægur stjórnmálamaður í heimalandi sínu, meðal annars forsætisráðherra Norður-Írlands um skeið. En kaupin á hverunum Íurðu honum bara til ama, enda hneykslaðist fjölskylda hans mjög á uppátækinu. Hlaut hann þungar átölur frá föður sínum fyrir að sóa peningum fjölskyldunnar.  Á endanum losaði hann sig við eignina með því að gefa hana vini sínum E. Rogers sem hafði þó enn minni tök en Craig á að líta eftir hverunum og landinu umhverfis.

Þannig var staðan árið 1935 þegar Sigurður Jónasson forstjóri keypti Geysi af Rogers-fjölskyldunni og færði íslensku þjóðinni að gjöf. Var kaupverðið átta þúsund krónur. Rausnarskapur Sigurður fékk góðar undirtektir. „Á hann skilið alþjóðarþökk,“ sagði Tíminn í frétt um málið. Um ástæður fyrir kaupunum sagði Sigurður í viðtali við Nýja dagblaðið:

Ég álít persónulega að ríkið ætti að eiga slíkan dýrgrip sem Geysir er. Fyrst og fremst vegna þess, að ríkið verður að sjálfsögðu að gera ráðstafanir til þess að vernda Geysi fyrir ágangi, og álít ég nærri því sjálfsagt að gera svæðið í kringum hverina að einskonar þjóðgarði.

Sigurður nefnir síðan hagnýtt gildi hveranna:

Ríkið á jörðina Laug, og er þar og yfirleitt á hverasvæðinu mjög mikið heitt vatn og hljóta þar að vera mjög mikil skilyrði fyrir heilsuhæli o.s.frv. Þar við bætist það að ég hef óvíða á landinu séð meiri náttúrufegurð en þarna, einkum í dalnum á bak við Laugafjallið.

Sigurður Jónasson var merkismaður og þyrfti einhver að gera sögu hans betri skil en gert hefur verið. Geysir er ekki eina gjöfin sem hann færði þjóðinni því í lok fjórða áratugarins eignaðist hann sjálfa Bessastaði á Álftanesi og gaf þá árið 1941 til að vera aðsetur forseta Íslands.

Hverasvæðið í Haukadal.

The gift of Geysir

For nearly three centuries, the hot springs of Haukadalur, South Iceland, have been among the country’s most popular tourist destinations, its main attraction being the whimsical Geysir, which only erupts sporadically—sometimes decades pass in between its spectacular eruptions of steam high up in the air. Fifteen years have now passed since its last upsurge. Strokkur, which came about in a massive earthquake in 1789, has instead upheld the area’s reputation. This hot spring, which erupts constantly, is located right next to Geysir.

It is not known when the hot springs of Haukadalur began to blow. They are first mentioned in annals in 1294, after a major volcanic eruption of Hekla. However, it isn’t until the 17th century that the name Geysir is cited in public records. Perhaps the hot springs lay dormant until then. Or perhaps, back in the day, such natural phenomena were considered mundane and not worth writing about.

Neither Fences nor Fee Collectors

During the first centuries after Iceland’s settlement in the late 9th century, all land was privately owned, except for areas officially demarcated as public. The natural wonders, which we modern people choose to call as such, were mostly located on farmland and therefore the farmers’ property. This applied to the Haukadalur hot springs. However, nothing stood in the way of those wishing to enjoy and explore picturesque places and extraordinary natural phenomena. Fences didn’t exist—let alone fee collectors. Since Iceland’s settlement, free travel has been a mainstay of the law. An admittance fee was never charged for the Geysir area as that would have gone against that concept. However, during a brief period in the 19th century, visitors’ conduct around the hot springs had become so poor that the landowner decided to cover Geysir with a trapdoor in order to prevent it from being fed rocks and turf without permission (such methods served to awaken it). Anyone who wished to do so had to pay a fee. For a brief period of time, there was also a special charge for throwing soap down the hot spring—which also helped to make it erupt.

Until the 20th century, Icelandic farmers rarely charged travelers who sought food and board, even though it was both costly and bothersome. However, especially in the places which saw the most traffic, foreign visitors usually paid for their food as well as the use of grazing land for their horses.

In the 19th century when Geysir’s fame was at its height, Haukadalur, including the hot springs, was owned by a farmer named Sigurður Pálsson at Laug. Like almost every other Icelandic farmer, he was a man of little means. A constant stream of visitors during the summertime took its toll on the household’s budget. To top it off, foreign visitors—impatiently waiting for Geysir to stir—kept demanding that it was fed turf and rock. That meant a disturbance for the area and a lot of time and effort for Sigurður and his household. The visitors were wealthy and well-dressed and considered the physical strain this entailed beneath them. They expected the locals to do all the hard work.

Selling the Springs

In the 1890s, when Sigurður had become an old man, he formally asked the Icelandic government to relieve him of this burden by purchasing the hot spring area and assuming its supervision, perhaps even building tourist accommodation. A few parliamentarians liked the idea but the majority was deterred by the cost and the work needed to undertake the project, although the asking price was far from high. In the summer of 1893, Sigurður’s proposal was rejected.

That same summer, a young Irishman named James Craig (1871-1940)—the son of a self-made whiskey millionaire in Belfast—visited Iceland on a leisure trip. He visited Geysir with two of his siblings, lodging at Sigurður’s farm. The two became fast friends although neither understood the other’s language; they communicated via a local guide who was self-taught in foreign languages.

The young Irishman was sad to hear about the government’s indifference. Although the proposal had yet to be rejected, Craig told Sigurður that if they didn’t purchase Geysir, he would, at the amount of GBP 100. That amounted to ISK 3,000, a large sum that certainly would come in handy for an impoverished farmer. The young James Craig kept his promise. The following spring, an entry was made in the Register of Mortgages stating that on April 9 1894, Mr. Craig had been handed the lease to the Haukadalur hot springs and the surrounding land, for which he paid the aforementioned amount.

Despite Iceland’s remote location, the news about the purchase traveled with remarkable speed to the outside world, with bourgeois newspapers such as The London Times and The Belfast News-Letter writing about it. It must have been considered unusual as it wasn’t clear what gain the young man had in spending a fortune on a few hot springs in a rural part of Iceland—a place with neither gentlemen, clubs nor fitting refreshments. His father was quite taken aback by the whole thing, scolding his son severely for this lapse in judgment, which had made a laughing stock of the entire family. Soon after, in July, 1894, he relinquished the area to his Londoner relative, Elliott Rogers, who paid a nominal fee for it. According to James Craig’s biography, Craigavon, Ulsterma (1949), by St. John Greer Ervine, the incident damaged his relationship with his father and influenced his abandonment of the plan to become a businessman. Instead, he went on to have a magnificent political career as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He was created a baronet in 1918 and raised to the Peerage in 1927.

A Present from a Patriot

Elliott Rogers was not in the least interested in Geysir and probably never visited Iceland. His nephew, Hugh Charles Innes Rogers, later inherited the property and immediately decided to sell it. Sigurður Jónasson, the director of the State Tobacco Monopoly and an entrepreneur with connections in London, was hired to find a suitable buyer. A wealthy man, he simply purchased the property himself for ISK 8,000, formally donating it to the Icelandic people in August 1935. “It is my strong belief that the government should own a treasure such as Geysir,” he told the local press. “First and foremost because the government must take measures to protect Geysir from encroachment and turn the area into a national park of sorts,” he added.

This was not the only gift which Sigurður Jónasson bestowed on his compatriots. Around the time when Iceland was preparing to become a republic he purchased the historic land Bessastaðir on the Álftanes peninsula close to the capital. From there, the Danish King’s highest ranking representatives had governed his colony, Iceland, for centuries. In 1941 Sigurður gave the nation the land and the buildings too for the Presidential residence, a role it has served ever since.

Many Icelanders regretted the selling of Geysir to a foreigner in 1894. Especially since the new owner was not a resident of Iceland and showed it no interest. Newspaper articles from the period show a general consensus that the sale manifested a lack of self-respect by the nation’s leaders. Sigurður the farmer was not blamed for the sale—Alþingi and the Reykjavík-based government were referred to as ambitionless cheapskates. Therefore the 1935 reclamation of Geysir was a major event, the papers declaring that Sigurður Jónasson deserved the gratitude of the entire nation. Ever since, his patriotism and generosity have been cherished. And ever since, it has never occurred to any Icelander that the Haukadalur hot springs should be anything else than the common property of the Icelandic people.

Morgunblaðið 2. apríl 2014 og Iceland Review 3. tbl. 2014.