Human Influence

When I visited Iceland this summer, I expected to see glaciers, black sand beaches, and volcanoes. What surprised me most was something our tour guide told us as we hiked on Iceland’s glaciers. He explained that a long time ago Iceland was covered in trees, and that it was the Vikings who irrevocably changed the land.

Over a thousand years ago, when the first Norse settlers came around 874 CE, Iceland was full of birch trees and shrubs. Those early Vikings needed wood for almost everything. They used it to build houses, make boats, and stay warm through the long winters. They also cleared land so their animals could graze. Over time, the trees disappeared, and with nothing to hold the soil in place, the strong winds carried much of it away. By the Middle Ages, most of the forests were gone, leaving behind the bare, rugged landscape that people see now.

Now, more than a thousand years later, Iceland is trying to bring its trees back. Across the country there are projects where people are planting birch and other hardy trees in valleys and on hillsides. These trees help keep the soil from blowing away, provide new habitats for birds and other animals, and slowly make the land greener again. Iceland may never look like it did before the Vikings arrived, but these efforts show how people today are trying to care for the land that was changed so long ago. Learning this history made me see the island in a new way.