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What do Iceland and the Basque Country have to do with each other?

The history goes way back to the whaling days of the Basques.

Basque People in Iceland

Iceland first came on my radar in April 2015. At the time, lots of articles were being published online about Basque government officials and academics attending a ceremony in Iceland. All for the unveiling of a memorial plaque to commemorate Basque sailors slaughtered by Icelanders in 1615.

Wait, what? Back up.

In the 17th century, Basque whalers were running operations in Iceland with the consent of the Icelanders.

The locals were okay with it because it was a mutually beneficial arrangement: the Basques paid taxes and traded goods with them.

One particular Basque expedition was set to leave the shores of Iceland for Donostia-San Sebastián in September 1615 after a successful trip. However on their way out, a storm left three Basque galleons shipwrecked on the shores of the Westfjords, a remote peninsula in the northwest of Iceland.

The eighty Basques who survived and were stranded set about robbing local farms for something to eat. The sheriff of the Westfjords region at the time, Ari Magnússon, issued a decree allowing Basques to be killed on sight in response to this crisis.

As a result, 31 Basques were killed in raids organized against them. Icelandic poet, Jón lærði Guðmundsson, described the Basque sailors as “dishonored and sunken into the sea as if they were the worst pagans and not innocent Christians.”

The event is known as Spánverjavígin or ‘Slaying of the Spaniards’, the last recorded massacre, and arguably the bloodiest, in Icelandic history.

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The ceremony marking the repeal of this decree on April 22, 2015 featured the unveiling of a plaque outside the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in the village of Hólmavík in the Westfjords.

The ceremony even had a descendant of one of the slain Basque whalers, Xabier Irujo, and a descendent of one of the murderers, Magnús Rafnsson, hug each other as a symbolic reconciliation. What a nice touch.

The repeal of the decree was mostly symbolic, of course, as Icelandic law hasn’t allowed the killing of anyone for a while, Basque or not.

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For weeks following the ceremony, this news was all over my social media feeds. Even non-Basque friends shared articles with me. People thought it was kind of funny, and then it died down.

But for me, reading the opening lines of The Guardian’s article on the subject seemed like a direct invitation for Basques worldwide to visit Iceland:

“Basques wanting to visit the dramatic fjords of north-western Iceland need no longer hesitate after the district of Westfjords repealed a 400-year-old decree to kill any Basque caught in the area on sight.”

I’d never known about this law, had never considered there was a decree anywhere in the world to kill Basques, specifically. So the fact that it was no longer in effect felt like a huge invitation.

I knew I would have to go out there one day and find this piece of Basque history in Iceland.

A Hella Basque Visit to Iceland

Fast forward a couple years later to March 2017: I was living in London and pictures of Iceland’s scenic natural beauty were getting popular online.

It seemed that everyone had discovered WOW Air’s cheap budget flights between North America and Europe via Iceland, making Iceland the new hot spot to visit.

My friends who had visited Iceland were all telling me to go. I usually don’t do what people tell me to do. I’m kind of stubborn like that. 

Maybe it comes from my Basque side…

So when people told me to go to Iceland because it was so pretty, I was like yeah yeah yeah, I’ve seen the pictures.

But eventually, I realized I had no reason not go. The flights were actually crazy cheap, I had some time off, and this plaque for the Basque whalers was knocking around in the back of my mind.

Then I saw on a map that there’s a town in the south of Iceland called Hella, and the deal was sealed!

I just HAD to go and bring a Basque flag to Hella to take a picture with a road sign.

Hella Basque! Get it? GET IT?

Sure, I would go to Iceland for the scenery but mostly for my Hella Basque agenda.

(What did I tell you? Even with the blog on hiatus, the Hella Basque leanings were still strong and ever-present in my mind.)

And because my mom is a wonderful human being who is endlessly supportive of my Hella Basque ideas, she flew out to meet me in Iceland. She agreed to join me in my plan to rent a car and drive around the entire island in 10 days.

It would be a tight deadline, as I’d read you could spend a month comfortably and leisurely exploring Iceland. Unfortunately I didn’t quite have the time.

But 10 days was plenty of time to find this plaque, roll through Hella, and see the northern lights, some waterfalls and volcanic activity along the way.

And let’s be real, it was the end of winter and I’m a California girl at heart, so any trip to a cold climate for me has to be short-lived. I mean, the place is called Iceland. I wasn’t trying to hang around for too long.

Nonetheless, we had an amazing time.

Looking for the Plaque

On the third day of our trip, my mom and I took a 3-hour detour off the main Ring Road highway. We ventured into the remote Westfjords region to find the town of Hólmavík where the memorial plaque was displayed.

Hólmavík has a population of around 500 people. So when I say it was a small town with NO ONE around on the day of our visit, you’d better believe it!

Because of Hólmavík’s size, locating its Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft was easy enough. But the memorial is so small and discreet that we nearly missed it. The museum was closed when we arrived and the town was thoroughly deserted. There was no one around to ask!

We walked all around the building, along the waterfront, and were thoroughly confused. I looked up the pictures I’d seen online and I didn’t see anything like it.

Finally, when I was about ready to give up on our mission and call the trip a failure, I noticed the plaque on the side of a rock in the seating area at the back of the museum.

I had to laugh at how long it took us to find it, because the plaque was actually relatively quite large. Here’s a picture of my mom with the plaque for scale. She’s 5 feet tall!

Over the course of the two years it had sat by the sea, the plaque had oxidized and become coated in a green patina, making the tiny printed words difficult to make out.

But there indeed was the inscription, in Icelandic, Basque, Spanish and English. Signed at the bottom were listed the names of the following organizations:

• The Icelandic-Basque Association
• The Government of Gipuzkoa
• The Etxepare Basque Institute
• The Barandiaran Basque Chair at the University of California Santa Barbara
• The Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno
• The Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture of Iceland
• The District Commissioner of the Westfjords

What an impressive list!

We had a moment of silence out of respect for the memorial and the lives lost, then continued to walk through the town. Since we had come all that way and nowhere in the town seemed to be open — not a museum, bar, restaurant, shop, or church — we took the opportunity to have a photo shoot.

To commemorate that Basques were indeed allowed to walk through the Westfjords without being killed, the occasion called for us to roll out the ikurriña, the Basque flag.

The Saga Continues in Hella

Continuing on our road trip, the last day in the south of the island took us to the famous Hella. It was a chilly and blustery day, but we were determined in our task to unveil the ikurriña once again and take photos with a Hella road sign.

It was impossible to keep the flag straight in the wind and I felt hilariously stupid standing at the side of the highway trying to keep it steady as cars drove past.

But one car honked and the passenger waved at us as they went by! I took it as a fortuitous sign of encouragement. That maybe there were other Basques around in this desolate land far from the Basque Country.

A thought I always find comforting.

Are you feeling inspired to go out and visit Iceland?

Even without its connection to Basque history, Iceland is a marvelous country to visit and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has the desire and the means to go.

And rest assured that Basques are very welcome these days.

Continue Reading:

• 9 Movies Filmed in the Basque Country
• How to Get Travel Tips from Locals in the Basque Country, Even If You Don’t Know Any!