Summer in Iceland is a “you blink, you miss it” affair. It doesn’t really settle in until mid-June, most people take their holidays in July, and the first weekend in August—the long Verslunarmannahelgi weekend, which wraps up today, marks its unofficial end. After this weekend, people are back at work, and kids start gearing up for going back to school.
Literally, Verslunarmannahelgi means “Shop Workers’ Weekend”, but is usually translated as Commerce Day weekend in English. The idea to give shop workers an extra day off came from Denmark, though they abandoned it long ago. Iceland, however, has kept it since its inception here 1894. What began as Monday off has metastasized into a three- or four-day national celebration, where droves of people head out to one of many festivals held throughout the Land … or to their cottages, or camping, or somewhere out in nature where they can sit around campfires and sing songs, like I did this weekend.
The most popular destination is Vestmannaeyjar, the Westman Islands, where the festival Þjóðhátíð í Eyjum has been running for more than 150 years. It began in 1874, when bad weather stranded the islanders and kept them from reaching the mainland for Iceland’s millennial celebrations that year. Rather than miss the festivities, they held their own, and have done so every year since then, minus two years during World War I and two years during the pandemic. It was even held in 1973 despite the fact that a volcano had erupted in the Westman Islands in January that year and buried part of the town under lava and ash.
The population of the Westman Islands hovers around 4,000 peeps and during Þjóðhátíð it roughly quadruples. People arrive from all over the country to camp in Herjólfsdalur, a valley where a temporary town of tents and rope-strung “streets”made by the locals appears for the weekend. Well-known musical acts entertain guests for three days, and a new festival song gets written every year. On Sunday evening a massive communal singalong ends with a line of torches lit along the mountain above the valley, one for every year the festival has run. By all accounts this is spectacular … I’ve never made it there myself, though I have always wanted to go—and, with any luck, will one day.
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On a more personal note (and this part is for paid supporters), this weekend marks a sort of anniversary for me.
Exactly one year ago, during Verslunarmannahelgi, I was alone at my cottage. My husband was away, visiting family. I had not been invited. It was then that I understood that our marriage was probably over.
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