Home  Farm Visits
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Farm Visits Video visits to farms and farmers. You will see the daily life of Icelandic horse farmers. Video has been shot but not yet edited of the following farms: Kolkuos, Flugumyri, Dyrfinnustadir, Langhus, Hjaltadalurstadir, Grimstadir, Homluholt, Thufa in Kjos, Fet, Völlum, Grafarkot, Hafsteinstadir, and more.
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Right on the choicest part of the choicest riding ground in Iceland, Löngufjörur (Long Beach), is Skógarness, my friend Trausti's farm. Okay, with so many great places to ride in Iceland, I would not like to have to make a choice. But this is not mine to make. As you will see, it has already been chosen by popular acclaim. You will see so many Icelanders on horseback here that think of it as the crossroads of Iceland even though it is in the middle of nowhere and under water except at low tide!
CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE
 The blue star shows the farm, Skógarness, on the south shore of the Snæfellsness peninsula. Löngufjörur, Long Beach, has ideal footing for tölting because at low tide the sand is flat and hard-packed and goes on for kilometers. It would take a couple of days to ride the length of it.
The beach is unusual for Iceland because it is of a very fine white sand rather than the common black volcanic pumice.
A 2 hour drive from Reykjavik, Löngufjörur has become a very popular weekend ride for both Icelanders and tourists. Horses for rent, guides, and accommodations of all levels are in the area yet it is very unspoiled and not at all "touristy".
On the weekend when this was filmed, over 150 riders rode by or stopped off at Skógarness.
Nancy Marie Brown described the area in her book, A Good Horse Has No Color, when she lived across the bay from Skógarness.
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We arrive at Skógarnes and are greeted by our friend, Trausti, who has stayed with us in upstate New York and has promised us a ride on Long Beach from his farm.
GONE RIDING!
No more video until I get back from a great ride on the beach!
It was a wonderful ride, just as I had expected. Guiding my horse into some shallow tidal pools so we could splash around at tölt made me feel like a kid all over again, reminding me of splashing in the tidal flats in Plymouth, Mass., where I was born. I've come a long way, or maybe I haven't...
While we were hanging out we saw others heading for their own fun.
When we sat down for dinner, we had a very common interruption!
The next morning, Viðar, Trausti's nephew, and I went out to look at where we had been riding.
At 73, and a few years after open heart surgery, Trausti is still a guide for groups who come to ride on "his" beach and keep their horses and tack at his farm overnight.
The answer to a puzzle:
What little wood there is in Iceland is, for the most part, imported at considerable expense. In the Reykjjavik area, for example, just about all the fencing for horses is made with steel posts.
But from time to time, I have seen wooden fence posts in some farms. Here at Skógarnes, for example, Trausti had lots of wooden fence posts. I didn't bother to ask where he got the wood or how much it costs.
But once I noticed this saw that Trausti had clearly built himself -- and, as you can see, it had a huge blade for serious cutting -- I just had to ask him.
See if you can figure out: Where did all this wood come from?
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Lukka and her husband, Láki, live on the farm Langhús
with his parents. They have dairy cows, sheep, dogs, and, of course,
horses. Lukka runs a service helping people find horses. She does
this primarily through her website which is well worth a visit for its information about many things in addition to sales horses.
Let´s go with Lukka as she visits a farm to evaluate a new horse. I have made this video on the long side, about 20 minutes, so that you can see in pretty much real time what it is she does with the horse. I have my reasons for showing all this, explained in the note below, as well as for the sake of credibility, or "reality", if you will. This is what happened and nothing was cut out. This is what she does and how she does it.
Lukka, the nickname for Arnþrúður Heimisdóttir, (you can see why she needs one!) is one of my oldest Icelandic friends. I met her on the first day of my first trip to Iceland in 1999. In fact, she is responsible for getting me on the first horse I had ridden since I was 10 years old, some 50 years before! But that is a whole other story.
I have to preface this video with the disclosure that when I started out on this farm visit, I thought Lukka would be the only person I would know. After all, we were in the northernmost tip of Northern Iceland... it was so far up that if you believed that the Earth were flat you would worry about falling off. For that simple reason I am convinced that the Vikings knew that the Earth was round.
I digress. Here we were north of the middle of nowhere, and I would find I knew everyone at the farm and l even had a close connection to the horse Lukka was going to check out. And this is what happens in Iceland, particularly Skagafjordur. It is what you can get when you buy a horse in Iceland: a connection to the place and its people.
NOTE: Lukka has evolved her own method of evaluating horses, but there are criteria that could be adapted as the basis for the pre-purchase examination of a prospective horse. Several years ago, the Trainers' Association (FT) published the test for admission to the organization at the entry-level as the out-of-school (utanskóla) test administered to candidates who were not Hólar students. That process has been discontinued in favor of one administered by Hólar itself and the file, of course, has been removed. I had saved it at the time and am making it available as a PDF download with the understanding that it has been modified and is not current. But it could be used as a conceptual framework for assessing the horse rather than the trainer.
It would be worth a discussion whether an independent judge or assessment center could rate horses, particularly for export. I am generally not in favor of buying horses "cold", but I think it is something that the Icelandic horse breeders should look at. Economics, not to mention ethics, are in its favor.
The comment section below is open....
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This is just the beginning, an introduction to what is left of the farm called "Kolkuós". This is how it was on my second visit in 2005. As you will learn, it almost wasn't at all!
Right! "Completely here." There is no better way of saying it.
This is one of my favorite things about Iceland. You are always standing on a story.
For those of you who are seeing Kolkuós for the first time, I'm trying as hard as I can through these words and pictures to give you the experience of a very special place. My first visit to Kolkuós was so much more appropriate -- I was on horseback, on the first day of my first trek in Iceland. We had been riding on a winding trail overlooking the ocean and our herd of loose horses was driven down a road by some old deserted buildings until we were right by the ocean.
While our horses grazed and we rested, I wondered around this little "ghost farm", poking into windows and doors, afraid to touch anything. I could tell right then that it was special. I don't think I even knew the name of the place. I certainly did not know anything about the famous horses from Kolkuós. It seemed child-like. Kolkuós. At that time, we pronounced it Kolkos, rhymed with "focus".
I was not the only one who felt something very special about Kolkuós.
Valgeir Thovaldsson worked for years to stop the proposed garbage dump and fuel depot from being "developed" on this very special site. He had a plan...
Some neighboring farmers in Skagafjörður pitched in and donated some young horses of the Kolkuós line.
The word has spread across the ocean...
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For decades, the only horses on the Kolkuós farm were those that passed through on riding tours. The famous herd had been split up and dispersed throughout Iceland. I am no expert, but my understanding is that the original breeding line can never be reconstituted.
But there must be horses at Kolkuós! And, while not the original herd, at least horses from the line. In the summer of 2006, a small group of young horses was brought to Kolkuós from Hafsteinsstaðir. They would live at the farm and be joined by others in the area.
I missed the moment when Skapti brought the horses the day before. But here is the herd of youngsters. Remember, these horses have been raised Icelandic: they have not been coddled by humans every day, are not even halter-trained. But they are just naturally friendly and curious about people.
See for yourself:
Later that day there was to be a little party to celebrating the release of these young horses into the Kolkuós pastures. Local dignitaries were invited. While waiting for the event to start Sarah and I hung out a bit with Jón Aðalsteinn Baldvinsson, the Bishop of Hólar. In historical times the bishop of Hólar held the greatest political and economic power of northwest Iceland. Go here to read more about the colorful history of Hólar. I was curious to see what the modern Bishop of Hólar would be like.
Only in Iceland could the following conversation take place with a bishop!
Jón Baldvinsson was so nice that it inspired me to wonder about setting up a business of arranging weddings at Kolkuós for horse-crazed couples... Imagine the trumpets and the processional on tölting Kolkuós horses...
Well, back to reality! Valgeir had arranged for some horses to be brought to Kolkuós to escort the small herd that Skapti had delivered the previous day from Hafsteinsstaðir to the pastures of the farm. It would give us all -- people and horses -- a chance to socialize and eat (graze) before the formal release. Valgeir had arranged for Icelandic pastries and, of course, coffee, but the fresh Skagafjörður grass came on its own.
The rain not withstanding, it was a wonderful event. And if you are interested in Icelandic horses you needed to be there. That's what this video is for! Come join the party!
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