Page 32 - AT

A32 FEATURE
Friday 7 September 2018
Wired Icelanders seek to keep remote peninsula digital-free

By EGILL BJARNASON mantic about lying on the
Associated Press ground with a broken thigh
HORNSTRANDIR, Iceland bone and no cellphone
(AP) — The passenger boat signal," Kristjansdottir said in
arrives at the bottom of Vei- an interview.
dileysufjordur, a short inlet In a written response to
with a long name, to drop the lawmaker, Minister
off backpackers for a multi- of Transport Sigurdur Ingi
day trek. A weather-beat- Johannsson noted that
en group that's completed huts along the hiking trails
the trip waits to board, ea- are equipped with radio-
ger to get back to a part of phones for emergencies.
Iceland where they can re- He defended the absence
connect with the world via of digital connectivity in
Wi-Fi. Hornstrandir as a factor in
By boat, that will take "advancing visitor's experi-
about a half-hour. No roads ence."
lead to the Nordic coun- Police and rescue work-
try's northernmost penin- ers have suggested creat-
sula, a rugged glacial horn ing an illustrated map that
that reaches for the Arctic marks the mountain sum-
Circle. Making a phone mits with the strongest sig-
call requires walking up a In this photo taken on Aug. 8, 2018, a local ranger for the Environment Agency of Iceland attempts nals.
mountain for a cell signal to make a call from the unofficially named Telephone Mountain, in Vesteinn Runarsson, Iceland. The Environment Agency
so weak, clouds seem ca- Associated Press of Iceland estimates that
pable of blocking it. 3,000 people trek through
But internet service soon cial initiatives could take Arctic region, where broad- where his great-grand- Hornstrandir every sum-
could be reaching the the decision out of Iceland- band service generally is mother grew up, doesn't mer, moving from one fjord
Hornstrandir Nature Re- ers' hands and push Horn- prohibitively expensive. Yet have to look far down the to the next. Some are re-
serve, one of the last digital- strandir across the digital in Iceland, the prospect of family tree to see the ef- warded with sightings of
free frontiers in what might divide. constant connectivity has fect of digital devices: his the arctic fox, Iceland's
be the world's most-wired Companies such as Elon called up an old debate teenage daughter refused only native land mammal.
nation. The possibility has Musk's SpaceX are racing on whether Hornstrandir's to come to Hornstrandir this The few structures — aban-
most hikers, park rangers to deliver high-speed inter- wilderness should stay un- summer because it would doned farm houses and a
and summer residents wor- net service to every inch of wired. mean not having online decommissioned U.S. Air
ried that email, news and the world by putting thou- Despite or because of its access. Force radar station — were
social media will destroy a sands of small satellites into remoteness, Iceland ranks "But once the kids are here, abandoned decades ago.
way of life that depends on low Earth orbit. Their suc- first on a U.N. index com- all they do is play outside," When The Associated Press
the absence of all three. cess would have global paring nations by infor- Gudmundsson said. visited in August, the travel-
"We see a growing appre- implications, bringing the mation technology use, Northwest Iceland's repre- ers interviewed there unan-
ciation for the lack of on- benefits and downsides of with roughly 98 percent of sentative in parliament is imously favored making
line connection," Environ- internet communication to the population using the less sentimental about the the reserve a digital-free
ment Agency of Iceland places that are off the grid internet. Among adults, value of isolation. Since zone, though their notions
ranger Vesteinn Runarsson, because of poverty or war, 93 percent report having her election last year, Hal- of what that meant varied.
who patrols the peninsula's or where internet access is Facebook accounts and la Signy Kristjansdottir has "If phones worked here,
southern end on his own. reserved for the wealthy. two-thirds are Snapchat us- urged the Ministry of Trans- I am sure many people
"Looking to the future, we That's also true for sparsely ers, according to pollster port to fund cell towers for would go as far as carrying
want to keep Hornstrandir populated communities MMR. the safety of sailors and battery packs to charge
special in that way." and far-flung destinations Many people who live in travelers whose mobile de- their devices," said Mikko
The area has long resisted in Canada, Russia, Alaska northwestern Iceland or vices currently are useless Ronkkonen, a hiker from
cell towers, but commer- and elsewhere in the vast visit as outdoor enthusi- in and near Hornstrandir. Finland who had just com-
asts want Hornstrandir's "I don't see anything ro- pleted an eight-day trip.q
570 square kilometers (220
square miles), which ac-
counts for 0.6 percent of
Iceland's land mass, to be
declared a "digital-free
zone." The idea hasn't co-
alesced into a petition or
formal campaign, so what
it would require or prohibit
hasn't been fleshed out.
The last full-time resident of
the rugged area moved
away in 1952 — it never
was an easy place to farm
— but many descendants
In this Wednesday Aug. 8, 2018 photo, hikers and local sum- have turned family farm-
mer residents prepare to board the Hornstrandir passenger ferry steads into summer get- In this Thursday Aug. 9, 2018 photo, hikers during an early morn-
connecting the remote peninsula, only accessible by boat, to aways. ing trek on the southern part of the Hornstrandir peninsula, in
Iceland's northwestern region. Alexander Gudmundsson, Iceland.
Associated Press who vacations in the home Associated Press