Hypothermia (20 page)

For centuries the main inland route from Eskifjördur to the Fljótsdalshérad district used to pass across Eskifjördur Moor. There was an old bridleway that ran north of the Eskifjördur River, inland along the Langihryggur ridge, up the near side of the Innri-Steinsá River, through the Vínárdalur valley and over the Vínárbrekkur slopes to Midheidarendi, then up on to Urdarflöt and along the Urdarklettur crags until it left the Eskifjördur area. To the north of this is the Thverárdalur valley flanked by the mountains Andri and Hardskafi, with Hólafjall and Selheidi beyond them to the north.

There used to be a farm called Bakkasel Croft, which stood on the old route over to the Fljótsdalshérad district at the head of Eskifjördur fjord. The farm is now derelict but around the middle of the century Bakkasel was home to the farmer Sveinn Erlendsson, his wife Áslaug Bergsdóttir and their two sons, Bergur and Erlendur, aged eight and ten. Sveinn kept a few sheep and also taught at the primary school in Eskifjördur. Saturday 24th November 1956 dawned cold and bright, with a fairly deep covering of snow on the ground. Sveinn was planning to round up a few sheep that had wandered off. The weather at that time of year was very unpredictable and there was little bare ground. Sveinn and his two sons set out on foot from Bakkasel at first light, intending to be home before dark.

At first they made their way inland towards the Thverárdalur valley and Mount Har
đ
skafi without finding any sheep. Then they headed south, ascending on to Eskifjördur Moor. They had made slow progress inland over Langihryggur to the Urdarklettur crags when the weather abruptly took a turn for the worse. Sveinn was concerned enough to consider heading straight for home but before they knew it a violent storm had blown up with a northerly gale and blizzard. Conditions continued to deteriorate until they could no longer see their way and before they knew it they were groping blindly through a complete white-out. The boys became separated from their father. He searched for them for a long time, shouting and calling in vain, before finally making his painful way down from the moor, following the Eskifjördur River home to Bakkasel. The conditions were so extreme by now that he could no longer stand upright and was forced to crawl the last stretch. He was in a desperate state when he reached home, hatless, coated in ice and barely in his right mind.

They phoned for help from Eskifjördur and the news soon spread around the district that the two boys were fighting for their lives in the violent storm that had now hit the village as well. A volunteer search party gathered at Bakkasel that evening but deemed it impossible to start the search until the wind dropped a little and daylight returned. These were difficult hours for the parents, knowing that their two sons were out there on the moor, caught in the blizzard. The boys’ father in particular was distraught and barely in a fit state to talk to anyone, overwhelmed – beside himself, almost – with grief. He considered the boys beyond all aid and refused to take part in organising the search party, whereas his wife, Áslaug was tireless in looking after the helpers and at the head of the company when they finally set out at first light next day.

By then search parties had been called out from the villages of Reydarfjördur, Neskaupstadur and Seydisfjördur, and quite a crowd had gathered. Although the wind had lost much of its force the searchers were hindered by deep drifts. They made first for Eskifjördur Moor, armed with long poles to poke into the snow, and tried to find the brothers’ tracks. But with no luck. It had been snowing heavily all night. It was thought that the brothers were together and had probably dug themselves into a drift. They had been missing for some eighteen hours by the time the rescue operation commenced and, given the freezing temperatures on the mountainsides, it was clear that the searchers were involved in a race against time.

The brothers had been warmly kitted out when they left home, in winter coats, scarves and woollen hats. After about four hours of searching a scarf was found, which Áslaug said belonged to the elder boy, and the search was intensified in the area where it was discovered. A volunteer by the name of Halldór Brjánsson from Seydisfjördur thought he met resistance when he stuck his pole into the snow and when people began to dig there they discovered the elder brother. He was lying as if he had fallen face down. Although he was showing signs of life, he was very cold and frostbite had started to form on his hands and feet. He was barely conscious and could give the searchers no clue as to his brother’s whereabouts. The man who could travel fastest was sent to fetch hot milk, then people took it in turns to carry the boy down from the moor and home to Bakkasel. A doctor was waiting there to examine him and issued instructions for restoring warmth to the boy. He dressed his frostbite and in time the boy began to recover, though it was obvious that he had had a narrow escape. He had come very close to dying of hypothermia.

The search was intensified again in the area where the elder boy had been found but without success. It seemed as if he had been forced by the wind back towards the Thverárdalur valley and Mount Hardskafi. The area of the search was widened again when news came from Bakkasel that the brothers had become separated in the storm and the elder boy did not know what had happened to his brother. He said that they had stuck together for a long time but then he had lost him in the blizzard. He had hunted for him and shouted out his name until he was exhausted and fell again and again into the snow. The boy was said to be inconsolable and barely capable of human interaction. He was frantic to return to the mountains and look for his brother and in the end the doctor had to give him a sedative.

Dusk began to fall again and the weather worsened, so the searchers were forced to retreat to the inhabited area. By then reinforcements had arrived from Egilsstadir. A headquarters was set up in Eskifjördur. At dawn next day a large number of people set out to comb both the moor and the Thverárdalur valley, and the slopes of the mountains Andri and Hardskafi. They tried to work out the boy’s movements after he had become separated from his brother. When the search in that area proved unsuccessful, it was extended both to the north and south but the boy was not found. So the day passed until evening fell.

The organised search lasted for more than a week but, to cut a long story short, the boy was never found. There were a great many conjectures about his fate because it was as if the earth had simply swallowed him up. Some thought he had drowned in the Eskifjördur River and been carried down to the sea, others that he had been driven by the weather higher up into the mountains than anyone had envisaged. Others still thought he must have been lost in the bogs above the head of Eskifjördur fjord as he was making his way home.

Sveinn Erlendsson’s grief at the fate of his sons was said to be terrible to behold. Later the rumour arose in the neighbourhood that his wife Áslaug had warned her husband against taking both boys with him on to the moor that day but that he had ignored her warning.

The elder brother recovered from his frostbite but was said to have been left gloomy and withdrawn by his ordeal. He was reputed to have continued searching for his brother’s remains for as long as the family lived at Bakkasel.

Two years after these events, the family left the district and moved to Reykjavík and Bakkasel was left derelict, as we have said.

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