Thank you yourself, and I hope and actually belief you are right. As someone said, there is no such thing as bad publicity, and we have always had spikes in our tourism when we have been in the news. Hopefully people will not overreact to any scaremongering.
But yeah, we can be said to be the first immigrant country, there has been permanent settlement here since the year 874, and we adopted christianity as state religion in the year 1000. Leifur Eiríksson found Vinland then sometime between and introduced Christianity to our Greenlandic settlement, which had an offshot settlement in America, where the first european on mainland America was born, Snorri Þorfinnsson.
In 1262 we lost our independence to Norway, and the european powers slowly and surely undermined all independent icelandic institutions, so when “móðuharðindin” (the fog hardships), the hardships during the eruption of Lakagígar, 1783 - 1785, came, at similar time as serious diseases killed thousand of our then tiny population, we had no functional internal institutions to tackle the problems.
During this time of our lowest standing we probably lost around half to even twothirds of our population. But that would not happen today, we are not as dependent on livestock and without any connections and means of organizing and traveling like when we had been a tax colony of the Europeans for centuries, sucking all strength out of our society.
So, beware, never loose your local independence.
When did the eruption begin date wise? Where would you recommend we visit in Iceland?
Thanks for the history lesson. It’s very interesting.
When I was a kid, we were taught in our history classes that Leif Eriksson was the first European to lay eyes on North America, and that he founded a small settlement here.
I saw a special on television some time back about the discovery of the remains of one of those settlements that had been lost for centuries.
We Americans have a connection to your people. Keep your chin up.