Notes From A Cold Country | Grindavík After Dark

2026-01-25 - 21:07

As your tireless (albeit underpaid) editor, I was confident that last month’s visit to a luxury spa in Keflavík would make for a gripping, potentially award-winning, piece of travel literature. You see, my partner and I had visited barely an hour after landing back in the country—we had been abroad for Christmas, as I mentioned in last month’s column—and both found bathing in hot water to be perfectly agreeable after air travel. With that said, the gold-and-marble aesthetic felt more to the US president’s taste than mine, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether all spas in Iceland might soon be decorated like this... that is, once Trump completes his conquest of the Arctic Circle. Besides, how much can one say about hot tubs and saunas anyway? Waist-deep in 40°C water, adorned in nothing but my trunks, I saw the year’s first column idea disappearing like a fart in a steam room. What had felt like such a sure thing no longer felt like anything at all. Decoration inside of Keflavík Versace Spa. Photo: Michael Chapman. Iceland Review. A short detour Speaking of subject matter, I do feel compelled, at some point, to write a little more on the geopolitical tensions currently simmering in the Arctic. They affect Iceland, after all, and are very much the talk of the moment. But, considering the situation changes by the hour—an agreement has now been signed, it would appear—that piece can wait for another day. Just know that an article about it looms on the horizon. Much like a US naval fleet. Anyway, it was fortunate (from an editorial perspective) that my brother-in-law, who picked us up from the spa, suggested another activity on the drive home. Leaving the lights of Keflavík behind, he asked, quite casually, whether we wanted to stop in somewhere else. Another location starting with the letter G—one that, like Greenland, routinely makes the headlines and faces an uncertain future of its own. Turning off the main road at just gone 22:00, it dawned on me that I might finally have my column after all. What lies in the dark Driving through Grindavík at night. Photo: Michael Chapman. Iceland Review. Grindavík, on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, is not an ordinary place to visit. In late 2023, this town of around 3,800 people was evacuated following the Sundhnúkur volcanic eruptions. Since then, it has existed in purgatory; present, but largely empty, with a future that none in Iceland, or anywhere, can picture with any real clarity. Unsure exactly what of the area we’d see at night, we drove through newly formed lava fields. In some ways, it felt like hurtling through outer space, so void of detail were our surroundings. Still, we knew our location by a couple of Reykjanes landmarks, the first being the blinking lights (and eggy odour) of the Blue Lagoon and its neighbouring power plant, Svartsengi. At this point in the journey, I realised this would be my second time seeing the town in the space of only a few hours. If, as we were, you happen to be on the right side of the plane, and are travelling west from Europe, it is possible to see Grindavík while descending into Keflavík International Airport. From above, it looks much like any small coastal settlement, only surrounded by a dark and ugly crescent of hardened lava. It is an impressive, if not bizarre aerial view. With the Blue Lagoon behind us, we next noticed the shadow upon a shadow that was Grindavík’s defensive wall at night; a high pile of rock built to keep intruding lava from entering the town. Slicing through it, an empty gap for the road, a hungry mouth turned on its side. There are no checkpoints here. Just the earth, approaching you from either side in a dark new layer. Unstable ground Driving through Grindavík at night. Photo: Michael Chapman. Iceland Review. Entering the town, one phrase came uninvited to mind: “the lights are on, but there’s no one home.” Driving through Grindavík at night is an altogether eerie experience. Roads are all but deserted, and the only vehicle we saw belonged to an Emergency Response team, most likely there not as a patrol, but selling fireworks for the upcoming New Year’s Eve celebrations. (2025 was the first year in a while that fireworks were back on sale in the town.) Christmas lights hung in some windows, but behind the glass was dark, giving no indication that anyone was inside. Most noticeable were the chain-link fences surrounding homes and buildings, some of which looked particularly unstable on their foundations. To think these places were happily occupied not so long ago was, in its own right, a harrowing realisation. Most disconcerting of all, and something that has stayed with me since, was a realisation that the earth is not stable in any real sense of the word. Normally, the fact that the ground is hard and unshifting is something so obvious and taken for granted that it rarely has to be said in writing. Not when writing about Grindavík. One only needs to look at the photographs of crags carving up the town’s streets to realise just how insecure it all is. A story still in motion Driving through Grindavík at night. Photo: Michael Chapman. Iceland Review. We went by places where lava had pooled into back gardens, damaging homes, altering lives irreversibly. In one particular spot, a metal fence enclosed a wall of gnarled and newly-formed black rock, nearly eight feet high. I realised we were stood where thousands upon thousands of people had watched on livestream as lava entered the town. No one but us paid any attention now. Nearby, a physical reminder as to my own tenuous connection to the town. There stood a building that my brother-in-law’s company had once been set to construct. It had escaped direct damage, but its purpose and future had effectively vanished. A small disruption, certainly, compared with the losses suffered by those who grew up in the town and have since been forced to leave it behind. Myth of permanence What the evening’s diversion reminded me of, above all else, is that stability is mostly a polite fiction. Stability makes us feel better about our jobs, our marriages, our lives. But in reality, in some places, stability can’t even describe the ground we walk on. On our return, we passed Svartsengi, which continues to generate power and hot water. I couldn’t help but wonder how long such a place could exist given the land’s insistence on movement. And what exactly happens to the peninsula—which, it should be added, also hosts the airport—if power in the region is ever seriously threatened? If anything, the Reykjanes Peninsula proves that land—particularly harsh Arctic land—cares little for the people atop it. It cannot be fixed or considered ownable. That is as true of Reykjanes as it is of Greenland. Yet, people persist in these harsh, dramatic places, and call them their homes regardless. I consider there to be something optimistic in that; a reminder that Nature, not humanity, is the ultimate destabiliser. Eventually, we’re all going to have to do what she says anyway, and as always, we’ll find ways to adapt and grab back some semblance of control. Take the aforementioned Blue Lagoon, which famously rebuilt its car park after the original disappeared under lava. Call it adaptation, call it foolishness, call it optimism. Whatever it is, it proves quite nicely that humans will always insist on permanence, even in the least permanent places imaginable. Warning signs in Grindavík. Photo: Michael Chapman. Iceland Review.