Grimsey, North Iceland

Abstract

G RIMSEY is a small rocky island, lying some 30 miles from the north coast of Iceland, in latitude 66? 33' N. and longitude I8? o' W. Most Icelanders know of it merely as an island where enormous numbers of sea birds breed, and it is these which have attracted nearly all its visitors. In I820 Freidrich Faber, a German ornithologist, visited the island,' and he was followed the year after by F. L. A. Thienemann.2 In I826 a British fishing vessel was wrecked off the east coast of Greenland, and the crew reached Grimsey in the ship's boats, and continued to Akureyri on the north coast of Iceland, after a stay of a few days on the island. James Cumming, the ship's doctor, has left a short account of the houses of Grimsey in his 'Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Jean of Peterhead.' In 1884 Professor Th. Thoroddsen, the Icelander, visited Grimsey, and though he was only there for six hours his paper forms the most complete description of the island yet published.3 Since then it has been visited by at least five ornithological expeditions, the most recent of which was the Cambridge expedition to East Greenland, which spent four days on the island in July 1933.4 The main object of the present expedition, which consisted of four members, was to study the fauna and flora of the island, and to compare them with those of the mainland of Iceland. A map of the island on a scale of i : 20,000 was also constructed. There were two previous maps. One, published with Thoroddsen's paper, was taken from a Board of Survey sheet with additions put in by eye. The other is that published by the Danish Geodetic Institute in 1933, on a scale of i : oo00,000, and is thus too small to show the detail here required. The Iceland Steamship Company's boats, which leave Hull every fortnight, call at Siglufj6rbur, a small town on the north coast of Iceland, after a stop of four days at Reykjavik en route. We arrived at Siglufj6rbur on June 2I, having travelled from England in the S.S. Godafoss. Here we were delayed for a day by the weather, as it is not possible to land on Grimsey when the wind is between south and west. The next day we chartered a small fishing boat which took us the 40 miles out to the island in just under seven hours. We took with us sufficient food for our stay on the island, as we had been advised not to rely on the islanders for our supplies. We wish to express our very sincere thanks to Professor Debenham for his invaluable advice and assistance; also to Brian Roberts, who visited the island last year, and greatly assisted in the organization of the present expedition. Our gratitude is also due to Matthias Eggertsson, the pastor of Grimsey, for the trouble he took to help us in every way during our stay on the island. To the Committee of the Gino Watkins' Memorial Fund we are also grateful for the grant awarded to us, and to Caius College, Cambridge, for further financial assistance.