16 Fascinating Facts About Icelandic History
Abraham Ortelius' map of Iceland, ca. 1590 16 Fascinating Facts About Icelandic History You thought you'd done your research on Iceland? Well, guess again. Here's a list of fascinating facts that you may have missed along the way: 1. Iceland was originally covered in forests as far as the eye could see. According to accepted history, a seafarer named Garðarr Svávarsson sailed around the entire island in the later 9th century and proclaimed that it was "wooded from the mountains down to the sea." Currently, about 2% of Iceland is forested. The Forestry Service of Iceland concurrs that at the time of settlement as much as 40% of Iceland was covered in trees. They were destroyed by both natural (volcanic) and human causes. 2. The Norwegian who arrived in Iceland around 870 AD were not the first inhabitants. There is written evidence that Irish hermits, or papar, had settled the island at least a century earlier, sailing over in their sma...
