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Click on the picture to watch this audio slideshow about bird watching at Óshólmar, an area at the mouth of Eyjafjardará river just outside Akureyri in north Iceland, the largest Icelandic town outside the capital region. Not many tourists know about this attraction, which is perfect for a walk in the sun.
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Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
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Icelandic digital assets management company Data Íslandia announced plans yesterday to establish an environmentally friendly archive for storing digital information in the town Sandgerdi on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland.
The digital data archive as proposed by architect Robert Örn Arnarson at Hoff & Joergensen Architects in Copenhagen. Arnarson was inspired by the Icelandic turf farms.
“There has been an a surge in attention for environmental issues around the world and demand for ‘green’ solutions are increasing steadily. We have an excellent opportunity here in Sandgerdi to establish a powerful operation in tune with the environment and the local community,” managing director of Data Íslandia Sol Squire said in a statement to the media.
The project, which has the potential to create 20 new jobs in the region, is a cooperation between Data Íslandia, Sudurnes Energy Company, VSÓ Consultation, Kanon Architects, ParX Trade Consultancy for IBM and the town council of Sandgerdi.
“It is good news for the town of Sandgerdi that a company like Data Íslandia sees opportunities in establishing hi-tech operations, which can create dozens of well-paid jobs in the community in the coming years,” said Mayor of Sandgerdi Sigurdur Valur Ásbjarnason.
Jón Nordfjörd, project leader of the Economic Committee of Sandgerdi, Sol Squire, the managing director of Data Íslandia and Sigurdur Valur Ásbjarnarson, the Mayor of Sandgerdi, in front of a model of the digital data archive.
The archive will be built in an area earlier reserved for the US Naval Air Station on Reykjanes peninsula and the Development Committee for Keflavík Airport, aimed at putting the facilities of the former US Military base to use, is also participating in the project.
The construction of the archive is planned to begin later this year. Data Íslandia’s operations will be powered by renewable energy, while natural wind cooling will reduce energy usage. Additionally the architectural design of the archive will further support environmental harmony.
Data Íslandia will provide large-scale, long-term, archival administration services and corporate risk management, primarily for foreign clients.
The operation will require two megawatts of electricity for the first stage and ten megawatts once the final stages have been reached, but the electricity required does not have to be harnessed specifically for Data Ísalndia.
Once completed the building housing the digital data archive will be 4,000 m2 in size.
The human being will be on display for the first time in its natural environment in the Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo next weekend. Visitors can observe three men and one woman in a cage after 10 am on Saturday and Sunday.
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The formal Videy island swim took place yesterday and there were three participants, two men and one woman, Thórdís Hrönn Pálsdóttir, who is the first woman to participate in the Videy swim since 1959.
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The Environment Agency intends to investigate whether the Heath Protection Authority handled the situation in Eskifjördur, east Iceland, in the correct manner when contaminated water from a trawler was carried into the town’s drinking water system.
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One hundred and forty million cubic meters of ash is estimated to have fallen in Iceland during the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull last spring. That excludes all the ash that fell into the ocean and in other countries.
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The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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REVIEWS
Hendrikka Waage is an accomplished jewellery designer whose first children’s book Rikka and Her Magic Ring in Iceland, takes readers on an enchanted and educational journey through the country. It’s beautifully illustrated and a good lesson in geography, but the plot could have been better thought through and the moral of the story is a bit too prominent.
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On the third day of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption we drove from Skógar to Hvolsvöllur in total darkness, a distance of 18 kilometers. It was frightening, the darkness being so impenetrable that we could hardly see out the windows of the car. We could see faint lights from the farm standing right next to the highway.
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Ásmundur Sveinsson is among the foremost Icelandic sculptors. The current exhibition in the Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum in Reykjavík is entitled “I choose women who thrive…” and features women as symbols in the sculptor’s art. The works in the exhibition are selected from his entire career.
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