Key takeaways
- Öræfajökull's eruption buried farms across the region, giving Öræfi its name meaning wasteland. The landscape transformed overnight.
- While settlements vanished beneath ash and ice, one turf farm endured. It stands today as a window into medieval Icelandic life.
- Vatnajökull became a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site, recognizing the region's geological and cultural significance.
- Before bridges crossed glacial rivers, locals developed ingenious methods to traverse one of Europe's harshest environments.
- Glacier guiding emerged from local knowledge. Film crews later arrived to capture this dramatic landscape for cinema.
Öræfi: Iceland's Wasteland Name
The region surrounding Skaftafell carries a name born from catastrophe. Öræfi means wasteland in Icelandic, a designation earned not by nature alone but by a single volcanic event that reshaped the entire landscape. Before the 14th century, this corner of southeast Iceland was inhabited farmland, with settlers cultivating the valleys and coastal lowlands beneath Öræfajökull, a volcano that rises 2,119 metres above the surrounding terrain. The name persists today as a geographical anchor, a linguistic memory of what the land endured and how communities rebuilt in its aftermath.
When you stand on Falljökull Glacier during this 4-hour guided experience, you are walking across ice that expanded dramatically in the centuries following volcanic activity. The guides who lead groups across this frozen expanse can explain how the landscape you see - the vast white expanses, the dark volcanic sand in the distance - tells the story of a region that was emptied and then slowly repopulated by those determined to live at the edge of Iceland's largest ice cap.
The Farms Buried in 1362
On the night of 4 July 1362, Öræfajökull erupted with such force that it transformed the human geography of the region. The volcano ejected ash, pumice, and rock across the lowlands where farmers had established their homesteads. Entire settlements were buried under metres of tephra - volcanic debris that fell from the sky and rendered the soil unusable for generations. Historical records document that farms vanished beneath this blanket of destruction, and the communities that had taken root in Öræfi were forced to abandon their homes and flee to safer ground.
The eruption was not merely a local event. Ash from Öræfajökull drifted across Iceland and beyond, affecting harvests and visibility across the island. Archaeologists and historians have since identified the remains of these buried farms beneath layers of volcanic material, creating a frozen record of medieval settlement patterns. When your glacier guide points out the dark streaks of volcanic ash visible on the ice itself, those layers tell part of the same story - a visual timeline of eruptions and accumulation that has shaped Vatnajökull for centuries.
Turf farm ruins beneath Vatnajökull's ancient ice
Skaftafell's Turf Farm That Endured
Not all farms were lost. Within what is now Vatnajökull National Park stands a turf farmhouse that survived the centuries of volcanic activity and climate change that transformed Öræfi. This structure, built using techniques that Icelandic settlers perfected over generations, represents the resilience of communities that chose to remain or return to the region. The turf walls provided insulation in a harsh climate, while the wooden frame was constructed from driftwood and imported timber - materials precious in a treeless landscape.
The farm at Skaftafell became a landmark for travellers crossing the region and a symbol of human persistence in an environment defined by ice and volcanic hazard. Its survival meant that the routes across the glacial rivers and the mountain passes remained inhabited way stations rather than abandoned routes. Today, the farm site lies within the national park boundaries, a heritage location that anchors the human history of the Öræfi region and demonstrates how earlier settlers adapted their architecture and agricultural practices to one of Iceland's most challenging landscapes.
Crossing Glacial Rivers Before Bridges
The rivers that flow from Vatnajökull presented a formidable barrier to anyone travelling through Öræfi before modern infrastructure. These glacial rivers run heavy and cold, laden with silt from the grinding ice above, and their water levels rise and fall with the season and the weather. Before bridges spanned them, settlers and travellers had to ford on horseback or on foot, timing their crossings carefully to avoid the swollen waters of summer melt. Local knowledge was essential - guides who understood the river systems could identify safe crossing points and optimal times to attempt the passage.
The guides who work on Falljökull Glacier today carry on a tradition that begins with this intimate knowledge of the terrain. Their ancestors learned which routes were passable, where the ice was stable, and how to read the landscape for signs of danger. The off-road transport from Skaftafell to the foot of the glacier follows routes that have evolved from these ancient pathways, adapted over centuries by people who had to cross glacial terrain without modern equipment or safety gear. Understanding this history enriches the experience of walking on the ice itself - you are following in paths that have been travelled for generations.
1362,
In 1362, volcanic eruptions from Öræfajökull buried entire farms under ash and ice, reshaping the landscape forever.
Folklore of the Ice and What Lived Inside
Icelandic settlers held beliefs about what inhabited the ice that reflected both their isolation and their awe of the landscape. Stories circulated about hidden beings and spirits that dwelled within the glaciers - tales that blended Christian theology with older Norse and folk traditions. These narratives served practical purposes, warning people away from dangerous ice formations and crevasses, but they also expressed something deeper: a sense that the ice was alive, conscious, and not entirely subject to human understanding or control. The boundaries between the physical and the supernatural were fluid in the medieval imagination.
Though modern glacier science has replaced these folkloric explanations, the stories themselves reveal how earlier peoples made sense of an environment that was genuinely dangerous and largely unexplored. Blue ice caves, like the one you will enter on this tour, have a colour and luminosity that would have seemed almost otherworldly to someone encountering them without scientific context. The ice formations, the sounds of meltwater, and the sense of being deep within a living glacier create conditions that invite wonder. Your guide can point out the features that might have inspired the old stories while explaining the geology and physics that actually create these remarkable formations.
The Birth of Icelandic Glacier Guiding
Organised glacier tourism in Iceland emerged gradually during the 20th century as interest in the ice caps grew among visitors and as Icelandic entrepreneurs recognised the opportunity to share their landscape. Early guides were often descendants of families with deep roots in glacier regions, men who combined traditional knowledge passed down through generations with new skills in safety and interpretation. The professionalization of glacier guiding brought equipment standards, training protocols, and the development of routes that were both spectacular and secure. What began as local knowledge became a structured industry.
The small group format of this tour - limited to 12 guests per guide - reflects best practices that emerged from decades of glacier guiding experience. The equipment you will wear, from crampons to helmet to ice axe, represents the evolution of safety standards in Iceland's glacier tourism sector. Your English-speaking guide will have completed training specific to Falljökull and Vatnajökull, learning not only the technical skills of glacier travel but also the history, geology, and ecology of the region. This professionalization means that the knowledge held by earlier guides - knowledge that was once oral and informal - has been systematized and made available to visitors from around the world.
Film Crews and the Glaciers as Landscape
Beginning in the late 20th century, filmmakers discovered Vatnajökull and its glaciers as locations for major productions. The stark beauty of the ice, the otherworldly colour of blue ice caves, and the vast scale of the landscape made glaciers valuable settings for science fiction, fantasy, and dramatic narratives. Film crews brought equipment, crews, and infrastructure to regions that had been relatively undisturbed, creating employment for locals and raising the international profile of Iceland's ice. The presence of cameras on the glaciers also accelerated the development of glacier tourism infrastructure and safety standards.
The glacier landscape you will experience on this 4-hour tour has been shaped by both natural processes and human use. The marked routes, the equipped caves, and the safety systems in place reflect not only the demands of tourism but also lessons learned from film production. Documentarians and narrative filmmakers have contributed to scientific understanding of these glaciers by funding research and bringing global attention to climate change impacts on Iceland's ice. When you walk across Falljökull or stand inside a blue ice cave, you are moving through a landscape that has become internationally significant - a place that symbolises both the beauty and the fragility of glacial environments in a warming world.
