[LINK] "Virtual Emigration"

[rfmcdonald]

Walrus Magazine's Eliza Reid reports on how some Icelanders are dealing with their post-crash economy through unusual forms of emigration.

In October 2008, Iceland became the first country to succumb to the global financial crisis. In a few short months, its banks collapsed, its government fell, and unemployment more than tripled. More or less flat broke, the tiny nation of 320,000 had to go begging to the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan of US$2.1 billion, and it remains in an economic shamble. As the country licks its wounds, some Icelanders, especially those crushed by mortgage payments that skyrocketed when the currency crumbled, are once again seeking the relative economic stability of Canada as the key to rebuilding their lives. But unlike the nineteenth-century wave of emigration, when more than 16,000 islanders —roughly 20 percent of the population at the time — climbed into ships for the hellish voyage that would take so many of them off to Manitoba, these new Viking emigrants, generally highly educated and fluent in English, do not go steerage. They go online.

Jón Ólafur Ólafsson is an architect. His firm, Batteríid, is tucked away in a nondescript building in the gentrified former fishing village of Hafnarfjördur, where rent is cheaper than in central Reykjavik, eight kilometres away. Over a lethal macchiato, Ólafsson explained that since projects ranging from luxury high-rises to glam corporate headquarters have dried up, the architecture sector has become one of the hardest hit since the crisis began last autumn. Batteríid laid off a third of its employees, and of the twenty still left only half are working full time.

Yet Ólafsson is optimistic. Like his ancestors, he has looked to Canada. This spring, along with Winnipeg partners Cibinel Architects, Batteríid won a contract, its first outside Iceland, to design and construct a $40-million aquatic, wellness, and performing arts centre in Gimli, Manitoba (population 6,000). Gimli remains the unofficial capital of “New Iceland,” as the immigrants called it, and Manitoba is home to the world’s largest population of Icelanders outside of Iceland. Gimli’s mayor, Tammy Axelsson, is fluent in Icelandic, and the people retain strong ties to their ancestral land.

Hafnarfjördur is famous for having one of Iceland’s largest settlements of elves, dwarves and other mystical beings, which (translating from the Icelandic) are collectively called “Hidden Folk.” Centuries-old folklore has it that whole clans of such beings reside in the rocks that make up part of the town’s centre. We do not doubt this at all … Hidden Folk enjoy a certain regard, and nowhere more so than in Hafnarfjördur. There is even a Hidden Worlds tour that takes you to their home sites, stopping at places like Hellisgerdi park and the base of the cliff Hamarinn, which is said to be home to the Royal Family of the Hidden Folk.But Ólafsson and his colleagues are not moving house — just ideas. Instead of queuing up for visas and plowing through masses of immigration forms, they breeze in on Skype. Call it virtual immigration: Batteríid can visit Canada on a regular basis but complete its major work remotely from Iceland, thereby ensuring its survival.