A hunting lodge on a bare desert island - and who is being hunted there? (6 photos)

A lonely house on an almost empty island - this place has long been impresses readers of various publications and blogs, and also quite real tourists who go to Elliday, this small Icelandic island. Particularly surprising is the fact that the house is considered a hunting lodge, although The first question that arises is who is there to hunt?





Lonely house on an Icelandic island

And in fact - apart from the green hill, we are nothing we see no bushes, no trees, no swamps ... Who could be there, mice and insects?

Of course not - although the island is larger than it can be seen on the this popular frame (above). However, he's still exactly the same. deserted. Only birds stick around its steep banks...

But let's start from afar. Elliðaey Island has not always been uninhabited - "only" for the last hundred years or so.

And a couple of centuries before that, in the 18-19 centuries, this picturesque a place that is the most northeastern of the archipelago group Vestmannaeyjar, was quite populated. But not much - lived here just a few families.



Elliday Island as seen from the water

What were they doing? Apparently, a little bit of everything - fishing, household plots, livestock breeding, hunting, again ... Yes, and before the neighboring islands and the mainland are not so far away, so it was Can.

It is believed that these families left here in the 1930s and then whether they left the island along with the houses, or something - but no there were no houses left.

And the white house that became famous appeared later, in 1953, it was built by the local hunting association, which, apparently obtained the rights to hunt on this island.

And the rights to drive tourists - at least write that it is precisely to improve the services provided to the curious travelers, the house was built.





And here you can even see some kind of cistern - apparently, rainwater for the sauna is collected in it

If you look closely, there are even two buildings - the house itself and small shed. But inside the house itself there is even a sauna - impressive given that the island has neither running water nor sewer, no electricity.

It is not clear how the water is heated there (well, you can bring take fuel with you), and they say they use rain water, which specially for these purposes and collected.

It is not very clear how things are now with hunting, but before Recently, such a service was definitely provided to tourists. A they hunt puffins here - birds, which, although they are considered disappearing species, but hunting for which is not prohibited in Iceland.



They catch puffins like this (this particular photo was taken somewhere in Scandinavia, but it seems exactly the same is happening in Iceland)

But, we hope, tourists are more interested in unusual nature, views, and the legends about the island themselves.

In Iceland, Elliday Island has become a kind of national landmark, especially after the appearance of a lonely house.

At some point, for example, the press assured that his built by a billionaire. Moreover, two versions were discussed at once - that he decided to live as a hermit and that he was waiting for the zombie apocalypse and planned to hide on the island (it was assumed, apparently, that he bought the whole island).

There were also versions about a religious fanatic, but the most famous version is the statement that the singer Björk settled here.



Björk had a suitable photo shoot - we don't know if it's related she is with this topic or not, but in the press this story is often illustrated these photographs

The last story is quite funny - if someone still remembers this Icelandic star, who won world fame with her strange music, he will understand why there were such rumors.

And the occasion was the speech of the local prime minister, who said that the authorities could offer her to live there within the framework of some kind of program to support creative people.

This turned out to be enough, then the fans of the singer and ordinary inhabitants were already arguing, she bought only a house, the whole island at once (its area, by the way, is about 45 hectares), or the government countries in general gave her all this en masse. By the way, according to one version, it was she who sold the island to that same billionaire ...



Dead ends didn't seem to bother anyone much back then. - however, even now no one seems to be ringing the bells, although the topic is sometimes pops up in the local press.