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A hierarchical classification system of Iceland's watersheds and rivers is presented. The classification is based on Iceland's substrate, climate, water, biota, and human cultural influences. The geological formations of Iceland are very different in character depending on their age and formation history. Three major types of formations occur: Tertiary, Plio-Pleistocene, and Pleistocene. These formations have different hydrological characters and different landscapes. There are also large differences in the climate within Iceland. Four major river types are found in Iceland: spring-fed rivers in Pleistocene areas, direct runoff rivers in Plio-Pleistocene areas, direct runoff rivers in Tertiary areas and wetland heath rivers in Tertiary areas. Eleven biogeoclimatic regions occur in Iceland, each having a different watershed type. The classification together with life history theory can explain the distributions, abundances, and life history strategies of Icelandic salmonids. Oceanic conditions must also be considered to explain the life history patterns of anadromous populations. When the freshwater and marine habitat is stable, the life history patterns of individuals in a population tend to be uniform, one life history form being most common. In an unstable environment many life history forms occur and the life span of one generation is long. The properties of the habitat can further explain which life history types are present. In the most stable and favorable rivers of Iceland resident life history forms are more common. Such a classification of a river habitat greatly aids the understanding of the habitat and how it enables and constrains the salmonid populations within it. Consequently adaptations in life histories are better understood and conservation, utilization, and management of these valuable natural resources are made more coherent and efficient. / Graduation date: 1991

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 1981. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Abstract and summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-327).

Research on medieval Iceland--focusing on the period of the Commonwealth, from the establishment of the National parliament of 36 chiefdoms in 930 to submission to the Norwegian King in 1264--generally assumes a perennial subsistence economy, neglects the significance of trade, and lacks focus on changes in farming systems and tributary relations. This dissertation deals with the formation of chiefdoms, communities, ecclesiastical institutions and state, and with production for market, subsistence and tribute in early Iceland in the context of climatic change and ecological succession. Based on the integrative use of narrative, legal and economic documents, and archaeological and ethnographically derived data, it is argued that foreign markets and domestic credit exchanges were key to productive relations and land tenure and farming systems prior to 1200. This dissertation describes (1) chiefdom formation in terms of the economic rule of merchant-farmers, (2) the integration of a broad-based subsistence economy supporting specialized sheep production and yielding surplus wool for export, (3) freeholder production intensification in the context of mercantile activity, (4) disintensification and a change to a farming system emphasizing sheep reared for efficient milk and meat production, (5) the rise of rent tenure, communal property rights, and tributary systems in contexts of developing ecclesiastic institutions and colonial relations with Norway. The sagas are examined to show how trade enterprises were facilitated through class, transmission of property, a cognatic ego-centered kinship system, marriage, fostering, and household networks. An extensive analysis of Bjarnar saga Hitdaelakappa reveals changes in the modes and means of production and shows the saga employing symbolism relating to marriage and kinship that reflects successive formation of different institutions and professional careers, as well as historically transforming links between Iceland and Norway, secular and ecclesiastical authority, and wealth accumulation and succession. A new model is proposed for looking at the 'secondary exploitation' of livestock and for characterizing levels and means of intensification and specialization in Northern farming. This model is applied to evidence from England pertaining to the period from Iron Age to the 15th century.

This doctoral project develops an interdisciplinary collaborative approach to furniture designer\maker practice. At its core is a practice-based framework that can be used to assess and reflect upon the tacit, primarily visual nature of makers’ knowledge and the way that this can be communicated in order to develop design outcomes. The enquiry takes as its focus a two-year collaboration between the author – a British-based furniture designer/maker – and six indigenous Icelandic craft practitioners in which the ultimate goal was the creation of artefacts that, it was hoped, would be expressive of Iceland’s native craft traditions. During the ‘Iceland Project,’ as it came to be known, interaction between and among participants was grounded in a predetermined plan developed democratically through consultation and dialogue. The project successfully develops new knowledge through a contemporary reinterpretation of indigenous Icelandic craft-making knowledge and demonstrates this through the making of artefacts imbued with recognized cultural status. It also extends furniture designer/maker research by developing an innovative practice-based method of collaboration rooted in the multimedia archiving of the making process which can then be used to illuminate and facilitate future practice. The project is a scholarly display of makers’ knowledge: the process is shared democratically among peers; the decisions that articulate design and methods of making are reviewed; and inter-subjective outcomes are generated. To facilitate learning from designer/maker practice-based research, the creative narrative is necessarily partly articulated through visual media and artifacts.

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I studied the occurrence of two sympatric morphs of arctic charr, Salvelinus alpinus (L.) in Vatnshlidarvatn, a small shallow lake in NW Iceland. The arctic charr were subjectively distinguished by colour and appearance as brown morph or silver morph, and measured for morphological and life history characters. The study revealed the presence of two growth forms represented by the two morphs that differed in age and size at sexual maturation, reproductive investment, and time and place of spawning. The morphs differed significantly in gill raker number and morphometric characters related to manoeuvrability and cruising ability. Morphological segregation was established early in life and is most readily explained as developmental heterochrony. Both morphs were benthivorous, but could be segregated as diet specialist and generalist, with diet segregation being important only when food (especially the benthic crustacean Eurycercus spp.) was scarce, The occurrence of one abundant food resource, and lack of interspecific competition (no other fish species are present) may explain the different feeding strategies. The presence of "empty" niche should induce variability and divergence in morphology and life history to occupy available niche space. / Graduation date: 1997

An investigation of Guttormur J. Guttormsson’s (1878-1966) personal library housed in the Icelandic Collection of the University of Manitoba yields an interesting entry point into a dialogue with his published plays, a collection entitled Tíu leikrit (1930). Guttormur owned the entire collected works of nineteenth century playwright Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen’s works bear a certain significance to early twentieth century writers like Guttormur. It is a significance whose origin stems back to the philosophical writings of Immanuel Kant. Tracing a history of ideas out of Guttormur’s library from Immanuel Kant, through the European romantics, and into the works of Henrik Ibsen we arrive at an appropriate vantage point in which to consider Guttormur’s dramatic works, from the modern formalist perspective of the early twentieth century.

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