Iceland
Iceland
Chris Rainier, CEO and Founder of The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation, National Geographic Explorer & Photographer
Some might say that exploration is hard-wired into my DNA. A family relative in the 1700s was a British admiral who sailed the high seas exploring distant lands to help expand the British Empire. My grandfather was born in the back of an ox cart in the Transvaal Province of South Africa and, at the beginning of the 20th century, he walked across Africa for five years with little more than an elephant rifle slung across his shoulder. He went on to write adventure books and live an exotic life exploring the most isolated parts of Africa and South America. My father was born in South Africa but grew up barefoot in the jungles of Colombia at an emerald mine. When the second war broke out, he forged his father’s signature and, at just fifteen years old, joined the Royal Rhodesian Air Force flying a Spitfire over North Africa hunting Rommel’s German forces. My brother and I grew up moving constantly and lived in Canada, the US, Australia, Africa and Europe before we even graduated from high school. As a family, at every opportunity, we sought out new experiences and adventures - whether learning from the Aborigines in the Australian Outback or walking the land with the Maasai in Kenya.
I was born and raised into exploration and knew of no other path to follow as an adult. I began my career as the last photographic assistant to the Legendary photographer Ansel Adams whose love of the natural wonders of America’s landscape was reflected so powerfully in his art. Ansel also used his photography to help to save many of the great National Parks in the United States including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite. I was inspired and his mentorship led me to be a lifelong conservationist and to try to use my photography, as he did, for the good of nature and culture. Since those early days, I have spent my career in search of powerful landscapes and sacred places - stunning examples of the majesty of nature and in 2001, I had the great honor to be asked by the National Geographic Society to join their team of explorers and photographers. Our joint mission was to set forth around the world to explore and celebrate its wonders and cultures, to understand the threats facing our Earth and to follow the footsteps of all of those who have gone before us stepping over the horizon and into the unknown. From the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to the towering icebergs of Antarctica and from the shifting sand dunes of the Sahara to the lush valleys of New Guinea, I trained my camera on the beauty and fragility of the planet’s wild places, places that were already beginning to feel the effects of climate change. Throughout all of these travels, I yearned to go to the land of fire and ice – to Iceland. I was drawn to what I had heard about the island’s magic. Born some twenty million years ago from massive volcanic activity that continues to this day, Iceland is a raw and rugged land. Its immense glaciers, black lava beaches, gigantic waterfalls, deep basalt canyons, stunning mountain peaks, steaming geysers and blue lagoons come alive as the storms roll in from the ocean and as the landscape is lit up by the midnight sun and the mesmerizing colors of the aurora borealis. There are not so many places left in the world which feel pristine and untouched and which allow you to get intentionally lost in the spirit of exploration and adventure.
Having now been to Iceland many times, I have explored its mysteries during the winter and into the spring and summer. I have witnessed the searing beauty of the northern lights dancing across the Arctic night sky – a kaleidoscopic nocturnal ballet. I have stood beneath its raging waterfalls and walked in quiet contemplation and awe along its black lava beaches where the stranded icebergs washing back and forth in the surf shine like diamonds. I have hiked to ice caves on the edges of the immense glaciers that span much of the country. These glowing turquoise caverns can sometimes reach several hundred feet into the glacial interior, their ceilings arching upwards to heights of fifty feet. Their aqua-marine light is as from another world as it casts its spell over everything in sight and the ice crackles as the energy of the glacier torques the very structure of the cave. The cave walls feel alive as if breathing and water flows even behind the clear, pure ice walls, forced by gravity to find its inevitable path toward the sea. This landscape feels so raw that if you are not careful, its brutal beauty can almost bring you to your knees. Iceland demands that you pay attention to it. It feels like a land just born: it has a primordial pulse within its soul, like that of a new baby, a heart beating regularly, powerfully, and celebrating the very act of life. I experienced this new birth first hand in 2021 when Fagradalsfjall volcano, dormant for more than six thousand years, erupted once more. With some local friends, I hiked the few miles to the volcano’s edge to witness the power of the lava bursting out and lighting up the night and to feel its heat on my skin. I sat for hours mesmerized by its pure, elemental, raw, primordial beauty. I listened to the sound of the magma flow toward me, an eerie sound like glass slowly tinkling in the distance. On our last visit to the volcano, I spent the whole night there, photographing its massive rhythmic eruptions of lava arcing into the deep navy sky and falling to the ground to flow in rivers of glowing red. I paused often, fearing that this might be my last opportunity to see this wonder up close and to be so alone with its power. As I was reluctantly thinking about leaving, I noticed the first hints of sunrise on the eastern horizon. I waited, knowing now that I had to stay and that I had no other place to go, and watched the sunrise unfold all of its color palette across the living, growing, breathing fire. It was one of the most beautiful mornings that I have ever seen, the sun rising with the beginning of a new day and celebrating the sheer magic of the volcano. I experienced a deep peace, a calmness, a revelation that I was witnessing the beginning of life itself. I will always continue to search for the unknown and perhaps the unknowable. I will seek out distant lands, impossible horizons, ancient topographies and moonlit monuments and I will ask the question of what it means to be an explorer. On that morning, Iceland gave me the answer.
