DRIFTWOOD IN ICELAND: HOW TREES FROM SIBERIA TRAVEL THOUSANDS OF KILOMETRES
- Roman Pech
- 27. 7.
- Minut čtení: 4
When you think of Iceland, glaciers, lava fields and black sand beaches probably come to mind. Few people would expect to find hundreds of massive tree trunks scattered along some of its shores. Fewer still realize that most of them have drifted all the way from the Siberian taiga.
When we visited the Westfjords, entire stretches of coastline were literally covered with huge conifer logs. It came as a surprise. On an island that is almost treeless, they looked completely out of place. Only later did we discover that many of these trunks had most likely originated in the forests of Siberia, travelling thousands of kilometres before finally reaching Iceland.
The Island That Ran Out of Timber
Today, Iceland is best known for its lava fields, glaciers and vast open landscapes. What many people don't realize is that before the first Norse settlers arrived, much of the island was covered by birch forests.
Over the following centuries, however, most of these forests disappeared. Timber was needed for houses, boats and charcoal production, while the remaining woodland was heavily damaged by intensive grazing. Before long, Iceland faced a serious shortage of quality construction timber.
Help, however, was arriving from a place thousands of kilometres away.
Siberia's Frozen Conveyor Belt
Vast forests of pine, larch and spruce cover large areas of Siberia. Some trees enter the region's mighty rivers naturally as riverbanks erode, while others were swept into the water during historical logging operations.
On their own, however, these logs would never reach Iceland. The key ingredient is sea ice.
If a fallen tree becomes frozen into drifting sea ice, it does not absorb water and therefore remains afloat. The ice is then carried across the Arctic Ocean by the Transpolar Drift. Years later, as the ice melts, ocean currents continue transporting the logs until some eventually wash up on Iceland's shores.
Without this remarkable natural conveyor belt, most of these trees would never complete their extraordinary journey.
Tree Rings Revealed Their Origins
For a long time, nobody knew exactly where Iceland's driftwood came from.
That changed in the 1990s, when Icelandic dendrochronologist Ólafur Eggertsson began comparing the tree-ring patterns of driftwood found on Icelandic beaches with extensive tree-ring databases from across northern Eurasia.
The results were remarkable.
The origin of most of the analyzed logs could be identified, with many traced back to the basin of the mighty Yenisei River in central Siberia. The majority were Scots pine, larch, and spruce, many of them several centuries old.
Tree rings act like a natural fingerprint. Their distinctive growth patterns can reveal not only the age of a tree, but often also the exact region where it once grew.
Czech Scientists Are Helping Uncover the Story of Iceland's Driftwood
Today, the work of Icelandic researchers is being continued by dendrochronologists from Mendel University in Brno and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. (The scientific study is available here.)
In northeastern Iceland, they are collecting new driftwood samples to investigate whether the origin of the wood reaching Iceland has changed over recent decades.
In addition to studying tree rings, the scientists also analyze fungi and other organisms living inside the wood. These tiny ecosystems may provide valuable clues about changes in Arctic ocean currents and the consequences of the rapidly shrinking sea ice.
A Natural Gift That May Be Disappearing
For centuries, driftwood was literally a gift from the sea for the people of Iceland.
It provided timber for building houses, farm buildings, fences, boats, furniture and countless everyday tools. At a time when quality construction wood was extremely scarce on the island, driftwood was as valuable as gold.
Yet this extraordinary natural phenomenon may now be coming to an end.
Scientific models suggest that as Arctic sea ice continues to decline, fewer logs will survive the long journey across the Arctic Ocean. Without the protection of sea ice, many trees will become waterlogged and sink long before reaching Iceland.
If these predictions prove correct, today's driftwood-covered beaches may represent the final chapter of one of the Northern Hemisphere's most remarkable natural stories—a story of trees that spent centuries travelling from the forests of Siberia to an island that had almost no forests of its own.
About the Author
Iceland has fascinated me for many years. Over the course of numerous journeys across the island, I have driven tens of thousands of kilometers, experienced storms that changed travel plans within minutes, and witnessed days when choosing the right route meant discovering places that most visitors never see. I documented many of these experiences in my documentary film Island in the North.
Through this website, I share practical travel advice, up-to-date information, and firsthand experiences from the field to help others explore Iceland more safely and gain a deeper understanding of its unique landscapes and ever-changing nature.
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