IDAHOFALLSMAGAZINE.COM 29
vs.
A world away watershed comparison
BY KRIS MILLGATE
While we have our jokes about
jackalopes and the Bear Lake Monster in
Idaho, Iceland goes even further. They don't
move mountains for their folklore. Elf hills
are mounds of sod-covered dirt that go
untouched for centuries. Never move an elf
hill. Moving it, even for a luxury lodge, is
bad luck. And if the elves don't turn nasty,
the trolls most certainly will. They're
bigger, uglier and meaner than elves.
"If an elf does something naughty to you,
they like you," says Griff Griffiths, Eleven
Experience head guide at Deplar Farm in
Iceland's Northern Region. "If a troll does
something naughty to you, you're dead."
Icelandic folklore is intense and so is
the island's fishing. Intensely complicated.
There's public access for soaking in hot
pools, but there's no such thing as public
access for fishing. You need a farmer and a
guide for that. A fly fishing guide like Höddi
Birgir. He pays 40 farmers for river access
and he started practicing catch and release
15 years ago on the Northern Region's
Húsey River.
"Iceland people are opening their eyes
to nature," Birgir says. "And I'm one of the
guys building up the river."
At first, the farmers he rents river from
couldn't swallow the idea of catching some-
thing they couldn't eat. In Iceland, fish are
for supper not for sport. It's eaten multiple
KRIS MILLGATE PHOTOS
