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New Day Cafe - Saturday: A High Perched Lighthouse [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-05

Good morning, dearest Newdists. Hope you all are doing well in the time of laying heavy tariffs on penguins. I think he meant to type PM of Heard Island instead of Hearth.

x 🔴🐧🇺🇲 BREAKING: The PM of Hearth and McDonald Islands is negotiating the lifting of tariffs at the White House right now. pic.twitter.com/cUCIS5d6jV — Juan (@timbre_dionisio) April 3, 2025

Onwards —

In a cluster of long tall rocks — total of 4 to be exact — that stick out of the ocean, one of them, the tallest one, has one of the loneliest lighthouses situated at it’s crown. When you look at the photo of it, it looks like a slash of red and white on the tip of the long tall pillar, with the sun blazing down on it. The long tall rocks have names four pillars named Stóridrangur, Þúfudrangur, Klofadrangur and the last one is nameless.

x There are roughly 104 lighthouses lining the 5000-kilometre stretch of Icelandic coast!



Called the most isolated lighthouse in the world.

Thridrangaviti Lighthouse (1939), Westman Islands, Iceland

At the beginning of World War II and Helicopters were not available at this time.… pic.twitter.com/BMciIiivl9 — Ami salant (@amisalant) August 12, 2023

As an observer of the photo, I wondered what it would be like to live in such a remote, lonely outpost. I’d probably really enjoy it, given how much I’m starting to despair of my fellow humans. If you’re wondering which one I’m talking about among all the lonely lighthouses, it’s Icelandic Þrídrangar, and has been a star of a novel [Icelandic Monitor] —

Þrídrangar means "three rock pillars" and the lighthouse was built there in 1939. The lighthouse has also been an inspiration to literature, with best-selling thriller novelist Yrsa Sigurðardóttir using it in her novel "Why did you lie?" This is not the first time that Sigurðardóttir draws inspiration from Sæberg's photos. His photos of the deserted farmhouse in Hesteyri in the remote West Fjords became the setting of her spine chilling ghost story, I remember you, which recently was made into an Icelandic film of the same name.

The photo that the above paragraph refers to can be found on IcelandicMonitor.

x Wednesday's TGT takes us to a tiny Icelandic lighthouse built, but hauling the materials up from a boat, atop a 36 m sea stack. 5 miles off the coast, it's one of the most isolated buildings anywhere in the world. Discuss brave builders and isolation with your tutees.

bit.ly/TutorGroupThink



[image or embed] — Bill Wilkinson (@drwilkinsonsci.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM

Atlas Obscura has things to say as well:

The whitewashed lighthouse is perched atop the tallest of the rocky cliffs, which stretches an impressive 120 feet upward. It’s off the coast of the Westman Islands, which themselves are about 4.5 miles from mainland Iceland. Because of its isolation, some on the internet have jokingly dubbed the beacon a haven for introverts. The remote lighthouse was built right before the dawn of World War II. Constructing this lonely lighthouse was no easy task, as helicopters had yet to take to the skies when the work began in 1938. Builders scaled the cliffs to reach the pillar’s pinnacle, laying out the groundwork by hand. They faced slick rocks, rain, and fervent winds knowing that one slip could send them plunging into the frigid North Atlantic Ocean that thrashed and splashed below.

Here’s something from The Random Times:

“The first thing we had to to was create a road up to the cliff,” project director Árni G. Þórarinsson said in an old newspaper article. “We got together of experienced mountaineers, all from the Westman Islands. Then we brought drills, hammers, chains and clamps to secure the chains. Once they got near the top there was no way to get any grip on the rock so one of them got down on his knees, the second stood on his back, and then the third climbed on top of the other two and was able to reach the nib of the cliff above. I cannot even tell you how I was feeling whilst witnessing this incredibly dangerous procedure.” Now, thanks to advances in aviation, maintenance workers can take a helicopter to the remote beacon, that even features a small helipad to make landing there easier. Still today, visiting the Þrídrangaviti lighthouse, which translates as “three rocks” but also known by variations of this name such as Thridrangaviti or Thridrangar, is a daunting endeavor. One wrong step, and any unsuspecting explorers just may find themselves going for an unplanned swim with the killer whales that sometimes lurk within the waves.

x El increíble Faro 💡Sabias que... En Islandia, hay un faro llamado Þrídrangaviti

Que se encuentra en la cima de la más alta de tres rocas, a unos diez kilómetros (seis millas) de la costa islandesa. Fue construido en 1939 sobre un acantilado extremadamente empinado y peligroso.



[image or embed] — GEM (@crisgemelli2.bsky.social) February 5, 2025 at 5:44 PM

Also, here’s Wikipedia:

Þrídrangaviti Lighthouse (transliterated as Thrídrangaviti) is an active lighthouse 7.2 kilometres (4.5 miles) off the southwest coast of Iceland, in the archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar. It is often described as one of the most isolated lighthouses in the world.[2][3] Þrídrangar means "three rock pillars", referring to the three named sea stacks at that location: Stóridrangur (on which the lighthouse stands), Þúfudrangur, and Klofadrangur.[4] The lighthouse was commissioned on 5 July 1942.[5]

x El faro de Þrídrangaviti. pic.twitter.com/sxcKrVRbuF — campo gallo (@canonicum) September 2, 2023

Just a bit moar info from this X account [ArcheoHistories]—

According to author Philip K. Allan, the weather at the top was so windy the workers could only stay there for a few hours at a time, thus it took two years to complete the house. According to another source, the crew also stayed on the rock in tents for a month, during construction of the house. The house was completed around the start of WWII, but the lighting equipment ordered from a Danish company could not be delivered because Denmark was then occupied by Germany. As a result there was a delay of three years to install lighting equipment, now supplied by Britain. The lighthouse was commissioned on 5 July 1942.

And a video —



Newdists, please grab a cuppa, something to nosh and join us in the thread.

New Day Cafe is an Open Thread

What do you want to talk about today?

And your Caturday featherhead —

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