As autumn arrives

As autumn arrives, it's a good time to take stock. It's been planned for a while, but now winter seems to be here. Snow is falling in most parts of the country, though the least amount of snowfall is here in the north.

The picture above aptly represents what happened during the autumn days. In the September issue of "Kennel Gazette" from the British dog breeders' association, The Kennel Club, a three-page article appeared featuring an interview with me and plenty of photos from the opening of the Icelandic Sheepdog Heritage Center. This is fantastic, especially considering the growing interest in the Icelandic Sheepdog in Britain after the breed was recognized by the association this year. Now it's finally possible to breed and show Icelandic Sheepdogs in Britain.

In September, Darren Adam from RÚV English Radio interviewed me again. This time, we walked through the Heritage Center together and discussed what was on display. You can listen to the interview here. While I remember, there was a feature on RÚV's evening news in the summer that I meant to mention. You can watch the news here.

My research partner in Denmark, Jørgen Metzdorff (see www.naskur.dk), gave me a generous gift: another copy of Mark Watson's book "The Iceland Dog 874-1956," for which I am very grateful. I also received the book "Hundurinn minn" by Watson, which I have searched for a long time, and "The Icelandic Sheepdog" by Gísli Pálsson. Jørgen also gave me stamps for my collection. Thank you, Jørgen. These gifts are much appreciated!

I wrote an article for the German magazines of the "Deutsch-Isländische Gesellschaft e.V Köln" and "Freunde Islands e.V. Hamburg" about the initiation and execution of the Icelandic Sheepdog project. On that occasion, I gathered figures and found that around 2,500 people have visited the Heritage Center from its opening in May until the end of September. This is quite good. This number includes people who came specifically to see the exhibition, as well as those who unexpectedly stopped by and viewed the exhibition on their way to horse rental or while staying with us. All tour bus groups have access to the exhibition. Maybe not everyone explored the exhibition in great detail, but at least I've introduced the Icelandic Sheepdog to all those people.

Last week, about 70 people visited in connection with the tourism harvest festival in North Iceland. It was fun to introduce the Heritage Center as a novelty to our colleagues in North Iceland.

What's next? To complete several projects in the building, which has been named Hraunkot (after my bitch, Hraundís), put up more pictures, and create a folder with all the newspaper articles from the summer. I also need to review other materials I have acquired over the summer. I have more ideas to improve the exhibition, but it requires a lot of work. I’ll update on that when it happens.