The Farm Tractor

About the family

The Grund family runs the Studlagil Canyon site. The family has been living at the farm since 1964 and is known for its resourcefulness and hard work. Today, the farm Grund is the most visited tourist site at the East Iceland with the famous Studlagil at its doorsteps. The family members are Karl (1937-2021), Kolbrún (one of the knitting sisters from Teigasel, see inside the Farmers Market), and their three children Stefanía, Jakob and Grétar. Since Studlagil became popular tourist site, this family has been ambitiously building up the infrastructure and all the buildings in order to enhance the quality and the experience of its visitors. The family hope you enjoy the visit.

The modern days arrived quite late to this rural place closed to the highlands of Iceland. For the first 10 years from 1964-1974 the family at Grund had no electricity other than from a disel generator used only for few hours per day. For the first 12 years the only telephone used was through one air line connecting all the farms in the valley together so every farm in the valley could listen to people talking in such telephone. This type of phone was called „sveitasími“ and with the locals quite often listening on the talks between people in this phone the gossip quite naturally thrived but also a lot of funny misunderstanding.

Nowadays, Grund as any other farm has its electricity, Wi-Fi, cell phones and all kind of cars and equipment and the difference between the sixties and the seventies and the modern day is enormous.

When Karl and Kolbrun started their sheep farming at Grund (Studlagil Canyon), the first vehicle at this farm was this Massey Ferguson tractor, bought in the year 1964. The tractor was the main farming vehicle, making the grass fields, cutting grass, collecting grass (icelandic: „hey“).

For many years Karl, the farmer at Grund distributed the letters and papers to all the frams in the upper valley. With the heavy snow and harsh weathers during winters inventive ways were needed to distribute the mail once all roads were closed. The resouceful Karl who alwayas had an answer to a problem found a way. He placed big belts on this tractor and used it as the main vehicle to distribute the mail twice a week in the valley during the wintertime driving this tractor through heavy snow and other obstacles on the road.