From Iceland – Treasure Iceland
Jón Ársæl’s latest work documents a 60-year search for gold
“This is not the picture I was going to make,” says Jón Ársæll Þórðarson with a noticeable, gentle tone and looks intently behind round, thick glasses. “I had some ideas in the beginning, but the story took a different path and I followed it. The film that Jón refers to is “Leitin að Gullskipinu” – “The Search For The Goldship” in English. She tells of a famous wreck, when the Dutch ship Het Wapen Van Amsterdam ran aground off the south coast of Iceland in 1667. The ship was lost when it tried to return to the Netherlands from the Dutch colonies on what is today Java, it is believed. richly loaded with riches: copper, silk and fine linen, unfinished diamonds and spices.
“People were always talking about it”
More specifically, Jón’s documentary is about the life that this boat has led in Icelandic consciousness ever since. An extensive search has been made for the ship over the years and a new effort, with the latest drone technology, began in 2016. “Ever since I was a little boy, I was fascinated by the story of the gold ship. My friends and I would “make” gold by taking stones and painting them. We put the gold and silver in small chests and dug into the sand and then dug it up every now and then. This was definitely related to the story of the Gold Ship – people around us were always talking about it. Later in Jón’s life, the story of the Gold Ship appeared again, when a team led by Bergur Lárusson and Kristin Guðbrandsson fished the boat in the seventies and eighties of the last century – an extensive archive that is included in the documentary. The story dominated the headlines for many years and infected the nation with excitement over the restoration of this famous ship full of riches.
“I know the ship is there. Finding it is a matter of minutes. “
To participate
The project eventually failed and instead recovered the wreckage of a German trawler. Then, in 2016, Jón heard that Gísli Gíslason, an Icelandic entrepreneur, was going to take over the project. He immediately contacted Gísli and asked to record the experiment. “This must be a bit of a problem, I’m getting involved,” explains Jón. “I wanted to be an independent filmmaker. But I’m motivated and over and over again I got involved.
“I’m not part of the team.” Jón says definitely – seemingly as much to himself as to others. “But I’m very interested in the story. And if – when – they find the ship, it will be world news. ”This is perhaps partly what Jón means when he says that the film took a different direction than his original plan. Although progress has been made with the new technology used by Gísli and his team, no boat has been found so far. Jón’s film does not provide the proverbial “money shot”, so to speak. For now, the great gold ship is lost to the sand of Skeiðarársandur and time.
“The story continues”
But the story of Het Wapen Van Amsterdam does not end here. Just as Gísli intends to return with his team and finally revive the long-lost ship, Jón is not done with the Gold Ship either. In his extensive research on the tragic wreck, and in the 17th century in general, Jón revealed a myriad of twists, turns and unexpected connections, many of which only had time to deviate briefly in this documentary. From stories about farmers sleeping on a silk bed, to the child that a Dutch fisherman had, but his ancestors still live in Iceland to this day, the tortuous stories that flow out of this one key point of the story seem endless. Jón intends to stick with them for now and not least with the search itself. “The story goes on,” says Jón emphatically. “I know the ship is there. Finding it is a matter of minutes. How many minutes? I do not know. But it’s a matter of minutes. “