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 Lean Culture for the
Construction Industry
Building Responsible and Committed
Project Teams, Second Edition
http://taylorandfrancis.com
 Lean Culture for the
Construction Industry
Building Responsible and Committed
Project Teams, Second Edition

Gary Santorella
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

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Description: Second Edition. | Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press, [2017] | Revised edition of
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Identifiers: LCCN 2016053748 | ISBN 9781498787246 (hardback : alk. paper)
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Contents
Foreword.................................................................................................ix
Acknowledgments............................................................................... xiii
Introduction........................................................................................... xv

Chapter 1 Lean in Its Proper Context................................................. 1

Lean as an Operating System.......................................................6
The Hidden Magnitude of Waste..............................................11
Goal Setting..................................................................................12
Waste Identification....................................................................16
Overproduction.......................................................................16
Transportation........................................................................17
Excess Inventory.....................................................................18
Rework and Defects................................................................19
Overprocessing...................................................................... 20
Associate Motion................................................................... 20
Waiting Time and Delays......................................................21
Underutilized Human Resources.........................................21
The Lean Toolbox........................................................................22
Value Stream Mapping...............................................................22
Standard Work........................................................................24
The Kaizen Event....................................................................26
The Eight Deadly Interpersonal Forms of Waste....................29
Misplaced Value..................................................................... 30
Viewing Others as Objects (Being in the Box)...................32
Finger-Pointing and Blame...................................................33
CYA (or a Lack of Vulnerability and Transparency)........ 34
Lack of a “Big Picture” Understanding................................35
Unclear Roles and Expectations...........................................35
Unclear Sense of Purpose/The Missing “Whys”................36
C&C vs. Service.......................................................................37

v
vi • Contents

Chapter 2 Lean Culture Defined................................................................41

Shared Sense of Purpose............................................................ 42
“Win-Win” Systems Thinking.................................................. 46
Creating an Environment in Which the Exposure
of Problems, Abnormalities, and Inconsistencies
Is Not Only Allowed but Encouraged.......................................49

Chapter 3 Lean Cuisine and Construction: The Benefits

of a Food Industry Perspective......................................... 53

Chapter 4 The Lean Team Challenge................................................ 63

The Invitation Test.......................................................................75

Chapter 5 Trust: Laying the Foundation........................................... 77

Chapter 6 Is Your Attitude a Value-Add?......................................... 83

Chapter 7 Lean Ethics........................................................................ 99

Ethics.......................................................................................... 100
Cognitive Distortions................................................................108

Chapter 8 Construction 101: Basics from a Lean Perspective....... 113

Structure.....................................................................................114
Organizational Structure.....................................................114
Roles and Responsibilities........................................................118
Work Plans.................................................................................119
Impact Awareness..................................................................... 120
Know Your Audience...........................................................121
Respect for Chain of Command............................................. 122
Policies and Procedures............................................................125
Tools to Do the Job.............................................................. 126
Flow............................................................................................ 128
Pull vs. Push...............................................................................130
 Contents • vii

The Schedule...............................................................................131
Flow and the Individual.......................................................132
Feedback and Positioning.........................................................132

Chapter 9 Execution and Overarching Philosophies..................... 139

Overarching Philosophies........................................................139
Execution Philosophies.............................................................142
Bridging Strategies....................................................................150

Chapter 10 Lean Purpose................................................................... 151

Chapter 11 Conflict Paradox: Encouraging Debate without

Letting It Become Destructive....................................... 159
Resolving Unproductive Conflicts..........................................166

Chapter 12 Establishing and Maintaining High Standards............ 173

Chapter 13 Influencing versus Motivating....................................... 185

Positive Reinforcement.............................................................187
Negative Reinforcement (Punishment Prevention)..............192
Punishment................................................................................193
Shaping: How People Acquire New Skills..............................194
Team Reinforcements...............................................................196
How Things Can Go Astray.....................................................197

Chapter 14 Constructive Discipline (Knowing When and How

to Draw the Line)............................................................ 201
Operationalizing Problematic Behavior................................ 209

Chapter 15 Commitment and Accountability.................................. 211

Chapter 16 Building a Lean Safety Culture...................................... 221

viii • Contents

Chapter 17 Fine-Tuning: Keeping Your Fingers on the Team’s

Pulse via Continuous Lean Culture Assessment.......... 231
Behavioral Indicators................................................................232
Listening Skills...........................................................................235
Procedural Indicators.............................................................. 238
External Indicators....................................................................239
Assessment and the Basics.......................................................241
Organizational Changes and the Role of Emotions............ 245
Paying Attention to the Good Stuff....................................... 248

Chapter 18 Managing External Partner Anxiety and Anger.......... 251

Anxiety and Performance........................................................255
When Anxiety Tips into Anger.............................................. 256
Understanding the Owner’s Perspective............................... 258
Joining Their Anxiety Rather than Resisting It....................259
Go the Extra Mile to Fully Understand the Owner’s
Needs and Concerns................................................................ 260
Owner Anxiety as a Matter of Timing.................................. 262
Establishing Clear Boundaries............................................... 263
Knowing When to Set Limits................................................. 264
Heading Off the Rage Train.................................................... 265
Understanding the Concerns of the Architects................... 267
Design as an Expression of Values......................................... 268
Learning to Openly Express Your Own Anxiety..................270
Lean Partnering.........................................................................271

Chapter 19 Generational Issues......................................................... 273

Conclusion: The Human Condition................................................... 281

Index..................................................................................................... 287
About the Author................................................................................. 297
Foreword
It started in Hawaii. That’s where I first met Gary Santorella on vacation.
Not in the traditional sense of meeting someone, but through reading the
first edition of this book. You might validly question my choice of vaca-
tion reading material (or my sanity!), but I was a rather concerned man
at that time. You see, a few years prior I had been tasked by my employer
with pulling together the largest multifamily development pipeline of the
time anywhere in the United States; some 22,000 units in total. Moreover,
and with the considerable help of some of the industry’s best professionals,
both inside and outside the company, we had pulled it off and were now
in flat-out production mode to deliver this pipeline up and down the coast
of California.
From a standing start in 2011, we had completed 7,500 apartments and
were in production on a further 7,000 with many more in early stages
of entitlement and design. Ever-present budget and schedule pressures
were conspiring to derail our ambitions, but thanks to great forethought,
planning, and an impeccable team of strategic partners, we were stay-
ing ahead of our competitors. Indeed, by any traditional metric through
which the construction industry is measured, we were doing a terrific job.
Our production cycle times were the envy of the industry, our budgetary
management expertise was as good as any, and our product quality was
world-class.
But I was troubled. Something felt very wrong. Our teams were miser-
able, beat up, dragged down, exhausted, frustrated, and fearful. Our churn
rate for field talent especially was dreadfully high. In short, there was very
little fun being had and we were quickly losing our ability to retain or
attract top talent onto our projects. None of this sat well with me, either
personally or professionally. How on earth could we sustain our scale and
pace with the attrition we were suffering, and how on earth were we man-
aging to have such a terrible time building world class assets at an historic
scale? Personally, I was at a loss as to what to do next; we had worked hard
to change our culture for the better and had made painful decisions along
the way to get to the right leadership team. I was proud of my inclusive,
collaborative leadership style and felt that I enjoyed the respect and trust
of the teams. Nevertheless, we were failing our people; those who gave

ix
x • Foreword

their all every day to achieve the seemingly impossible and who would
ultimately ensure our continued success were deeply unhappy. Something
had to change.
I went in search of inspiration. Lean was something I recalled reading
about many years prior but my recollection was that it was an approach to
eliminate waste in targeting greater production efficiency. As mentioned,
we already boasted some of the fastest production times in the industry,
so production efficiency gain didn’t resonate for me for the task at hand.
That’s when I found Gary Santorella’s book and everything changed. Gary
did a great job of getting after the very issues that had plagued me for
months…and rightfully addressed them as waste.
Gary’s unique background in behavioral psychology allows him to view
the construction industry from a very different perspective than most.
His focus upon how attitudes and behaviors impact the productivity of
teams struck an immediate chord with me as something we had not paid
nearly enough attention to as a leadership team. You see, construction is
quite different than most production processes. It requires the collabora-
tion and teamwork of a diverse set of individuals and organizations to
deliver on what is more often than not a custom building product in a
unique location. Moreover, for the most part, construction does not occur
in a controlled environment on a factory floor or on an assembly line, so
production teams must compensate for that by striving for seamless com-
munication and collaboration. Alas, this is rarely recognized, much less
achieved. More typically, this diverse group of people and organizations
converge upon a project not with a common goal but with their individual
priorities, wants, and needs—with their own set of motivations and means
of maximizing results.
Reading Gary’s book told me it was time to change this paradigm and,
moreover that as the Owner (in the Owner-Contractor-Architect relation-
ship), our organization held the greatest responsibility—a responsibility
to reset the culture of our internal and external organization.
Over two years on and we have completely reset our culture and enjoy
high-functioning relationships with just about every member of the team
across multiple organizations. We have aligned those efforts through a
highly collaborative building information modeling (BIM) model and are
closer than ever to having a level of ownership and accountability for the
results shared between all organizations with which we interact. Most
importantly, we have a level of engagement, positivity, and mutual respect
that wasn’t recognizable just two years ago. Our outsized attrition rate
 Foreword • xi

has been alleviated; our people are actually enjoying their work. We still
meet regularly but we now meet to discuss how we jointly resolve common
issues, concerns, and processes rather than engage in the age-old “blame
game” that besets this industry. We are still a work in progress but are very
proud of our accomplishments and quick to recognize that they would be
impossible without our team alliance.
To me, the distinction is that as an organizational system, we are
becoming known not just for what we do but for how we do it. One could
arguably suggest that this is a true distinction between a results-driven,
micromanaged, fear-based culture and a highly collaborative team-based
culture. We are now a “company” of many organizations who converge
upon highly complex tasks to solve them as teams every day. We used to
be a “factory” that produced apartments. Factories kill people; companies
grow them.
Gary Santorella has become a personal friend of mine. I thoroughly
enjoy his knowledge, insights, and unique perspective and the passion he
brings to his work. His work in helping me become a better leader is some-
thing for which I will be eternally grateful; my entire perspective on the
responsibility of the role has changed immeasurably and for the better.
His contributions to our organizations over the past two years cannot be
over-stated. He has met and interviewed literally hundreds of our repre-
sentatives, conducted comprehensive intercompany Lean assessment and
follow-up surveys, personally curated Kaizen work sessions, and facili-
tated value stream mapping sessions across the organization. He remains
on hand to personally counsel countless members of our teams and has
even been credited with improving some marriages!
The tools in this book are indispensable to any organization that wants
to get serious about creating a winning sustainable culture in the con-
struction industry. I want to give the leaders reading this book fair warn-
ing, however. This will not be easy. Lean is not easy. It isn’t lenient, it isn’t
about making everyone happy, and it isn’t about a quick fix. It is a lifelong
commitment to a winning culture, the results of which will only be appar-
ent in any tangible sense over a sustained period of time. It is a relation-
ship with people that you are investing in, with all of the messiness that
stems from that. If you believe that the implementation of one of the Lean
“tools” such as pull planning, value stream mapping, BIM, etc. will, of
itself, set your organization or your project on the right track, you are des-
tined to fail. Without a firm belief and commitment that your people are
your greatest asset, and a cultural shift that actually embraces that fact,
xii • Foreword

you will fail. Changing an organizational culture is one of the most chal-
lenging things for a leader to accomplish. It takes courage, it takes com-
mitment, it takes a willingness to press on when others are discrediting
the effort, and it takes a blind faith that a relentless pursuit of great culture
is the single most important thing you can ever do as a leader.
The good news is, it is worth it. I have had the great opportunity in life
to work on world class projects of many asset classes and have worked
with some of the brightest and the best people this industry of ours has to
offer. Never have I been so fulfilled in my own work, however, than when
I successfully charted a path to cultural change and now see the results of
that. There are no amounts of project accolades or awards that will trump
getting an email from a site superintendent that you haven’t even met
thanking you personally for changing his life. What I now realize is that
what started out as a Lean journey has not only put our organizational
system on the right path from almost certain failure but it has been one of
the greatest learning experiences of my life. It has prepared me to become
a 21st-century leader and has awakened me to the realities of leadership
in the modern era—that culture governs everything and that the careful
crafting of it needs to constitute the core of our responsibility; that great
things can only be accomplished by great teams acting together and that
unleashing the power of people to amaze you is one of the most humbling
and rewarding experiences you will ever have.
Enjoy this book; for me, it changed everything.

Chris Marsh
President, Apartment Development, Irvine Company
Newport Beach, California
Acknowledgments
I want to thank all the wonderful and dedicated men and women who
have taken the time out of their pressure-packed schedules over the past
20 years to patiently answer my ridiculous and downright foolish ques-
tions and teach me about the intricacies of their complicated profession.
Without them this book could not have been written.
At the risk of inadvertently omitting those who are near and dear to me,
a very special thanks to Paul Pettersen, Larry Rubrich, Chris Marsh, Joe
Dominguez, Peggy Kloos, Todd Keller, John Jenkins, Jim Gilly, Dale Long,
Amadeo Nevares, Ram Fullen, Tom Sorely, Lisa Vere, Willie Micene,
Bruce Wexler, Gus Sestrap, Brian Polis, E.J. Saucier, Peter Davoren, Tom
Gerlach, Bob Gullickson, T.J. Lyons, ASSE Long Island Chapter, Stacy
Sakellarides, Rick Emsiek, Gus Simonds, Andy Read, Warren Beardsley,
Raymond Albanesi, Tuanhai Hoang, Steve Collier, Brandon Rainwater,
Michelle Doyle, Tim Moore, Glenn Patterson, Gerry Majkut, Eric
Hashizume, Sheila Uehara, Patrick Palmer, Rob Stein, and Eldon Wong.
And of course, Yuanxiao Zhu and Danni Tu, for their patience, undying
(often unwarranted) support, and constant encouragement.

xiii
http://taylorandfrancis.com
Introduction
Proving that continuous improvement is a life long endeavor, quite a bit
has changed since the first edition of this book appeared. In 2011, I was
still viewing Lean largely through the lens of traditional team building
and partnering models, bridging this with what I knew about interper-
sonal flow stoppages and standard Lean practices. But, as one does in a
rowboat, I was surging ahead into uncharted waters, while still looking
backwards toward the past.
Soon after the first edition was published, I met Larry Rubrich of WCM
Associates who introduced me to the concept of Lean as an Operating
System, and, suddenly, I was no longer looking backwards. Over the past
five years, I have partnered with Larry and several other Lean process pro-
fessionals, and, together, have brought forward a unique blend of skills to
assess and address both cultural and process waste. I also have helped to
facilitate several companywide and intercompany Lean implementations,
the most satisfying of which has been an implementation between a devel-
oper, an architect, a general contractor, and prime subcontractors. Though
these companies had worked together for many years, and would con-
tinue to do so for the foreseeable future, they were clearly not leveraging
their relationships to achieve maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Instead, the system was fraught with fractured processes, out-of-control
costs, recriminations of blame, counterblaming, and an employee turn-
over rate that made even the most battle-hardened of headhunters look
the other way. But, because of the full-on commitment on the part of the
top leaders from each of the key entities, and a complete emersion and
adoption of Lean principles, the changes they have made in both their
relationships and productivity have been nothing short of phenomenal.
They have streamlined their cumbersome preconstruction process in
line with their goal of increased budgetary accuracy, achieved improved
unit turn rates via early engagement of their Quality Assurance/Quality
Control process to ensure build quality, and are now bringing both inter-
nal and external designers into the fold to align goals around the brand,
budget, and schedule. Most importantly, the unwanted outflow of talent
has ceased. In a system that measures success based on meeting specific
design standards, as well as proforma criteria, losing the very people who

xv
xvi • Introduction

understood the brand, and what it took to achieve it—within tightly com-
pressed s­ chedules—was an enormous source of waste. Stemming this out-
going tide was paramount. This was not something that could be achieved
by buying people’s tenure with bonuses. The entire culture, and the way
people did business with one another, needed to change. And, because of
the leaders, and everyone who was willing to give themselves over to the
process, it has.
While a good deal of the early focus was on developing a fully functional
precon process across multi-company platforms, and the joint develop-
ment of a comprehensive building information modeling (BIM) model,
this is not where the president of the development company chose to set
his sights; it was on changing, what he was viewed as a “meat grinder” of
a culture—or, as one brave soul put it, “In our system, the bullet was fired
the day you were hired; you just didn’t know when it was going to hit you.”
Chris Marsh, whose intelligence is only exceeded by his compassion, knew
full well that the real driver of waste in this system was fear and the resul-
tant collusional dance of micromanagement and withdrawal, blame, and
counterblame, which dominated the interactions between the entities. The
cost of this dysfunctional choreography was in the millions. And this is
what we set out to change—one project team at a time. Through a series of
system-wide Lean as an Operating System overview trainings and project-
level Kaizen events, every employee was invited to be a part of our war on
cultural waste. In the project sessions, we established common ground
by identifying common worries and concerns, areas of cultural and pro-
cess waste, and establishing plans to meaningfully address both. The hard
work that people from all of the entities put in to make these changes was
humbling to say the least. Each person dug deep to identify the things they
had been doing to negatively impact the team, and what they were going
to do to contribute to the team’s success—regardless of what others chose
to do. Their introspection allowed them to climb out of their silos, blur
the lines between the companies, and act as one team in order to achieve
a common goal.
To truly change a culture, you will also need to establish new param-
eters in terms of how people’s performance is measured. We generally
measure people against metrics such as Work in Place (WIP), accrual
accounting targets, or successfully completed milestones per schedule.
But how often do we measure people for bringing up problems in a timely
manner; volunteering when they have made a mistake; clearly delineat-
ing roles, responsibilities, and expectations among teammates; storing
 Introduction • xvii

electronic information where it is supposed to be stored; having an actual

conversation to resolve an issue rather than firing off an email; or iden-
tifying issues and resolving them without pointing fingers? Rarely are
these contributions toward team success acknowledged, even though we
intuitively know that, when they occur, they contribute greatly to project
success. (This is akin to only paying attention to our child’s report card,
and ignoring such behaviors as attending class, taking notes, completing
homework assignments, actively asking questions in class, and eating and
sleeping well—all of which contribute to a better report card.) In con-
struction, these behaviors contribute toward project success for one simple
reason: they keep the workflow from stopping. What we often fail to rec-
ognize is that whenever someone stops what they are doing because they
are confused, or feel the need to deflect blame, the workflow stops. So, this
is what we set out to do in our multi-company system: eliminate the waste
that occurs when people don’t freely exchange ideas and work as one team,
and instead filter what they say and work in silos. This change flowed from
the very top-down. So, instead of beating people up for not hitting mile-
stones, they asked, “Why?” and “How can I help?” The leaders gave praise
to people for voicing issues early on, rewarded those who sought to solve
problems as a team, and corrected them when they fell back into old pat-
terns and resorted to blame. And, when there was a budget bust, all parties
took responsibility for it. This was a signal to everyone that things in our
system were indeed changing, which, in turn, reinforced more of the new
behaviors and attitudes that they wanted. And the upshot of all of this is
that it worked. Not only was the environment more pleasurable to work in,
but they were also hitting milestone dates with more regularity (or coming
up with realistic schedule adjustments that everyone agreed to), quality
improved, and budget busts that did occur were minimized. To be hon-
est, not everyone chose to take part in this brave new world of transpar-
ency, vulnerability, collaborative waste identification and problem-solving
that this new Lean culture required of them. Sometimes, people are far
too attached to their own anger, or ways they have always done things
to be able to let go of them. But, for those who chose to do so, they have
been amply rewarded. As I heard from numerous people during follow-up
interviews, “Last year at this time, I had already accepted a position with
another company—I was done. But I wanted to see if this Lean stuff was
actually going to make any difference. I’m glad I stuck around, because I
actually enjoy coming to work now—that’s something I never thought I’d
ever say.”
xviii • Introduction

It is through their hard work that I continue to learn the value and
importance of culture within the Lean framework—and what good people
are capable of when the top leaders are courageous enough to commit to
doing what is right.
Another thing that’s changed since the last edition is people’s initial
reaction when they hear the word Lean. In 2011, most people wanted to
know all about 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Kanbans, Vendor-Managed
Inventories, and Pull Planning—and the measurable improvements these
tools could bring to their companies.
Now, when the word Lean is mentioned, you can actually hear people’s
eyeballs roll to the back of their heads. Why is an approach that has pains-
takingly accumulated empirical data to back up its efficacy now being
viewed as just one more trendy set of buzzwords whose time, not unlike
Total Quality Management, will soon pass?
Part of this is due to an American culture that often has the patience
and attention span of a puppy on crystal meth. Let’s be honest; we’re a
nation of sports addicts and adrenaline junkies who favor emotional highs
over positive results derived gradually through scrupulous planning. We
all want the equivalent of the 3-run homerun and the 80-yard bomb, and
have little patience for the incremental changes that are the hallmark of
Lean. Bill Belichick, the head coach with the highest winning percent-
age in the modern football era, should be revered. Instead, he is largely
reviled, particularly in the media, because he is deemed as “lacking emo-
tion.” Instead of relying on rah-rah speeches to motivate his players, he
relies on constructing meticulous game plans that each player is expected
to execute to the letter. Boring!
Because of our impatience, Lean is often taken out of its operating system
context. Instead, many companies focus on tool implementation, hoping
that, by doing so, they will come upon the big hitter that will carry their
company over the top. Or they create complex measurement ­systems—​
ones that only a few people within their organization understand or
­utilize—again, believing that if they can just find the magic measurement,
they will unlock the proverbial Holy Grail of their company’s success.
These are the precise things that Liker warns against in The Toyota Way.
Even though the Toyota Management System emphasizes the importance
of simplicity over complexity, and the paramount importance of culture,
when it comes to Lean implementations, American companies can’t seem
to help themselves when it comes to seeking the wrong shortcuts or layer-
ing on the complexity. And then, these very same executives who allowed
 Introduction • xix

their company’s initiatives to go far off beam from the start, are shocked
to discover that their Lean efforts, which started out with such promise,
plateaued before they have barely gotten off the ground.
But the other reason why Lean is now being met with resistance and
skepticism also falls squarely on Lean practitioners. First, there are those
who like to demonstrate how much they know about Lean by throwing
around as many Japanese terms as they can, thus making Lean principles
seem more complicated than they really are. Lean, at its core, is simple.
To convey these principles otherwise does all of us, particularly our cli-
ents, a great disservice and erodes a prospective adoptee’s patience and
good will.
The second resistance point occurs because of who most practitioners
of Lean are by training, aka, engineers. Please let me be clear about this;
I like engineers. Some of my best friends are engineers (or at least they
were before reading this introduction). But I haven’t met an engineer yet
who didn’t secretly believe that all of the world’s problems could be cured
via the creation of the perfect process.
And herein lies the problem. Though many Lean practitioners give lip
service to the importance of culture, most spend the vast majority of their
time trying to deploy Lean tools to eliminate the vagaries and variations
caused by us messy, unpredictable human beings. While I applaud their
efforts, they can often leave people feeling as if the ideal state of every
worker is to be subservient to a process.
Even the Lean Construction Institute (LCI) falls into this type of think-
ing. For all of the great things that the LCI has done to advance Lean prin-
ciples in the construction industry, when you strip down their message to
its bare essentials, it often comes off as an elaborate sales pitch for their
Last Planner System, as if it is a magic panacea for all of a jobsite’s ills.
Whenever we overfocus on any of the Lean tools, we are violating our
own precepts by extracting them from their proper context. The Toyota
Management System works because of the prominent and consistent role
that goal setting and culture plays in the implementation of all of their
tools and processes. At the heart of the Toyota Management System is
respecting people, and creating an environment that allows their employ-
ees to flourish by providing a clear target for them to hit, and empowering
them to find ways to get there.
The data about Lean implementations in the United States is very clear:
74% of companies that institute Lean initiatives see little bang for their
buck. And, I believe, the root cause of this 74% failure rate (lets call it what
xx • Introduction

it is, and stop blaming our clients) is the failure to meaningfully address
the cultural aspects of Lean.
You can find much better books for deploying 5S, or Kanbans, or doing
value stream mapping, or any of the other various Lean tools than this
one. This book will help you to understand the key cultural elements that
are required to support your Lean efforts, and provide you with the know-
how to create them. Again, Lean tool deployment alone will not bring you
the results that you seek. Keep this simple formula in mind: New Tools +
Same Culture = Resistance ≠ Improvement. This means that you will need
to devote as much time to develop of the proper culture as you do to tool
implementation.
Think about this in another way: When there are breakdowns in your
company, and people are gathering around the water cooler, what are they
discussing? Are they having philosophical debates about the virtues of
expansion joints? No! They are talking about the boss with the bad t­ emper
who uses their honesty against them or belittles them for asking what
he thinks are “stupid” questions; or the department that works in silos,
ignores their requests for help, and doesn’t store information where they
are supposed to; or the supervisor who doesn’t listen to what his or her
employees are struggling with and leaves them to sick or swim; or the
boss who would rather micromanage or point the finger of blame than
ask for help from their staff; or the coworker that would rather hoard
information to make themselves look good than share it with the team; or
how confused they are about who does what, or what they are supposed
to be doing. These are the things that cause consternation, frustration,
and waste in the form of workflow stoppages as much as any broken pro-
cess. And these are the things that fuel the ultimate form of waste—high
­turnover—as people conclude that anyplace has to be better than where
they are working now. The fact is, people quit their company’s culture—
not their company—regardless of the tools that a company employs to try
to improve things.
This isn’t to say that the root cause of many conflicts in the workplace
isn’t due to bloated or broken processes that simply can’t go as fast as we
need them to go. They are, and these will be discussed thoroughly in this
book. But fixing the process alone, and not addressing the underlying cul-
tural issues that allowed the broken process to flourish in the first place,
will only net you a partial yield.
Make no mistake; creating a Lean culture isn’t easy. That’s because much
of what we ask of people, (i.e., vulnerability, transparency, cooperation,
 Introduction • xxi

collaboration), runs counter to our competitive American upbringing

and our biological wiring. But I am convinced that the long-term viability
of any construction company in the 21st century will reside in its ability
to master these counterintuitive means and methods and override their
autonomic responses of aggression, hoarding, self-protection, blame, and
counterblame. Believe it or not, these responses can be overridden and
replaced by new Lean attitudes and behaviors. I know this because I’ve
seen it happen.
To aid you in your journey, you’ll find that much has been revised in
this second edition. The forward, this introduction, and the first two chap-
ters are entirely new and reflect the Lean culture change work that I’ve
engaged in since the previous edition. While the remainder of this book
may have a familiar feel, new examples have been included to improve
the message and to help you to become an even more effective Lean con-
struction leader. After all, successful Lean implementations don’t come
about because of Lean consultants—we’re just the catalysts. They take
hold because of the General Managers, Operations Managers, Project
Executives, Project Managers (PMs), Superintendents, General Foreman,
Foreman, and Department Heads who decide that their company will be
far stronger once everyone comes together to work as one team, within a
culture that allows everyone to grow and contribute. It is for all of you that
this book has been updated.
People often ask, “Isn’t your work highly stressful? Why do you enjoy
doing it? How can you handle listening to people’s problems all day long?”
On the first point, in my youth, I worked with severely emotionally dis-
turbed teenagers in both group homes and psychiatric hospitals, and as a
hospital Social Worker who carried a large AIDS caseload in the 1990s, so,
comparatively speaking, this work isn’t nearly as stressful. But that’s not
why I enjoy this work so much. I do it for those moments (and they happen
more often than you might think), when people who have been toiling and
suffering in silence as individuals come together and realize that every-
one else has been suffering as much as they have—and that the only way
to truly relieve their own suffering is by relieving the suffering of others.
We’re often led to believe that the best way to eliminate our own suffer-
ing is to “work on ourselves.” And to a degree, this is true—but only if it
serves to alleviate the suffering of others. This is when the fog of mutual
suspicion and recrimination is lifted, and people go on to produce truly
amazing things. In the multi-company system that I will refer to many
times, I had the privilege of watching these moments happen over and
xxii • Introduction

over again, spurred on by people such as Chris Marsh, Joe Dominguez,

Todd Keller, Tim Blue, Jim Gilly, the Kennedy Brothers, Dale Long, James
La Page, Amadeo Nevares, Nick Garcia, PMs and Superintendents for
Western National Group (WNG) who are far too numerous to mention,
Rick Emsiek, Raymond Albenisi, Jean Pitts, Ed Wu, Darin Schoolmeester,
Kurtiss Kusumoto, and countless others—all of whom put aside their own
frustrations, and committed themselves to the idea of helping others—
regardless of the company they worked for—and trusting that in doing
so, they would make everyone’s lives, including their own, not only more
satisfying, but more productive as well.
And I do this for the opportunity of meeting people like Bob Gullickson.
Bob is a vice president at Turner Construction who lost his brother, a fire-
man, rescuing people in one of the Twin Towers during 9/11. Such an
experience could have left Bob bitter and angry. Instead, he approaches his
work with a heart full of generosity, and is willing to give of himself freely
to anyone. His focus on developing the people he works with—regardless
of a person’s ethnicity, color, or gender—is both touching and inspir-
ing. Anything that I can do to further Bob’s and countless others’ efforts
(because they are the ones who do the real work of Lean culture, day in
and day out) is a privilege beyond measure.

Gary Santorella
1
Lean in Its Proper Context

Many of the struggles we are currently experiencing when attempting to

implement Lean in the construction environment are the direct result of
applying Lean tools out of their proper context. Understanding Lean as an
operating system will help you to avert this all-too-common pitfall.
As discussed in the Introduction, the annual Industry Week Census
(released in 2007) reported that 77% of manufacturing plants surveyed
were utilizing Lean as an improvement method. Of these, 2% reported that
they had achieved World Class Status, 24% reported significant progress,
and 74% indicated that they had attained some or no progress. These are
not exactly stellar results. And there is no data to suggest that Lean imple-
mentations in the construction industry are enjoying any better success.
Given the multiple players and competing interests that come together to
produce our product, it isn’t difficult to extrapolate that the success rates
for Lean in the construction industry are even lower.
But even this is difficult to ascertain. In his incredibly comprehensive
thesis, “Measuring Lean Construction: A Performance Measurement
Model Supporting the Implementation of Lean Practices in the Norwegian
Construction Industry,” published by Norwegian University of Science
and Technology in June 2015, David Herranz Limon provides an extensive
review of current Lean theory (Last Planner, Pull Scheduling, Concurrent
Engineering, and Virtual Design Construction) and measurement meth-
ods (Balanced Scorecard, European Foundation for Quality Management
Excellence Model, Key Performance Indicators, and Lean Six Sigma) and con-
cludes that given the “lack of measurement culture” as exists in the construc-
tion industry, and with so many variables at play, it is difficult to precisely state
what improvement gains are specifically derived by employing Lean methods.
Those of us who have witnessed labor rate productivity improvements,
cost reductions, quality improvements, and schedule enhancements—all

1
2 • Lean Culture for the Construction Industry

of which were the direct result of targeted waste identification and elimi-
nation efforts—can easily point to quantifiable gains as a result of imple-
menting Lean. Recently, a CEO we worked with said, “We are having the
best top and bottom line year in our history. When we engaged with you
we had come off of a tough year earning only $450,000 EBITA on $128M
revenue. This year we are on track to earn $15.5 million (!!!) on $270M
­revenue.” Clearly, not all of this was due to their Lean implementation, but
it certainly was a contributing factor. Yet the niggling sense that Lean is not
making big “bang for the buck” inroads remains. Is this just a matter of statis-
tics and of finding the right data points to “prove” Lean’s validity and success
rates? This is an interesting question and one most vexing for the construc-
tion industry. With so many variables at play, this may prove to be a fruitless
quest, though this hasn’t stopped the engineers among us from trying.
Part of this quantitative quandary is due to the fact that, in most
cases, Lean is implemented out of context. Instead of being applied as an
­operating system company wide, meant to eliminate waste in the office
and the field—from Request for Proposal (RFP) to Project Delivery or
Service—Lean is often applied in piecemeal fashion: Last Planner on a
project here, Value Stream Map (VSM) on a process there. As such, it is
harder to gain a sense of what Lean is doing for a company as a whole.
But I think there is another issue at play—and it has more to do with the
human element than finding the right quantifiable measure. As Neil Postman
states in his book Technopoly, we have become far too reliant on data and
technology to guide our decision making and assessment of the effectiveness
of various improvement methodologies. His contention is that “we live in a
self-justifying, self-perpetuating system wherein technology of every kind
is cheerfully granted sovereignty over social institutions and national life.”
Though I am a huge proponent of basing decisions on objective rather than
subjective data, I believe, at times, practitioners of Lean and its first cousin,
Six Sigma, are overcompensating for a lack of measurement in our indus-
try by instituting overly sophisticated statistical analysis in order to justify
Lean methodologies. As a result, we have inadvertently contributed to what
Postman describes, as a “…grand reductionism in which human life must
find its meaning in machinery, measurement and technique.” As he asserts,
in so doing, technology supplants culture, and in our quest to define what is
effective, we inadvertently reduce people to machine-like ­entities while elevat­
ing our view of machines (in particular, computers) as some sort of “ideal”
that people should aim for, i.e., able to make reasoned, rational decisions at
all times, based on data that we define as relevant. Allow me to point out just
 Lean in Its Proper Context • 3

how wrong-headed this approach can be when applied to construction. This

example is extracted from one of my assessment reports:

As much as we love measurement in Lean, it is possible to have too much

of a good thing. And at XXXXX, you have truckloads too much. You are
drowning in metrics—and many feel this is creating more waste, rather
than eliminating it. Numerous people are wondering loudly about how
much it is costing the company to generate reams of data and information
that virtually no one uses—and worse—that most see as counterproduc-
tive. Let me give you one example.
Currently, the company is tracking overtime usage and publicly ranking
field people in terms of overtime usage—the assumption being that over-
time is a wasteful expenditure and is the result of poor planning. I’m sure
this is the case at times. But this can in itself be an erroneous assumption.
Overtime can also be caused by:

• An owner that makes numerous changes, yet due to their proforma,

needs to hold to the same end date, thus dramatically compressing
schedules. If they are willing to pay for overtime and view it as value
added (and are, in fact, demanding it to stay on schedule), why would
this not be factored into the rankings? (Currently, it is not.)
• Market conditions, i.e., when other trades that are piecework driven
provide incentives for workers to stay on the job for additional
hours—thus putting these trades ahead of schedule. If the superin-
tendent or foreman allows their job to “get buried” by these other
trades, this company will incur increased back charges for damaging
their work, or slowdowns while attempting to do workarounds. And
the impacts of these slowdowns will increase the further the work
falls behind the other trades. Overtime, in such instances, may better
serve the system by preventing waste.

These rankings also seem to ignore the role that internal design, engi-
neering, and estimating play in our system. After all, the field is merely the
repository for all of the other broken process pieces that came before them.
That’s not to say that the field doesn’t have its own role to play in terms of
waste, but I don’t understand why field people would be singled out, when
clearly this is a systems issue.
Rankings such as these often drive a stake into the heart of teamwork.
Why would any superintendent or foreman send any of their guys to
help out other projects if it meant, by doing so, it could result in a higher
overtime ranking for the person they helped out and a lower one for
themselves? Measures like this inadvertently add waste, rather than elim-
inate it, by discouraging collaboration and teamwork. I know that your
4 • Lean Culture for the Construction Industry

qualitative analyst believes he accounts for such factors under the umbrella of
­‘exceptions,’ but in reality, he does not. If you are a foreman or superin-
tendent whose job is currently beating the projected budget, yet find your-
self ranked at the bottom of overtime usage, this data is demoralizing and
pointless—not fruitful or instructive. Further, it will lead them to resist
further usage of metrics, or encourage them to provide false data, in an
attempt to improve their own metrics. All of this is counterproductive to a
team environment.
Lastly, what is the end game of ranking field people? If overtime were the
result of poor planning, I don’t understand how shaming people is going to
help them to improve. As stated above, I think this will have the opposite
effect. Rather than seeking ways to improve, people will resort to not-so-
productive ways to avoid shame. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to use this
data to mobilize the management team to bring company resources to bear
and come up with a plan to help them improve?

Is there any wonder why people sometimes roll their eyes when we utter
the word Lean?
Lean isn’t about perfectionism, though sometimes people do apply the
notion of continuous improvement as a way of feeding their obsessive-
compulsive tendencies, and thus end up driving everyone else crazy in
the process. Perfectionism is exhausting and demoralizing. Continuous
improvement is about optimism—that we can exert control over the things
we can control and make our world a little better every day. At its core, Lean
is uplifting and motivating. And when we come to realize that it is through
seemingly small acts, such as saying thank you, recognizing the actions of
others, taking the time to explain something, or truly listening to what a
person is struggling with, that we are making a contribution toward making
all of our work lives just a little bit better—every single day.
One of the joys of being in this industry is that it is dominated not
by machines, but by people. It’s people that do the work: weird, quirky,
diverse, wildly intelligent, dumb as a bag of rocks, zany, funny, sometimes
downright scary people. Unlike a mechanized assembly line, we can’t
fully “error proof” our projects. So, that means all of us are stuck dealing
with our messy, sometimes irrational, flesh-and-blood compadres. Some
Lean practitioners try to get around this by doing the next best thing:
standardizing as many repeatable practices as they can—attempting to
“idiot-proof” our job sites in the same way that McDonald’s idiot-proofs
the keyboards at their cash registers.
 Lean in Its Proper Context • 5

Don’t get me wrong; I actually practice a branch of psychology

(cognitive-behavioral) that focuses on isolating independent from depen-
dent variables, demands statistical analysis, and subjects findings to peer
review and replication to cull fads from practices that are empirically
sound. So, I am a big fan of the scientific method. And I would be the last
one to say that the standardization of repeatable practices is wrong. In
fact, a tremendous amount of waste in the form of hunting and searching
for information is due to the idiosyncratic ways that engineers and design-
ers notate documents, populate submittals and Requests for Informations
(RFIs), and store information. Standardize these areas and you’ll see a
measurable reduction in waste. But if measurement becomes our entire
focus we’re missing something vital: the human element. Creating the per-
fect process as the be all and end all doesn’t encapsulate Lean. The heart
of Lean is about people: collaborating, sharing information, and helping
each other to improve workflow. It isn’t about people being subordinate
to a process; it’s about processes making people’s work lives better. It’s the
same thing that happens when we lose sight of why laws were created in
the first place. People don’t exist to serve laws; laws were created to serve
people. Think about this in another context. Let’s say, that upon reflec-
tion, you weren’t happy with your current state of lovemaking and were
determined to improve. After creating a goal, and conducting a thorough
Current State Value Stream Map (VSM) of your lovemaking practices, you
could set out to create the perfect Future State (FS). Assuming that your
significant other is your “customer” and is willing to provide information
as to what they consider to be value-added activities, you could take this
feedback into account, benchmark best practices, and cut out any unnec-
essary steps. You could take this one step further and rehearse every step
in the FSVSM in order to perform each one absolutely flawlessly and in
sequence. So, will this new process ensure the desired results every time?
Sadly, no. If you lack empathy, passion, and the ability to adapt to your
partner’s ever-changing needs—you’ll still miss the mark. And, no amount
of redoing the map is going to get you any closer. (Sorry, engineers!)
Ignoring the human element is where most Lean practitioners truly
miss the opportunity to drive waste out of systems. While most of us pay
lip service to the importance of culture, the majority of Lean practitio-
ners tackle most issues as if they were engineering problems. If you don’t
believe me, go to the Internet and search out articles on Lean construction
and print them out. Then, take out a ruler and measure how much of the
6 • Lean Culture for the Construction Industry

devoted space in any given article is focused on meaningfully addressing

cultural issues versus the amount devoted to resolving engineering-type
process methodologies and you’ll have your answer.
To bring more balance to the body of Lean construction literature, this
book will take the opposite approach. After engaging in six extensive
companywide Lean implementations, two of which involved creating a
multicompany system among an Owner, General Contractor (GC) and
Architect, and Prime Contractors, I’ve seen first hand the positive out-
comes that can be obtained when Lean is established as a culture-driven
operating system. Just to illuminate this point, this is what a number of
people on the Owner side of one of these multicompany systems recently
observed after having a year of Lean under their belts:

I attend meetings where people have received Lean culture training, and
meetings where people haven’t. The productivity differences are striking.
Those trained in Lean culture get right to the issues, and speak openly and
honestly about problems and concerns. In short, our meetings are pro-
ductive and we get things done. In meetings where people haven’t been
exposed to Lean culture, the posturing and defensiveness starts almost
immediately. We get a fifth of what we need to get done compared to our
Lean meetings.

LEAN AS AN OPERATING SYSTEM

A number of Lean practitioners are now actively bridging the gap between
the process/analytical side of Lean and the cultural side, viewing Lean as
an overall operating system that links company goals with waste identifi-
cation and the Lean tools specifically designed to eliminate the waste that
gets in the way of accomplishing these goals. And the thread that links all
of these elements together is culture. (See Figure 1.1.) As far as I’m aware,
Larry Rubrich of WCM Associates was the first to coin this term. This
holistic view of Lean is designed to bring about needed change throughout
an entire organizational system—from RFP to Project Delivery, Facilities
Management, or Service—and is highly consistent with what is espoused
by the Toyota Management System.
Unfortunately, most of you won’t be implementing Lean strategically.
Instead, you will be employing Lean on a more tactical, project level. But
it is still vital to understand the contextual underpinnings of Lean as
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 THE WESTMANNA ISLANDS—
REYKJAVIK.

Tuesday morning, July 26. Open sea and not a sail visible, although we carefully
scan “the round ocean.”
Tremendous rolling all night; everything turning topsy-turvy and being
knocked about—my portmanteau, which was standing on the cabin floor,
capsized. Only by dint of careful adjustment and jambing in the form of the
letter z could we prevent ourselves from being shot out of our berths.
To-day we have the heaviest rolling I ever experienced. It is impossible even to
sit on the hurricane deck without holding on by a rope, and not easy even with
such assistance. Deck at an angle of 40 to 45°. The boat fastened aloft
aggravates matters. A very little more, or the slightest shifting of the cargo,
would throw us on our beam ends. The boat getting loose from its fastenings
when we are on the larboard roll would break off the funnel. The Captain has
hatchets ready, at once to send it overboard or break it up if requisite for our
safety. The bell tolling with the roll of the ship, first on the one side, and then
on the other; generally four or five times in succession. A series of large rollers
alternate with lesser waves; the bell indicates the former. Waves without wind
roll in from the N. and N.W., both on the starboard and port bow.
In the afternoon saw a piece of wreck—mast and cordage—floating past,
most likely a record of woe; involving waiting weary hearts that will not die.
Not a speck on the whole horizon line; a feeling of intense loneliness would at
times momentarily creep over us. Birds overhead flying south brought to mind
Bryant’s beautiful poem addressed to “The Waterfowl,” which he describes as
floating along darkly painted on the crimson sky:
“There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air
Lone wandering but not lost.
 Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart,
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He, who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone
Will lead my steps aright.”

The heavy rolling still continues. Hope the cargo will keep right, or we shall
come to grief. Thought of the virtues of my friends. However, maugre a dash
of danger, a group of us on the hurricane deck really enjoyed the scene as if we
had been veritable Mother Carey’s chickens. One sang Barry Cornwall’s song
“The Sea;” another by way of contrast gave us “Annie Laurie” and “Scots wha
hae wi’ Wallace bled;” and towards evening we all joined in singing “York;”
that grand old psalm tune harmonizing well with the place and time—
“The setting sun, and music at the close!”

The gulf-stream and the rollers meeting make a wild jumble. Barometer very
low—2810; low enough for a hurricane in the tropics. Stormy rocking in our
sea-cradle all day and all night.

Wednesday, July 27.—Vessel still rolling as much as ever. Saw a skua—a black
active rapacious bird, a sort of winged pirate—chasing a gull which tried hard
to evade it by flying, wavering backwards and forwards, zig-zagging, doubling,
now rising and now falling, till at last, wearied out and finding escape
impossible, it disgorged and dropt a fish which the skua pounced upon,
picking it up before it could reach the surface of the sea. The fish alone had
been the object of the skua’s pursuit. The skua is at best but a poor fisher and
takes this method of supplying its wants at second hand. Subsequently we
often observed skuas following this their nefarious calling; unrelentingly
chasing and attacking the gulls until they gave up their newly caught fish, when
they were at once left unmolested and allowed to go in peace; but whether the
sense of wrong or joy at escape predominated, or with what sort of feelings
and in what light the poor gulls viewed the transaction, a man would require to
be a bird in order to form an adequate idea.
We cannot now be far from Iceland, but clouds above and low thick mists
around preclude the possibility of taking observations or seeing far before us.
In clear weather we are told that the high mountains are visible from a distance
of 100 or 150 miles at sea.
At half-past Three o’clock P.M., peering hard through the mist, we discover, less
than a mile ahead, a white fringe of surf breaking on a low sandy shore for
which we are running right stem on. It is the south of Iceland; dim heights
loom through the haze; the vessel’s head is turned more to the west and we
make for sailing, in a westerly direction with a little north in it, along the shore
up the western side of the island which in shape somewhat resembles a heart.

NEEDLE ROCKS—OFF PORTLAND HUK.

The mist partially clears off and on our right we sight Portland Huk, the most
southern point of Iceland. Here rocks of a reddish brown colour run out into
the sea rising in singular isolated forms like castellated buildings; one mass
from a particular point of view exactly resembles the ruins of Iona, even to the
square tower; other peaks are like spires. Strange fantastic needle-like rocks or
drongs shoot up into the air—the Witches’ fingers (Trollkonefinger) of the
Northmen. The headland exhibits a great arched opening through which, we
were told, at certain states of the tide, the steamer could sail if her masts were
lowered. It is called Dyrhólaey—the hill door—and from it the farm or village
close by is named Dyrhólar. Behind these curious rocks appeared a range of
greenish hills mottled with snow-patches, their white summits hid in the
rolling clouds.
There are numerous waterfalls; glaciers—the ice of a pale whity-green colour
—fill the ravines and creep down the valleys from the Jökuls to the very edge
of the water. Their progressive motion here is the same as in Switzerland, and
large blocks of lava are brought down imbedded in their moraine. I perceived
what I thought to be curved lines on the surface like the markings on mother-
of-pearl, indicating that the downward motion of a glacier is greater in the
centre than where impeded by friction at the sides.
On the shoulders of the range of heights along the coast, snow, brown-
coloured patches and green-spots were all intermingled; while the upper
mountain regions of perpetual snow were meanwhile for the most part hid in
clouds which turban-like swathed their brows in fleecy “folds voluminous and
vast.”
The steamer is running, at nine knots, straight for the Westmanna Islands,
where a mail is to be landed. They lie off the coast nearly half way between
Portland Huk, the south point, and Cape Reykjanes the south-west point of
Iceland.
How gracefully the sea-birds skim the brine, taking the long wave-valleys,
disappearing and reappearing amongst the great heaving billows. We note
many waterfalls leaping from the mountain sides to the shore, and at times
right into the sea itself, from heights apparently varying from two to four
hundred feet.
We now approach the Westmanna Islands, so called from ten Irish slaves—
westmen—who in the year A.D. 875 took refuge here after killing Thorleif their
master. They are a group of strange fantastically shaped islets of brown lava-
rock; only three or four however have any appearance of grass upon them, and
but one island, Heimaey—the home isle, is inhabited. The precipitous rock-
cliffs are honeycombed with holes and caves which are haunted by millions of
birds. These thickly dot the crevices with masses of living white; hover like
clouds in the air, and swarm the waters around like a fringe—resting,
fluttering, or diving, by turns.
Westmannshavn, the harbour of the islands, is a bay on the north-west of
Heimaey where a green vale slopes down to the sea. It is sheltered by the
islands of Heimaklettur on the North, and Bjarnarey on the East. We observed
a flag flying, and a few huts scattered irregularly and sparsely on the slope.
This place is called Kaupstadr—or head town—but there is no other town in
the group. The roofs of the huts were covered with green sod and scarcely to
be distinguished from the grass of the slope on which they stood save by the
light blue smoke which rose curling above them from turf fires.
A row-boat came off for the mail, which, we were told, had never before been
landed here from a steamer; the usual mode is to get it from Reykjavik in a
sailing vessel. For those accustomed to at least half a dozen deliveries of letters
every day, it was strange to think that here there were fewer posts in a whole
year. These Islands have, on account of their excellent fisheries, from very
remote periods been much frequented by foreign vessels. Before the discovery
of Newfoundland, British merchants resorted hither, and also to ports on the
west coast of Iceland, to exchange commodities and procure dried stock-fish.
Icelandic ships also visited English ports. This intercommunication can be
distinctly traced back to the time of Henry III.; but by the beginning of the
fifteenth century it had become regular and had risen to importance. It was
matter of treaty between Norway and England; but, with or without special
licenses, or in spite of prohibitions—sometimes with the connivance and
permission of the local authorities, and at other times notwithstanding the
active opposition of one or both governments—the trade being mutually
profitable to those engaged in it continued to be prosecuted. English tapestry
and linen are mentioned in old Icelandic writings, and subsequently we learn
that English strong ale was held in high estimation by the Northmen.
Edward III. granted certain privileges and exemptions to the fishermen of
Blacknie and Lyne in Norfolk on account of their Icelandic commerce. In
favourable weather the distance could be run in about a fortnight.
From Icelandic records we learn that in the year A.D. 1412, “30 ships engaged
in fishing were seen off the coast at one time.” “In A.D. 1415 there were no
fewer than 6 English merchant ships in the harbour of Hafna Fiord alone.”
Notwithstanding the proclamations and prohibitions both of Eric and Henry
V. the traffic still continued to increase; and we incidentally learn that in the
year A.D. 1419 “Twenty-five English ships were wrecked on this coast in a
dreadful snow-storm.” Goods supplied to the natives then, as in later times,
were both cheaper and better than could be obtained from the Danish
monopolists. It will be remembered by the reader that when Columbus visited
Iceland he sailed in a bark from the port of Bristol.
Gazing on this singular group of rocky Islands, on the coast of Iceland, so
lone and quiet, and reverting to the early part of the thirteenth century, it was
strange to realize that into this very bay had then sailed and cast anchor the
ships of our enterprising countrymen—quaint old-fashioned ships, such as we
may still see represented in illuminated MSS. of the period; and that their latest
news to such English merchants or fishermen as had wintered or perhaps been
stationed for some time at Westmannshavn—supposing modern facilities for
the transmission of news—would not have been the peace of Villafranca but
the confirmation of Magna Charta;—instead of the formation of volunteer
corps, nobles hastening to join the fifth Crusade;—not the treading out of a
Sepoy revolt, but Mongolian hordes overrunning the Steppes of Russia;—and
instead of some important law-decision, celebrated trial, or case in Chancery,
they might hear of an acquaintance who had perished in single combat, or who
had indignantly and satisfactorily proved his or her innocence by submitting to
trial by ordeal. These were the old times of Friar Bacon—the days of alchemy
and witchcraft. Haco had not yet been crowned King of Norway; Snorre
Sturleson was yet a young man meditating the “Heimskringla.” The chisel of
Nicolo Pisano and the pencil of Cimabue were at work in Italy. Neither Dante
nor Beatrice as yet existed; nor had the factions of Guelph and Ghibeline
sprung into being. Chaucer was not born till the following century. Aladdin
reigned; Alphonzo the Wise, King of Leon and Castile, had not promulgated
his code of laws. Not a single Lombard moneylender had arrived to settle in
London; and the present structure of Westminster Abbey had not then been
reared.

BJARNAREY.

On leaving Westmannshavn, sailing north between the islands of Heimaklettur

and Bjarnarey, we saw two men rowing a boat deeply laden to the gunwale
with sea-fowls, probably the result of their day’s work. The cliffs everywhere
alive with birds, and the smooth sea beneath them, in the glorious light of the
evening sun, dotted black as if peppered with puffins and eider-ducks.
Nine P.M. Sketched various aspects of the islands and several of the strange
outlying skerries.

WESTMANNA SKERRIES.

When the Westmanna Islands are reckoned at fourteen, that number does not
include innumerable little rocky stacks and islets of all fantastic shapes alone or
in groups; some like Druidical stones or old ruins, others of them far out and
exactly like ships in full sail, producing a strange effect on the horizon.
The island nearest the coast of Iceland on the east of Heimaey is called
Erlendsey; that furthest north-west is Drángr; and the furthest west
Einarsdrángr. On the south-west is an islet called Alsey; we have also an Ailsa
in the frith of Clyde: both names probably signifying fire-isle. The islet furthest
south is called Geirfuglasker. These names are necessarily altogether omitted
on common small maps.
We witness a glorious sunset on the sea,—the horizon streaked with burning
gold:
“Now ’gan the golden Phœbus for to steepe
His fiery face in billows of the west,
And his faint steedes watered in ocean deepe
Whiles from his journall labours he did rest.”

Although the surface of the sea is quite smooth, a heavy ground swell keeps
rolling along. A bank of violet cloud lies to the left of the sun, while dense
masses of leaden and purple-coloured clouds are piled above it. An opening
glows like a furnace seven times heated, darting rays from its central fire
athwart the sky, and opening up a burning cone-shaped pathway of light on
the smooth heaving billows, the apex of which reaches our prow.
Such the scene, as we sail north-west between the northernmost out-lying
skerries of the Westmanna group and the south-west coast of Iceland and
silently watch the gorgeous hues of sunset. Strangely at such times “hope and
memory sweep the chords by turns,” till the past, fused down into the present,
becomes a magic mirror for the future.
The air is mild and warm; time by Greenwich twenty-minutes to eleven. The
sun is not yet quite down, and—by the ship’s compass, without making any
allowance for deviation—is setting due north. At a quarter-past 12 A.M. when
we leave the deck, it is still quite light.

CAPE REYKJANES LOOKING SOUTH.

COAST NEAR REYKJAVIK.

Thursday Morning, July 28. Rose early—we are sailing along the Krisuvik coast in
the direction of Cape Reykjanes—smoky cape—which runs out from the
south-west of Iceland. The low lying coast is of black lava; behind it rise
serrated hill-ranges, and isolated conical mountains; some of a deep violet
colour, others covered with snow and ice, the dazzling whiteness of which is
heightened by contrast with the low dark fire-scathed foreground. White fleecy
clouds are rolling among the peaks, now dense and clearly defined against the
bright blue sunny sky—now hazy, ethereal, and evanescent. We observe steam
rising from a hot sulphur spring on the coast. These are numerous in this
neighbourhood, which contains the principal sulphur mines of the island.
Here, where we sail, volcanic islands have at different times arisen and
disappeared; flames too have sometimes been seen to issue from submarine
craters; this latter phenomenon the natives describe as “the sea” being “on
fire.”

ELDEY.

On our left we pass Eldey—or the Fire Isle—a curious isolated basaltic rock
resembling the Bass, but much smaller. It rose from the deep in historic times.
The top slopes somewhat, and is white; this latter appearance has originated its
Danish name “Maelsek,” which is pronounced precisely in the same way as
“meal-sack” would be in the Scottish dialect;—in fact the words are the same.
Many solan geese flying about; whales gamboling and spouting close to the
vessel.
Nine A.M., Greenwich time. Got first glimpse of Snæfells Jökul—the fifth
highest mountain in Iceland—height 4577 feet—lying nearly in a north-west
direction, far away across the blue waters of the Faxa Fiord. A pyramid
covered with perpetual snow and ice, gleaming in the sun, its outline is now
traced against a sky of deeper blue than any of us ever beheld in Switzerland
or Italy.
The Faxa Fiord, situated on the south-west, is the largest in the island, and
might be described as a magnificent bay, forming a semicircle which extends
fifty-six miles from horn to horn; while its shores are deeply and irregularly
indented by arms of the sea, or Fiords proper, which have names of their own,
such as Hafnafiord, Hvalfiord, or Borgarfiord. Snæfell, on the north side of it,
rises from the extremity of the long narrow strip of steep mountain
promontory that runs out into the sea, separating the Faxa from the Breida
Fiord—another large bay;—while on the south the Guldbringu Syssel,
terminating with Cape Reykjanes, is a bare low-lying black contorted lava field.
The Faxa Fiord, then, sweeping in a semicircle from Snæfell to Reykjanes,
contains several minor Fiords, and is crowded with lofty mountain-peaks,
sharp, steep, and bare. The intense clearness of the northern atmosphere
through which these appear, together with the fine contrast of their colours—
reds, purples, golden hues, and pale lilacs; rosy-tinted snow or silvery-glittering
ice—all sharply relieved against the blue sky, as if by magic confound southern
ideas of distance, so that a mountain which at first glance appears to be only
ten or fifteen miles distant, may in reality be forty or fifty, and perhaps
considerably more.
The capital of Iceland lies in the south-east of this great bay. We have been
sailing due north from Cape Reykjanes to the point of Skagi, and, rounding it,
we sail east by north right into the Faxa Fiord, cutting off the southern
segment of the bay, and are making straight for Reykjavik.
Several low-lying islands shelter the port and make the anchorage secure; one
of these is Videy on which some of the government offices formerly stood,
but it is now noted as a favourite resort of eider ducks which are here
protected by law in order to obtain the down with which their nests are lined.
Solitary fishermen are making for the shore in their skiff-like boats. A French
frigate and brig, a Danish war schooner and several merchant sloops are seen
lying at anchor, shut in by the islands and a low lava promontory. All are gaily
decked with colours. On rounding the point, Reykjavik the capital of Iceland
lies fairly before us. It is situated on a gentle greenish slope rising from the
black volcanic sand of that “Plutonian shore.” There are grassy heights at
either side of the town and a fresh water lake like a large pond behind it. The
cathedral in the centre, built of brick plastered brown stone colour, and the
windmill on the height to the left, are the two most prominent objects. The
front street consists of a single row of dark-coloured Danish looking wooden
houses facing the sea. These we are told are mostly merchants’ stores. Several
of them have flag-staffs from which the Danish colours now flutter. All our
glasses are in requisition. Numerous wooden jetties lead from the sea up to the
road in front of the warehouses, and, on these, females like the fish-women of
Calais, “withered, grotesque, wrinkled,” and seeming “immeasurably old,” with
others younger and better looking, are busily engaged in carrying dried fish
between the boats and the stores. Young and old alike wear the graceful
Icelandic female head-dress—viz. a little black cloth scull-cap, jauntily fastened
with a hair pin on the back part of the head. From the crown of this cap hangs
a silver tube ornament, out of which flows a long thick black silk tassel falling
on the shoulder.
Two streets run inland from the front street, and at right angles to it. That on
the left contains the Governor’s house, and the residences of several officials.
It leads to the house where the Althing or Icelandic Parliament now assembles,
and where, in another part of the same building, Rector Jonson teaches in the
one academy of the island. The other street on the right contains several
shops, merchants’ dwelling houses, the residence of Jón Gudmundsson,
president of the Althing, advocate, and editor of a newspaper. It leads to the
hotel, and to the residence of Dr. Hjaltalin, a distinguished antiquarian and the
chief physician of the island. In the same direction, a little higher up, is the
lonely churchyard.
Between these two streets, houses stand at irregular intervals, and nearly all
have little garden-plots attached to them.
On the outskirts, flanking the town, which in appearance is more Danish than
Icelandic, are a few fishermen’s huts, roofed over with green sod; and these, we
afterwards found, were more like the style of buildings commonly to be met
with throughout the island.
As we cast anchor, the morning sunshine is gloriously bright and clear, sea and
sky intensely blue, and the atmosphere more transparent than that of
Switzerland or Italy. Beyond Reykjavik, wild bare heights rise all round the bay;
here—mountains of a ruddy brown colour, deeply scarred and distinctly
showing every crevice; there—snow-patches gleaming on dark purple hills;
here—lofty pyramids of glittering ice; there—cones of black volcanic rock;
while white fleecy clouds in horizontal layers streak the distant peaks, and keep
rolling down the shoulders of the nearer Essian range.
The arrival of the steamer is quite an event to the Icelanders. A boat came off
from the shore, and another from the French brig, to get the mail-bags. We
brought tidings of the peace of Villafranca, and heard the cheering of the
French sailors when the news was announced to them. Dr. Mackinlay, who
had remained, exploring various parts of the island, since the previous voyage
of the Arcturus, and for whom we had letters and papers, kindly volunteered
to give us information about the Geyser expedition. From his habits of keen
observation, patient research, and kind-heartedness, he was well qualified to do
so.
He recommended Geir Zöga, who had accompanied him on board, as a good
trustworthy guide. We wished to start at once, so as to make the most of our
time, but the undertaking was a more serious affair than we had anticipated.
Ultimately, before landing, we arranged to start next morning at eight o’clock,
as the very best we could do.
The distance to be got over is 72 miles, literally without roads or shelter; and
mostly over wild rough stony wastes, in comparison with which the bed of a
mountain water-course would be a good macadamized road. Provisions, traps,
and everything we require have to be taken along with us.
We are a party of six; the guide has two assistants; nine riders in all, each
requires a relay horse, so that eighteen ponies for the riders, and six for the
baggage are requisite for our expedition. These have to be bargained for and
collected together by Zöga from the farms around Reykjavik; and as the
ponies now run almost wild over the wastes in pursuit of scant herbage, and
neither receive grooming, stabling, nor feeding, this is a work of time, and will
occupy, Dr. Mackinlay tells us, not only the whole afternoon but the greater
part of the night.
No one had brought provisions north but myself, so arrangements are made
with the steward of the steamer for supplying them, and mine thrown in with
the rest pro bono publico. Having fixed that Zöga should call in the evening at
the hotel and report progress, at half-past 11 o’clock A.M. we got into the
Captain’s boat to land, where, long ago, Ingolf the first colonist had drawn his
ship on shore. As the remainder of the day is at our disposal, curiosity is on
edge to explore Reykjavik, the general plan and appearance of which has
already been described—partly by anticipation.
The sun-glare is oppressively hot. As we approach the jetty we observe groups
of men and women standing on the beach to see the passengers land. Some of
the younger women are good-looking, and become the picturesque costume of
the country;—those curious little black caps with silver ornaments and long
black silk tassels already described; jackets faced with silver lace or rows of
metal buttons; belts similarly ornamented; long flowing dark wadmal skirts of
home manufacture; and primitive shoes made of one bit of cow-skin or any
kind of hide, prepared so as in colour to resemble parchment or the skin one
sometimes sees stretched like a drum-head over the mouth of a jar of honey.
A few other ladies are in morning dress, with shawls or handkerchiefs thrown
gracefully over their heads, and nothing peculiar or different in their costume
from what we are accustomed to see at home.
Mr. Haycock had received a letter of introduction to Mr. Simson, and I had
one to Mr. Sievertsen; the latter is a retired merchant, and the former carries
on a large business of a very miscellaneous kind—such being the character of
all the stores or factories here. As the houses of these gentlemen both lay in
the same direction, we set out together in order to obtain advice as to what
was to be seen in Reykjavik and its neighbourhood. In passing along the front
street, the stores—mostly belonging to Danish merchants—presented quite a
bustling business aspect; while the dwelling houses, with lattice windows, white
curtains and flower-pots of blooming roses and geraniums, exhibited an air of
cleanliness, comfort and refinement. From the absence of roads, carts are
useless; one wheel barrow which we saw, belonging to an enterprising
storekeeper, we were told, was the only wheeled vehicle in the island.
Mr. Sigurdur Sievertsen received us most cordially. This intelligent old
gentleman conducted Sir George Mackenzie, who was his father’s guest, to the
Geysers; and he is alluded to by Sir George, in his travels, as “young Mr.
Sievertsen.” Time works changes! or, as Archbishop Whately would more
accurately put it, changes are wrought, not by, but “in time.” However, Mr.
Sievertsen is hale and hearty, and many summers may he yet see! On the wall
we saw the portrait of his gifted and much lamented son, who several years
ago died in Paris. He had been taken there by Louis Philip to receive a free
education, as a graceful acknowledgment to the Icelanders for kindness shewn
to the crew of a French vessel wrecked on their coast.
 L Men’sshoes. G Girls’ shoes. S Snuffbox made of walrus tusk. H Female-head-
dress with flowing silk tassel (see p. 49). D Distaff. M Two-thumbed mits.]

Our host has visited Britain, and both speaks and writes English fluently.
Neither he nor his amiable wife spared any pains in trying to be of service to
us. They gave us all manner of information, and kindly assisted us in procuring
specimens of native manufacture, such as—silver trinkets of beautiful
workmanship; fine knitted gloves soft as Angola wool; fishermen’s mits with
no divisions for the fingers but each made with two thumbs, so that when the
fishing line wears through one side the other can be turned; caps; men and
women’s shoes; quaint snuff boxes made of walrus tusk, or horn; and sundry
other souvenirs which we wished to take south with us.
In Mr. Simson’s store we saw everything from a needle to an anchor; from the
coarsest packsheet to French ribbons. At Mr. Smith’s, whose son had come
north with us on his way from Copenhagen, we invested in seal-skins and
eider-down—the latter for pillows and coverlets. This down, the eider-duck
plucks from its breast to line its nest; it and the eggs are taken away. Again the
nest is lined, and again robbed. The third time, the drake repairs it, supplying
the down; and if this be also taken away the nest is altogether deserted by the
ill-used pair. One nest yields about two and a half ounces of the finest clean
down, or about half a pound in all if removed three times. What is plucked
from the dead bird, it is said, possesses none of that wonderful elasticity which
constitutes the value of the other. We should think, however, that this would
depend on the state of the plumage at the time. Many thousand pounds weight
of it are annually exported for quilts, pillows, cushions, &c. It sells in Iceland at
from 10/6 to 17/6 per ℔. From three to four ℔s. are sufficient for a coverlet,
which, to be enjoyed in perfection, ought to be used unquilted and loose like a
feather bed. Quilting is only useful where a small quantity of down is required
to go a long way; but, with three or four pounds at command, there is no
comparison in point of comfort between loose and quilted—we have tried
both. The eider coverlet combines lightness and warmth in a degree which
cannot be otherwise obtained. With a single sheet and blanket, it is sufficient
for the coldest wintry night. Its elasticity is proverbial; hence the Icelandic
conundrum we had propounded to us by our good friend Mr. Jacobson,
“What is it that is higher when the head is taken off it?” Answer—“An eider-
down pillow!”
In walking along we saw some young ladies, in elegant Parisian costume, out
sunning themselves like butterflies. The thermometer stood at 72°, so, light
coloured fancy parasols were in requisition and enjoyed no sinecure to-day,
even in Iceland. Single days here are sometimes very bright and warm, though
rarely without showers; for the weather is very changeable, and summer short
at best. Less rain falls in the northern part of the island than in the southern;
because the mountains in the south first catch and empty the rain clouds
floating from the south-west over the course of the gulf-stream. For this
reason there is more sunshine in the north, crops too are heavier and earlier;
for, notwithstanding the 3° higher latitude, the summer temperature is nearly
the same as that of the south. In winter, however, it is colder, from the
presence of Spitzbergen icebergs and Greenland ice-floes stranded on the
shore, while the sea to the north and east is filled with them. Last winter was
very severe: the south and west were also filled. My friend Dr. Mackinlay has
treated this subject—the climate of Iceland—so admirably, that I cannot
refrain from quoting his MS. notes:
“The number and size of the rivers” says he, “cannot fail to strike the attention
of every visitor who sees much of the country especially along the coasts. The
main cause of this is, of course, the abundant rain-fall which is out of all
proportion to the latitude of Iceland.
“This excess is owing to two causes—The mountainous nature of the country;
and its geographical position. Iceland lies in the direct course of one of the
branches of the gulf-stream. No land intervenes between it and the Bermudas.
The rain-charged clouds from the south-west are therefore ready to part with
their moisture as soon as they touch the shores of Iceland. As they move
northwards, to the back-bone of the island, their temperature diminishes so
rapidly that the whole of their moisture becomes precipitated. Winds from the
S.W., S., and S.E., drench the southern part of the Island, but bring fair
weather to the north.
“As the southernly winds are the most frequent, the north side enjoys the
greatest number of sunny days in summer; and hence vegetation is more
luxuriant there, even though the latitude is 3° higher, and the southernly winds
are chilled in passing over the great mountain chain. The mean summer
temperature of the north is almost as high as that of the south; but the mean
temperature of the year is 14° lower. In the south this is 47°, but in the north it
is 33°. The climate of the south is insular in its character, while that of the
north is continental. Severe continuous frosts are rare about Reykjavik; while
along the north coast the winters are very severe. The severity of the winters is
mainly caused by the presence of ice in the adjoining seas. The cold Arctic
current from Spitzbergen, which impinges on the north coast, comes freighted
in winter with an occasional iceberg; while the westerly winds and the west
Icelandic branch of the gulf-stream combine to fill the seas to the north and
east of the island with ice floes from Greenland. In ordinary winters, the seas
to the south and east are open; but in extraordinary winters they also are filled.
Such a winter was that of 1858-9. The corresponding winter in Britain was
very mild, and owed its mildness to the same cause which produced the hard
winter of Iceland—the unusual prevalence of westerly winds.
“In the first months of 1859, the sea between Greenland and Iceland—200
miles wide—was packed with ice floes; and upon these several bears made
their way across to Iceland. Floating ice surrounded the island; but along the
north coast the sea itself was frozen so far out that the people of Grimsey,
twenty miles or so from the nearest point of Iceland, actually rode across to
the mainland. At Akur Eyri in the beginning of April, Reaumur’s thermometer
registered 26° of cold—a temperature equal to 26½° of Fahrenheit. So late as
June, seven French fishing boats were lost in the ice on the north coast, and a
French ship of war nearly met with the same fate. Speaking of northern ice,
Captain Launay, of the French man-of-war referred to, told me that its
approach could be foreseen at the distance of twenty-five to thirty miles by a
peculiar reflection of the sky. As the distance diminishes, the sky gets overcast,
the temperature falls rapidly, and fish and sea-fowl disappear. The Greenland
ice is much more dangerous than the Spitzbergen. The latter is 120 to 150 feet
high, massive and wall-sided, but of no great extent. The former is in immense
floes, often forming bays in which ships are caught as in a snare. It seldom
exceeds 40 feet in height; but is jagged and peaked. Sometimes drift-timber
gets nipped between the floes, and is set fire to by the violent friction it
sustains. The sound of the crushing ice was described by Captain Launay as
most horrible.”
Thus much of the climate.
Dr. Mackinlay took Mr. Haycock and me to call for the Governor, the Count
Von Trampe, who is a Dane, and well known for his urbanity to strangers. He
kindly introduced us to his family. The house itself resembles, and at once
suggests pictures we have seen of missionaries’ houses in Madagascar. Within
doors, however, all is tasteful and elegant. One peculiarity is worth noting, viz.:
that the walls of his suite of apartments are covered with French portraits,
paintings, engravings, and lithographs, nearly all presentations. In the public
room, I only observed one that was not French. Judging from the walls, we
might have been in the residence of a French Consul. French frigates are put
on this station, year after year, ostensibly to look after the fisheries. Great
court is paid to the leading islanders, and France would fain be in the
ascendant here as elsewhere. Iceland, meanwhile, costs Denmark an outlay of
several thousands a year; because, say some of the Icelanders, more is not
invested in improvements of various kinds in order to make it pay. This state
of matters would render negotiations easy on the part of Denmark, were the
acquisition of the island an object to France. It would be an easy method of
paying for assistance rendered in any Holstein difficulty or other cunningly laid
European mine that may yet explode; when the cause of justice and right, as it
ever is, being declared all on the side of France, she will disinterestedly go
forward with her eagles for freedom and glory.
Such contingencies may arise, although the Danes are our natural allies and
our Scandinavian brethren. It may be asked, what would the French do with
the island? It would be chiefly useful to them for forming and training hardy
seamen for the navy, as they already do to some extent both here and on the
Newfoundland coast where the fisheries are maintained and subsidized for
that very purpose. It would furnish a station in the North Sea, from which to
descend and menace our North American traffic; and it contains extensive
sulphur mines, which, in the event of Sicily being shut against us, are available
for munitions of war in our gunpowder manufactories; in another point of
view, it is invaluable, as the great salmon-preserve of Europe.
Intelligent Icelanders who cherish the memory of their ancient freedom, to my
certain knowledge, regard all such French tendencies and contingencies with
decided aversion. But in the event of a transfer being mooted, would the
Icelanders be consulted in the matter? I fear not, and that it would only be
announced to them in the French fashion, as fait accompli: may such however,
never be the fate of this interesting island!
These remarks, although suggested here by the pictures in the Governor’s
drawing-room, have no reference, it is right to state, to the Count Von
Trampe’s views on this subject, which I do not happen to know; nor on the
other hand, to the officers’ of the vessels stationed here, who all seem to be
gentlemanly kind-hearted fellows. A variety of facts and observations,
however, all tended to confirm me in this impression; besides, it is the policy
which the French are pursuing elsewhere.
From the Governor’s, we proceed to call for Mr. Randröp, the states
apothecary, and receive a most hospitable, true, northern welcome. We meet
several French officers and see the usual quantum of French prints on the
walls. But he is the French consul or agent. Coffee, cakes, and wine, are
handed round to us by the ladies, this being the custom of the country, and in
drinking to us, the form is always, “Welcome to Iceland.” Mr. Randröp speaks
a little English, and the two young ladies, his step-daughters, are acquiring it.
Here, as in Germany, the class book in common use is “The Vicar of
Wakefield.” Madame Randröp, who speaks French and German and plays on
the piano-forte, shewed us several beautiful silver trinkets, bracelets, pins, &c.,
of Icelandic manufacture; the style an open mediaeval looking fretwork, that
might satisfy the most fastidious artistic taste.
The Governor’s house and Mr. Randröp’s are the two centres of Reykjavik
society, and at one or other of them, of an evening, any stranger visiting these
parts is almost certain to be found. One is expected to make quite a round of
visits if he be authenticated, or have any sort of introduction to any one of the
circle; an omission would even be regarded as a slight. Hence Dr. Mackinlay
took us to call for a considerable number of people, all of whom were cordial
and glad to see us.
Our next visit was to the Rev. Olaf Pálsson, Dean and Rector of the Cathedral.
Learned, intelligent, communicative and obliging, he at once, in the kindest
manner possible, placed himself at our service and offered us every assistance
in his power. In his library I observed many standard works of reference in
various languages, and opened several volumes that seemed to recognize me as
a friend whom they had met before: “Lord Dufferin’s Letters from High
Latitudes”—a presentation copy—“Caird’s Sermons;” “Life of the Rev.
Ebenezer Henderson”—the Icelandic traveller; “Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine,”
&c. The worthy pastor both speaks and writes English fluently, and has
translated a number of Icelandic stories and fairy tales.[4]
The Pastor’s honest ruddy face, light flaxen hair, and unassuming manner; his
rosy cheeked children, the monthly roses in the window-sill, and the library—
all go to form a pleasing picture in the Walhalla of memory. He afterwards
accompanied us to call for Rector Jonson. The Rector is a good specimen of
the genus homo; tall and burly, while his active mind is vigorous, inquisitive,
and accomplished. He showed us over various rooms, where the different
branches are taught, some of them containing cabinets of geological and
zoological specimens. The school is supported by government; and about sixty
select young men intended for the church and other learned professions here
receive a free education; a few of them only go to Copenhagen yet further to
complete their studies.
Although the island contains 64,603 inhabitants, this, as we have said, is the
only Academy or College; and there is not a single juvenile school.
The population is so widely scattered that schools would be quite
impracticable; for the six thousand farms which the island contains, on the
habitable coast belt which surrounds the central deserts, are often separated
from each other by many dreary miles of lava wastes and rapid rivers
dangerous to ford.
Parents, however, all teach their children to read and write by the fireside on
the long winter evenings, as they themselves were taught; and the people are
thus home educated from generation to generation, and trained to habits of
intellectual activity from their youth. Thus, as a mass, the Icelanders are
without doubt the best educated people in the world.
For six centuries the Icelanders have evidenced their love of literature by
writing and preserving old Sagas and Eddas;—by producing original works on
mythology, law, topography, archaeology, &c.—several of these at once the
earliest and best of their kind in Europe; and by executing many admirable
translations from the classics.
Such literary labours have often been carried on by priests in remote districts,
who subsist on a miserable pittance, and dwell in what we would consider
mere hovels,—men who are obliged to work, at outdoor manual labour, the
same as any of their neighbour peasants and parishoners, in order to keep the
wolf from the door. Henderson found Thorláksson, the translator of “Paradise
Lost,” busy making hay. His living only yielded him £7 per annum, and the one
room in which he slept and wrote was only eight feet long by six broad. This
translation was not printed till after his death. Verily good work lovingly done
is its own reward. These men had little else to cheer them on.
We next visited the Cathedral, which stands in the back part of the town, with
an open square space in front of it, and a little fresh water lake—inland—to
the left. It is a modern edifice, built of brick, plastered. At the entrance we
were joined by our friend Professor Chadbourne. The interior is very neatly
fitted up with pews, has galleries, organ, &c.; and can accommodate three or
four hundred people.
An oil painting above the communion table represents the resurrection; but
the only object of artistic interest is a white marble baptismal font, carved and
presented to the Cathedral by Thorwaldsen, whose father was an Icelander. It
is a low square obelisk. The basin on the top is surrounded with a symbolical
wreath of passion-flowers and roses, delicately carved in high relief out of the
white marble. On the front is represented, also in relief, the baptism of our
Saviour by St. John; on the left side, the Madonna and Child, with John the
Baptist as an infant standing at her knee; on the right, Christ blessing little
children; while at the back, next the altar, are three cherubs, and underneath
them is inscribed the following legend: “Opus haec Romae fecit, et Islandiae,
terrae sibi gentiliacae, pietatis causâ, donavit Albertus Thorvaldsen, anno
MDCCCXXVII.” It is a chaste and beautiful work of art.

In the vestry the Rev. Olaf Pálsson opened several large chests, and shewed us
numerous vestments belonging to the bishop and priests; one of these with
gorgeous embroideries had been sent here to the bishop by Pope Julius II. in
the beginning of the sixteenth century. The cloth was purple velvet,
embroidered and stiff with brocade of gold.
Above the church, immediately under the sloping roof, an apartment runs the
whole length of the building. In it is deposited the free public library of
Reykjavik, which consists of more than 6000 volumes in Icelandic, Danish,
Latin, French, English, German, and various other languages. A copy of every
book published at Copenhagen is sent here by government, and from time to