On Thursday 5 June at 16:00 an exhibition on the French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen will open at the National and University Library of Iceland. The exhibition tells the story of the first French scientific expedition to Iceland, which is regarded as marking the beginning of the friendship between the French and the Icelanders. The exhibition follows Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen’s voyages to Iceland in 1767 and 1768.
In 1767 the thirty-year-old Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen was ordered by King Louis XV to sail to Iceland to assist fishermen from northern France who were fishing there. He made his first voyage on the frigate “La Folle”, and later returned to Iceland on the corvette “L’Hirondelle”.
His book Relation d’un voyage dans la Mer du Nord was published in 1771. In it he described his research and discoveries on these two voyages to Iceland, but also various other things, such as his correspondence in Latin with the head of the Danish trading post at Patreksfjörður and with the Icelandic scholar and poet Eggert Ólafsson. Kerguelen’s reports were of both military and scientific importance. As well as detailed information about the voyages, they gave clear information on nature, wildlife, plant life, climate and geography, and described various customs and ways of the Icelanders of the time. Kerguelen thus gave many of his countrymen and foreign readers the chance to get to know the many charms and peculiarities of Iceland.
The exhibition is a joint project of the French Embassy in Iceland and the National and University Library of Iceland. It runs until 30 June in Þjóðarbókhlaða, the library building at Arngrímsgata 3. After that it will be at Patreksfjörður on 4–22 July and finally at Fáskrúðsfjörður from 26 July to 18 August.