Höfn, on Iceland’s southeastern coast, is the human and logistical threshold to the Vatnajökull Glacier in the novel’s searches for a lost aircraft. The town is where eyewitnesses report the plane, where military expeditions arrive after arduous journeys, and where the surrounding farms supply guides who know the ice. Its importance comes not from command over the glacier but from its position at the edge of a remote landscape that repeatedly draws military attention.

Setting and access

Höfn lies near the glacier’s southeastern approaches, but reaching it from Reykjavík is far from straightforward. The unbridged rivers flowing from the ice cap across the Skeidará sands cut off the south-coast route to the capital. When the winter airstrip at Hornafjördur is closed, an expedition must instead travel around the country: north first, then south through the East Fjords. In winter, even the roads offer little certainty. A military convoy sent to Höfn had to dig through deep drifts along rough tracks, including across the eastern desert of Mödrudalsöraefi.

The town is therefore both an arrival point and evidence of distance. A force may be directed toward the glacier from Reykjavík, but its arrival depends on weather, roads, rivers, and local conditions beyond its control. In the first search, the soldiers’ journey to Höfn consumed days before they could even begin the work on the ice. The landscape surrounding the town shapes the pace and limits of every response.

The report of the lost aircraft

The connection between Höfn and the aircraft begins with two brothers who see it flying low toward the glacier during a blizzard. Their telephone is out of order, and they cannot alert anyone as the plane disappears into the storm. They wait for the weather to improve, then set out on horseback for Höfn, taking four days to cross deep snow. On the way, they stop at farms and tell others what they saw; none of those farmers has heard of the aircraft.

At Höfn, the brothers report the sighting to the district official. He contacts the authorities in Reykjavík, explaining that a plane seen south of Vatnajökull had almost certainly crashed on the ice. Air traffic control at the US Army base in Reykjavík had not registered a flight in the area, where severe weather had kept traffic to a minimum. The local report thus supplies what the military’s monitoring systems lack: an eyewitness account linking the missing plane to a specific stretch of glacier.

The response quickly shifts from civilian reporting to military control. A telegram from US military headquarters reaches the district official, announcing that the army will take over the investigation and send a rescue party. The army also bans traffic on the part of the glacier where the plane is believed to have gone down, without offering an explanation. To local residents, the case is declared closed even as the search is about to begin. Höfn becomes the point at which a report from isolated witnesses is absorbed into an operation whose purpose and limits are set elsewhere.

The 1945 search and its local guides

Four days after the telegram, twelve military transport vehicles arrive in Höfn carrying two hundred soldiers. Because they cannot use the closed airstrip and cannot cross the unbridged rivers westward, they have reached the town by circling Iceland in six-wheeled vehicles fitted with snow chains. The force includes soldiers of the 10th Infantry Regiment and 46th Field Artillery Battalion under General Charles H. Bonesteel. Some have taken part in winter exercises on Eiríksjökull, but few can ski, a sharp contrast with the terrain they have come to search.

Colonel Miller leads the expedition. His men camp outside Höfn in barracks built by the British occupation force during the war, then move toward the glacier. By the time they reach the brothers’ farm, nearly ten days have passed since the sighting, and snow has fallen without respite. The brothers agree to guide the soldiers onto the ice. They speak no English, so directions and warnings pass through gestures and sign language. Their knowledge does not promise success: they warn Miller that, in the depths of winter, finding the aircraft on or near the glacier will be difficult.

Miller’s later recollection makes clear how the local connection changes the expedition from a military deployment into a personal search. When the report from Höfn reaches the occupying force, he is appointed to lead the mission because the missing pilot is his brother. He goes directly to the farm, where the brothers offer horses, guidance, and practical help. The search fails to locate the aircraft; the soldiers find only its nose wheel, while the glacier has consumed every other trace. Höfn is consequently associated not only with the start of the mission but with the boundary between what witnesses can establish and what the ice will yield.

Repeated approaches and narrative significance

The site’s military significance recurs. Ratoff’s briefing includes the 1967 expedition, another major search for the plane. Like the earlier force, that expedition had to circle Iceland by rough roads, heading north before approaching the ice from the east; avoiding notice proved difficult enough that drastic measures were eventually required. In the later operation, Ratoff’s men travel at night on roads now asphalted, pass Skaftafell, follow the lowland corridor between glacier and sea, and turn off the ring road shortly before Höfn to reach the farm at the glacier’s foot.

The farm preserves the human continuity beneath these changing operations. The farmer watching the later troops is Jón, who has lived alone since his brother died. He has seen previous military attempts and recognizes their kind, although he does not know Ratoff personally. The first searchers needed the brothers’ eyewitness report and guidance; decades later, troops return to the same farm as though the place were a familiar entrance to an unresolved secret. Jón’s recognition registers the repetition even as the personnel, equipment, and roads have changed.

Höfn’s role is thus defined by a persistent imbalance. The town is indispensable as a reporting point and staging ground, and its surrounding residents can guide outsiders toward the glacier. Yet military authorities can take over the inquiry and restrict access without explaining themselves. Across successive searches, Höfn marks the meeting of local observation, difficult geography, and concealed military purpose; the glacier remains the destination, but the town is where the search becomes possible—and where its secrecy first touches ordinary life.