When Icelandic filmmaker Jón Karl Helgason hears that there are an estimated 11 million swimming pools in the United States, he nearly spits his hand-rolled cigarette out of the Zoom frame. Put end to end, American swimming pools would make up a river five times the length of the Mississippi; emptied all at once, they’d contain enough water to keep Niagara Falls crashing at full volume for at least two days. But they’re not exactly a national resource — less than 3% of them are open to the public.
In Iceland, it’s pretty much the opposite: The swimming pool is first and foremost a communal space. “The swimming pool is your second home,” Helgason says. “You are brought up in the swimming pool.” There may be only 160, or so, swimming pools in the entire country (which is roughly 305 miles wide by 105 miles long), but every one of them is the essential social hub of a community, large or small.
The swimming pool is a public utility — as critical as the grocery store or the bank. “The British go to the pub, the French go to the cafes — in our culture, you meet in the swimming pool,” says Helgason. Swimmers come from all walks of life, from farmers to artists to clergymen to celebrities. “You can have 10, 15, 20, 30 people [in the pool] — they’re talking about politics and about their lives.”