Iceland's highland interior is a vast, otherworldly expanse of hardened lava fields, river crossings, and active volcanic terrain that stretches across much of the island's rugged core. The landscape is shaped by more than 30 active volcanoes — making Iceland one of the most volcanically active places on Earth — and the resulting lava fields can extend for dozens of kilometers, broken only by glacial rivers and geothermal vents. It is a place that feels, as Gates puts it, like a 'brutal land exactly like the one the Vikings first saw when they arrived here from Scandinavia 1,200 years ago.' For investigators of Norse history, these highlands are not merely scenery — they are believed to have directly informed Viking cosmology, including the mythology surrounding Surtr, the fire demon associated with Ragnarok, the cataclysmic end of the world. Gates traveled into this remote interior alongside archaeologist Kevin Smith and his colleague Gudmundur Olafsson, exploring where Norse myth and the physical Icelandic landscape appear to converge.
Norse settlers, arriving from Scandinavia, establish the first permanent communities in Iceland, encountering the volcanic highland interior for the first time
Viking oral and written traditions, including mythology tied to volcanic landscapes like Surtr and Ragnarok, are believed to have developed and solidified during Iceland's settlement era
Gates films Season 4, Episode 1 of Expedition Unknown, 'Viking Secrets,' traveling into the Icelandic highlands with Kevin Smith and Gudmundur Olafsson
Archaeologist Kevin Smith and Gudmundur Olafsson, who accompany Gates into the Icelandic highlands, help frame the central question of the investigation: how did Iceland transform the Vikings from a military powerhouse into a cultural force whose legends would echo through history? Olafsson explains that the initial appeal of Iceland was straightforward — it was unoccupied land reachable from Scandinavia, and Norse expansion was driven by a constant push outward into new territory. In the highlands, that expansion met a landscape unlike anything the settlers had encountered before.
Mainstream scholarship broadly agrees that Iceland's volcanic environment played a meaningful role in shaping Norse cultural production. It was in Iceland that the Vikings are believed to have developed and refined their written tradition, preserving the sagas and the Eddic poems that form the backbone of what we know about Norse mythology today. The site of Reykholt, which Gates visits earlier in the episode, is considered culturally vital to this tradition. The highland lava fields add a physical dimension to that story — scholars have long noted the correspondence between descriptions of Muspelheim (the realm of fire in Norse cosmology) and the volcanic Icelandic interior.
The connection between Surtr — the fire giant who, according to myth, will set the world ablaze at Ragnarok — and Iceland's volcanic activity is a subject of genuine academic interest, though the precise relationship between lived volcanic experience and mythological development remains a matter of interpretation rather than settled fact. Whether the Vikings who settled Iceland were directly inspired by specific eruptions or landscapes they encountered, or whether the mythology arrived with them from Scandinavia and was later reinforced by the new environment, is a question the episode explores without claiming a definitive answer.
Gates' investigation contributes an on-the-ground sense of just how dramatic and disorienting the Icelandic highland landscape is — he and his companions travel through terrain that genuinely feels like another world, lending weight to the idea that settlers encountering it for the first time might have found their cosmological frameworks challenged or confirmed by what they saw. The episode is careful to present this as an exploration of the question, not a resolution of it.
Iceland is believed to have been first permanently settled by Norse Vikings around 870 AD, according to Gudmundur Olafsson as interviewed by Gates on camera.
Iceland sits atop more than 30 active volcanoes, giving its highland interior a landscape that has changed relatively little since the Viking Age.
The midnight sun phenomenon — which Gates memorably describes on camera at 11:30 PM, saying 'it's like the sun is broken' — is a real feature of Icelandic summers near the Arctic Circle.
Iceland is thought to be one of the places where the Vikings perfected their written tradition, preserving the sagas and mythological texts that are now the primary sources for Norse religion and legend.
Iceland's highland interior is generally accessible to adventurous visitors, though the terrain demands a sturdy 4WD vehicle and considerable caution — river crossings and remote lava field tracks are not suitable for standard cars. Many highland routes are only open during the summer months, roughly June through September, when roads become passable after winter snowmelt. Check current Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration advisories before attempting any highland journey.
Reykjavik is the nearest major city and the natural base for any highland expedition, approximately 1–3 hours by road depending on the specific destination within the lava fields.
Summer (June through August) offers the best conditions for highland travel, with roads open and extended daylight — though, as Gates notes with some bewilderment, Icelandic summers mean near-constant sunlight that can disorient even the most seasoned traveler. Avoid the highland interior in winter, when most tracks are impassable.
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is the Norse homeland from which Viking settlers sailed to Iceland around 870 AD, making it the direct cultural and archaeological antecedent to the Icelandic highland sites Gates investigates.
Dyatlov Pass
Dyatlov Pass represents a similarly remote, hostile highland wilderness environment where human activity meets extreme natural forces — a thematic parallel to the Icelandic lava field investigations.
Scottish Highlands
The Scottish Highlands share the rugged, myth-saturated northern European landscape character that connects the Viking world to later Celtic and Norse cultural traditions explored across multiple Gates expeditions.