The world is intact in Skagafjördur. The district in Iceland’s northeast is a place where rivers meander through imposing valleys and sheep graze on green meadows. Only a few people live here, in small settlements or on farmsteads. But in 2012, that idyll was destroyed. The Icelandic electric grid company Landsnet planned a prestige project for the region – a high-voltage transmission line that would run 110 kilometres, connecting the Blanda hydroelectric plant with the town of Akureyri. Opposition soon arose among the area’s residents. The gigantic utility towers not only deface the landscape, they also present a health danger to animals and humans and therefore threaten both farming and the important tourism industry. The determined local landowners enter into a years-long dispute with a large concern that has mastered every lobbying gimmick in the business.