Surtsey is an island situated in the Westmann archipelago south of Iceland. Born some fourty years ago it is one of the youngest lands in the world and, as such, is used as an observatory by the international scientific community, and more especially the Icelandic one. Access to this true « laboratory of formation » is not allowed, except to a few expeditions conducted every year by scientists who are empowered to deliver access permission. The author – who did not yet began her fieldwork – questions the forms of appropriation of an inhabited territory accessible only a few times a year to a restricted community of researchers. This extreme sanctuarization of a natural site raises the problem of patrimonialization of nature in view of the relation of Icelanders to it.