July 27, 2019

July 27, 2019

It rained most of the night in Myvatn, Iceland. But we awoke to a beautiful sunny day, something that is probably a rarity in Iceland. The country sits at the rain-inducing junction of the cold arctic air mass and the warm Gulf Stream. But today we are enjoying the views of Lake Myvatn and the rolling green hills to the west.

Less than an hour west we run straight into horseshoe-shaped Godafoss. This waterfall has multiple curtains of water. We check it out from both sides.

Our next stop is at Iceland’s second city of Akureyri, although it has a population of just 18,000. Even from far off, we can see two cruise ships are in town, including the large Disney Magic. We also accidentally pass the Viking Brewery. Unfortunately it doesn’t offer tours, so we continue on.

The weather is looking great, so we take a detour north around the Troll Peninsula. But as soon as we cross the pass, we run into fog. I am thinking this is Seydisfjordur all over again. I guess fog is just a fact of life for areas next to cold Arctic waters.

Our goal is the cute town of Siglusfjordur at Iceland's northern tip. As we pull in, we are delighted to learn the town is celebrating their heritage today with “Trilludagar” - Fishing Boat Festival. They are serving free food. One stand is preparing Icelandic Hot Dogs and another a sautéed Cod dish. The Cod meal is the culmination of an intensive assembly line filleting the fresh fish and cooking it with onions and peppers. It is delicious!

Siglusfjordur used to be the Herring Capital of Iceland. There is a Herring Era Museum that memorializes that history. It is contained in three buildings. The first one is a boathouse with a dozen boats in harbor that you can crawl over and into.

The second building is the processing plant for rendering and salting herring. The plants employed an assembly line of women to gut the fish. The freshest herring was salted and packed in barrels. The rest of the herring was boiled down and pressed, separating the fish oil leaving fish meal.

Herring fishing was a traditional industry of Northern Europe. When it arrived in Iceland, in the early twentieth century, it transformed this agricultural economy. The revenue spurred Iceland’s independence from Denmark. Unfortunately rapid growth and over fishing depleted the fish stocks, and the industry came to a crashing halt in the late 1960s.

The last building covers the living quarters of the employees. It is mostly wooden bunk beds. The fascinating part is that the rooms look like the workers left this morning leaving everything laying just as it was a half century ago.

As part of the festival, a reenactment is performed in front of the museum. A group of women in period costume are awaken from the dorms and come down to begin their shift of processing herring on an assembly line. Grueling work!

The festival also has music and free boat and fishing rides into the fjord. Unfortunately we are on a schedule and have to keep moving. Just after Siglusfjordur we pass our northern most point, just a few miles short of the Arctic Circle. The rest of the drive around the west side of the peninsula is mostly in fog or in several long one-lane tunnels.