Atlantica - 01.09.2007, Qupperneq 62

“I started working here in 1962, for the man
who established this workshop in 1913.
When his son died 33 years later I was really
the last of the Mohicans,” says Kristján Gun-
narsson, curator of Vélsmidja G.J. Sigurdssonar,
Iceland’s oldest working metal plant, located in
the village of Thingeyri in Önundarfjördur.
Because most of the historic machinery is still in mint condition,
the plant is essentially a living museum. According to Gunnars-
son, the best way to maintain the machines is by using them. For
this reason he still molds net discs for the local fishermen with an
old-fashioned lathe. A maze-like network of straps and wheels
suspended from the ceiling propels about a dozen machines, their
incessant humming and whirring sounding like a beehive.
Since the factory is more or less operational, it doesn’t give off
that museum vibe—instead it feels like you’ve stumbled into a lo-
cal blacksmith’s workshop. The keenest visitors can even arrange
for a lesson in old style anvil and hammer-handling.
60 a t l a n t i c a
The Last Mohican
Jón Eyjólfsson was probably blissfully unaware
that he had been working in a museum for
most of his life. However, a museum is precisely
what the Brædurnir Eyjólfsson bookstore that
he established with his brothers in Flateyri has
become.
Most of the décor in this cozy little shop has been kept intact
since 1908 and although it was officially closed in 1999—over four
decades after Eyjólfsson death—you can still buy sweets and old
books, but only by weight. You can even visit the snug apartment of
the Eyjólfsson family just across the hall from the bookstore. Since
Gudrún Arnbjarnardóttir, Jón’s widow, passed away in 1983, every-
thing inside the home has remained the same. Family portraits still
hang on the walls and the electric mixer in the kitchen looks just as
chic now as it did in the 1940s. There was even a jar of rhubarb jam
on the dining table when Atlantica’s staff visited. No telling its age.
Well-Read
icelanda museums of the west fjords