Iceland review - 2013, Page 66

Whales, Birds, herring
and Outsider art
In North Iceland one never has to travel far between museums. Every town
and village seem to have at least one, dedicated to their environment,
history, heritage, or quirky collectors. Iceland Review visited four of the
region’s most intriguing.
64 ICELAND REVIEW
museum hopping in North
Iceland, Húsavík, Europe’s
self-proclaimed ‘whale
watching capital,’ is the IR team’s first stop.
Einar gíslason, managing director of the
Húsavík Whale Museum, greets us at the
entrance. Housed in a defunct slaughter-
house, the museum is dedicated to whales
and their habitat, and Iceland’s whaling his-
tory. “The skeletons are the most popular
items on display, especially the narwhale,”
Einar says of a skeleton with a long and
twisted tooth. He expresses his hope that
the skeleton of the blue whale that drifted
ashore in North Iceland in 2010 will be
allocated to the museum. “It’s 25 meters
long and four to five meters wide,” he says,
explaining that they must design a new
building for it. It’s obvious that the blue
whale would dwarf the otherwise mighty
15-meter long sperm whale suspended
from the ceiling. “It’s of a young animal,”
Einar points out, bringing our attention to
the jawbone of a substantially larger sperm
whale.
By the banks of Lake Mývatn stands a
curious round building, harmonizing with
the landscape: Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum. “It
was designed by Manfreð Vilhjámsson,” says
Álfdís Stefánsdóttir of one of the country’s
most respected architects. “He and my
brother had discussed their ideas of what
the museum should look like before he
died.” Sigurgeir Stefánsson, an avid col-
lector of birds and eggs, tragically passed
away in a boat accident in 1999. To honor
his memory, his family decided to fulfill his
dream of a museum, which is managed by
another of his sisters, Stefanía Stefánsdóttir.
On display are 280 taxidermy birds, among
them rare examples of chicks, and 300 eggs,
beautifully arranged in glass compartments.
Amazingly, this is only part of Sigurgeir’s
collection, which includes all birds that
breed in Iceland, except a red phalarope
and a sea eagle, the latter of which is on
loan from the Icelandic Institute of Natural
History.
Siglufjörður is the country’s former her-
ring capital. At the height of the herring
boom in the 1950s, the town was the fifth
largest in Iceland with more than 3,000
inhabitants and 6,000 seasonal workers and
fishermen from Iceland, the Nordic and
Baltic countries. In 1967 the herring dis-
appeared and so did the people. Today, the
charming fishing town has a population of
around 1,200. The Herring Era Museum
commemorates its heritage. “The concept
was to reclaim the atmosphere that was
about to be lost forever. We wanted to
make the museum as true to history as pos-
sible, that people could sense what it was
like to walk around the harbor at night in
1950,” says the museum’s director Örlygur
Kristfinnsson. Its operating director Aníta
Elefsen adds that visitors appreciate their
approach. “There are no glass cases, no ropes
and no signs that say ‘don’t touch.’ People
can actually walk on board the boats.” The
Herring Era Museum won the Icelandic
Museum Award in 2000 and Micheletti
European Museum Award in 2004.
Svalbarðseyri, a tiny community opposite
Akureyri, is home to the Icelandic Folk and
Outsider Art Museum. It cannot be missed
for outside is the giant statue ‘The Curator’
by art collective geðlist, artists with mental
illnesses. “At first they slouched and wore
hoodies, now they hold their heads high,”
says the museum’s director Níels Hafstein.
Folk and outside art is presented along with
progressive modern art, without discrimina-
tion. Characteristic for the museum are also
statues of concrete by Ragnar Bjarnason
(1909-1977), saved from destruction and
lovingly renovated by Níels. “They are either
images of daily life or have a moral message,”
Níels explains. “The one of the devil offer-
ing money to the poor man garnered new
interest after the crisis hit.” The museum
opens 11 to 15 new exhibitions every year.
“Do you want to see my toys?” asks Níels
as we are about to leave. I can’t help but
laugh when he brings forth all sorts of magi-
cal objects, a maze of patterns and flurry
of colors. “I want everyone to leave with
a smile on their face,” he concludes with a
glint in his eyes.  nd a,first nationwide-
parliament in the world. the rule of
BY Eygló Svala arnarSdóTTir
PHOTOS BY PÁll STEfÁnSSon