Siglufjörður in North Iceland

The Herring Years

The recognised herring era in Siglufjörður lasted from approximately 1900 to 1968.

Herring was caught in immense quantities in the seas north of Iceland. Much of it was salted for export, while increasingly mechanised factories converted the fish and its by-products into oil and fishmeal.

The work was seasonal, physically demanding and dependent upon the arrival of the shoals. When the herring appeared, vessels unloaded their catches and the processing stations worked at extraordinary speed. Barrels were prepared, and teams of workers cleaned, salted and packed the fish before it spoiled.

Women formed a particularly visible part of the salting industry. Known as herring girls, they worked outdoors in cold and wet conditions. Their labour has become one of the defining images of the era, but it should not be reduced to cheerful nostalgia. The work was repetitive and demanding, and income depended upon catches that might arrive in great numbers or fail to appear.

Fishermen, labourers, technicians, merchants and factory workers came from across Iceland and from other countries. During the busiest periods, the seasonal population expanded dramatically. Music, dancing and entertainment developed alongside long shifts and industrial urgency, creating a social world unlike that of the small settlement that had existed only a few decades earlier.

Herring connected Siglufjörður directly with international markets. The town’s importance cannot be understood only through the quantity of fish landed. Salting stations and factories transformed a moving natural resource into one of Iceland’s most valuable export industries. At its height, activity in this remote fjord mattered to the national economy.

The Herring Years

The recognised herring era in Siglufjörður lasted from approximately 1900 to 1968.

Herring was caught in immense quantities in the seas north of Iceland. Much of it was salted for export, while increasingly mechanised factories converted the fish and its by-products into oil and fishmeal.

The work was seasonal, physically demanding and dependent upon the arrival of the shoals. When the herring appeared, vessels unloaded their catches and the processing stations worked at extraordinary speed. Barrels were prepared, and teams of workers cleaned, salted and packed the fish before it spoiled.

Women formed a particularly visible part of the salting industry. Known as herring girls, they worked outdoors in cold and wet conditions. Their labour has become one of the defining images of the era, but it should not be reduced to cheerful nostalgia. The work was repetitive and demanding, and income depended upon catches that might arrive in great numbers or fail to appear.

Fishermen, labourers, technicians, merchants and factory workers came from across Iceland and from other countries. During the busiest periods, the seasonal population expanded dramatically. Music, dancing and entertainment developed alongside long shifts and industrial urgency, creating a social world unlike that of the small settlement that had existed only a few decades earlier.

Herring connected Siglufjörður directly with international markets. The town’s importance cannot be understood only through the quantity of fish landed. Salting stations and factories transformed a moving natural resource into one of Iceland’s most valuable export industries. At its height, activity in this remote fjord mattered to the national economy.

When the Herring Disappeared

The herring era did not end because Siglufjörður gradually chose another industry.

The stocks collapsed.

Changes in the distribution of the fish played a role, while intensive fishing and the rapid growth of industrial harvesting contributed to the disappearance of herring from the traditional grounds. By 1968, the great era was over.

The consequences were severe. A town that had expanded around one dominant resource suddenly lost much of the economic system supporting its population. Processing facilities closed or reduced their activity, employment disappeared and many residents left.

The physical remains of the industry stayed behind. Factories, warehouses, piers and workers’ accommodation stood beside a harbour that no longer operated at the same intensity. For a time, these structures represented economic loss rather than cultural heritage.

Their later preservation did not erase the disruption. It made the disruption possible to understand.

Siglufjörður survived through other fisheries, public services, smaller industries and gradual economic change. It became quieter, but it did not become empty. The town adapted to a life in which herring history remained present without controlling every part of the economy.

Modern Siglufjörður should therefore not be presented as a settlement frozen in 1968. Its character lies partly in what remained from the herring years and partly in everything that continued afterwards.

Síldarminjasafnið: The Herring Era Museum

Síldarminjasafn Íslands, normally shortened to Síldarminjasafnið, is central to understanding Siglufjörður.

The museum is not a conventional exhibition placed inside one converted processing building. It occupies several historic structures connected with different parts of the herring industry. That division allows the visitor to encounter the industry as a complete system rather than as a collection of isolated objects.

One part presents salting and the daily lives of seasonal workers. Another deals with fishing vessels, harbour activity and the practical work of locating and catching the fish. Industrial buildings preserve machinery used to produce fishmeal and oil.

Together, the buildings connect ships, barrels, workers’ accommodation, salting platforms, factories, transport and international trade. They show why herring was not simply another local fishery. It created an industrial town and temporarily drew a remote fjord into a much larger economic network.

The museum also records the social life that developed around seasonal work. Siglufjörður during the herring years was a place of uncertainty and harsh physical conditions, but also of young workers, music and temporary communities. The interpretation can preserve that atmosphere without disguising the difficulty of the labour.

The museum operates throughout the year, but visitors should verify current arrangements outside the main season rather than assuming ordinary daily winter hours. Enough time should be allowed to enter the different buildings. Seeing only the first exhibition gives an incomplete understanding of an industry that occupied much of the waterfront and shaped the entire town.

Roads Through the Mountains

Siglufjörður’s changing relationship with the rest of Iceland can be read through the roads and tunnels that gradually reached it.

For most of the town’s history, the sea offered the easier route. An early road crossed Siglufjarðarskarð, the high mountain pass south of the fjord, but it was steep, exposed and unreliable.

Strákagöng opened in 1967 and provided a safer northern connection. This was a major change, although Siglufjörður still stood at the end of a long route around the northern side of Tröllaskagi.

Múlagöng opened between Dalvík and Ólafsfjörður in 1990, improving access to Ólafsfjörður from the Eyjafjörður side. Siglufjörður, however, still lacked a direct road to its neighbour immediately across the mountains.

The final transformation came with Héðinsfjarðargöng, which opened on 2 October 2010. The tunnels pass between Siglufjörður and Ólafsfjörður through the uninhabited Héðinsfjörður valley. They created a direct connection between the two towns that now form Fjallabyggð.

The tunnels did more than shorten a journey. They gave residents easier access to employment and services and allowed visitors to travel through Tröllaskagi rather than treating Siglufjörður as the end of the road. Each new connection altered the town’s relationship with northern Iceland, just as shipping and the herring fleets had done earlier.

Route 76 now provides reliable access through the peninsula. Winter conditions must nevertheless be checked. Tunnels do not prevent snow, wind or ice from affecting the exposed roads outside their entrances.

Avalanches and the Limits of the Land

The mountains surrounding Siglufjörður have always imposed risks as well as limits.

In 1919, a series of avalanches in Siglufjörður and the surrounding rural area killed 18 people. The disaster did not occur as one slide through the centre of the modern town. It belongs to the broader history of people living and working beneath steep, snow-covered slopes around the fjord.

The avalanche defences visible above Siglufjörður show that the danger is not merely historical. Protective structures interrupt the natural lines of the mountainside and may at first seem intrusive. In reality, they reveal an essential fact about the settlement: the town occupies a confined strip of land between steep mountains and the sea.

There is limited room in which to build, move and expand. Avalanche barriers are therefore part of the contemporary landscape, just as piers, tunnels and former factories are. Each represents a different attempt to make permanent life possible within the physical limits of the fjord.

Visitors walking above the town should follow current local advice and recognise that mountain conditions change quickly. A route that is straightforward in summer may become unsuitable under snow, ice or avalanche conditions. The apparent nearness of a slope or viewpoint from the streets does not make it safely accessible in every season.

Music, Festivals and Cultural Memory

Siglufjörður’s cultural importance extends beyond the herring era.

The Reverend Bjarni Þorsteinsson lived and worked in the town and spent decades collecting Icelandic folk songs. His work preserved melodies and traditions that might otherwise have disappeared as oral transmission weakened.

This gives Siglufjörður’s continuing folk-music tradition a deeper foundation than that of an event created solely for visitors. The annual folk-music festival connects contemporary performance with the long work of collecting, recording and preserving Icelandic musical heritage.

Síldarævintýri, the Herring Adventure, expresses another part of the town’s cultural memory. The festival recalls the herring years through music and public celebration. It does not recreate the industrial conditions of the period, nor should it be mistaken for an exact historical reconstruction. Its importance lies in the way Siglufjörður continues to engage socially with the era that created much of the modern town.

The herring has become history, but the history remains active.

Siglufjörður’s enclosed geography has also shaped its role in fiction and film. Parts of the Icelandic television series Trapped were filmed in the town, while Ragnar Jónasson’s Dark Iceland novels use Siglufjörður as a central setting. In both, winter weather, tunnels and isolation become part of the narrative rather than serving only as scenery. These fictional versions are not descriptions of daily life, but they demonstrate how strongly the real geography of the town can influence a story.

Siglufjörður Today

Modern Siglufjörður is neither the industrial boomtown of the herring years nor a settlement preserved unchanged after the collapse.

It is a small northern community where the working harbour, residential streets, cultural institutions and surrounding landscape remain closely connected. The compact centre is best explored on foot. Former industrial buildings stand near active harbour facilities, while houses rise along the lower slopes behind the waterfront.

Looking back from the harbour reveals how little level land the town occupies. Looking towards the mouth of the fjord explains why its earlier life faced so strongly towards the sea.

Walking routes lead into the mountains and valleys around the settlement. Skiing uses the same winter landscape that historically isolated the town, while kayaking returns the visitor to the water from which Siglufjörður was approached for most of its history. These are not merely activities on a list. Each provides a different perspective on the geography that created the town.

Visitors outside the principal summer season may find Siglufjörður quieter, but quietness should not be confused with closure. It remains a home, workplace and municipal centre throughout the year.

The harbour is a working environment. Operational areas, equipment and access restrictions must be respected, and the residential streets deserve ordinary consideration. The town is small enough that visitor activity often takes place close to people’s homes.

A brief stop reveals the harbour and compact centre, but not the town’s transformation. Visitors interested in its history should allow time for the museum buildings and for walking through the waterfront. The most revealing view is not necessarily elevated: at ground level, the short distance between harbour, homes and mountain makes the structure of Siglufjörður clear.

• • Siglufjörður stands at the head of a narrow fjord on the northern coast of the Tröllaskagi peninsula.
  • Approximately 1,160 people live in the town.
  • Siglufjörður and Ólafsfjörður form the municipality of Fjallabyggð.
  • The recognised herring era lasted from approximately 1900 to 1968.
  • Siglufjörður became one of the most important herring ports in the North Atlantic.
  • At times, industries in the town generated more than 20% of Iceland’s total exports.
  • Herring was salted for export and processed into fishmeal and oil.
  • Women working at the salting stations became known as herring girls.
  • Síldarminjasafnið occupies several historic buildings presenting different parts of the herring industry.
  • Strákagöng opened in 1967 and improved access from the north.
  • Múlagöng opened between Dalvík and Ólafsfjörður in 1990.
  • Héðinsfjarðargöng opened on 2 October 2010 and connected Siglufjörður directly with Ólafsfjörður.
  • Avalanches in Siglufjörður and the surrounding rural area killed 18 people in 1919.
  • Reverend Bjarni Þorsteinsson collected and preserved Icelandic folk songs while living in Siglufjörður.
  • Síldarævintýri continues the town’s cultural relationship with the herring era.
  • Parts of the television series Trapped were filmed in Siglufjörður.
  • Ragnar Jónasson’s Dark Iceland novels use the town and its enclosed geography as a central setting.