July 2, 2014

We woke up this morning to pouring rain and very grey skies. Today we were scheduled to take a whale watching trip out of the fjord in Dalvik. Five of the group, including Fred and I, decided not to go on the trip as you sit outside in an open boat for three hours. The whale watching company does provide full coveralls but it still didn't sound like fun to us. Instead we walked around town and visited a small museum with historical photos and items from the 1930's. One room was dedicated to a man who was raised in Dalvik who was 8'8" tall. He left Dalvik for a while, joined the circus in Norway and the US, and also starred in some Hollywood movies. The museum had some of his clothing, such as his huge shoes, and specially made bicycle and chair. Everyone who went on the boa trip said they enjoyed it but they only saw 2 humpback whales from a distance and we have had plenty of other sightings on past trips. As the boat was pulling in, the sun came out, the rain stopped and we could see the beautiful scenery along the fjord. We then enjoyed a barbecue of the fish they caught on their trip.

We then travelled to the end of the fjord to the small fishing village of Siglufjordur. This town is Iceland's northernmost town and was the capital of the North Atlantic's herring industry. During the 20's-50's, this was a major industry in Iceland and herring was considered Iceland's Gold Rush. People flocked to Siglufjordur for work fishing and processing herring. We toured the Herring Era Museum and were amazed at what was involved. Millions of tons of herring were handled by workers in an assembly line fashion, cutting off heads and putting them in salt barrels for shipment all over the world. By the mid 50's, the herring had been fished out and the town went through hard times. Their economy is now coming back fishing for shrimp.

Tonight we were on our own so we wandered around Akureyri and had nice Itallian dinner in town.

To view more photos from our trip to Siglufjordur, please go to Siglufjordur Photo Gallery. To read about the next location visited, go to Golden Circle .

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