Húsavík

According to the Landnámabók, the medieval Book of Settlement, Húsavík was the first place in Iceland settled by a Norseman. The Swedish Viking Garðar Svavarsson spent a winter here around 870, and when he sailed in the spring he left behind a man named Náttfari and two slaves, a man and a woman, who established a farm. The town's name means "bay of houses", probably a reference to Garðar's homestead, which may then have been the only house in the country.

In 1882 the town's cooperative society was founded, the oldest in Iceland. The wooden church, designed by Rögnvaldur Ólafsson, was completed in 1907. Fishing remained a mainstay, and until 2004 its harbour shipped the silica extracted from Lake Mývatn. In 1965 and 1967 American Apollo astronauts trained in the country near the town.

Whale watching later transformed the harbour. The Whale Museum opened in 1997 and moved into the old slaughterhouse in 2002, and Húsavík became a centre of whale watching in Iceland. In 2020 the town was the setting for the Netflix comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, whose song "Húsavík" was nominated for an Academy Award and performed on location in the town; residents reported a sharp rise in visitors, and a Eurovision museum opened in 2021. Regular flights to Reykjavík ended in 2024, after a new tunnel brought Akureyri within an hour by road.

Húsavík's public life turns on the sea and on the museums that explain it. The Whale Museum, the Exploration Museum — with its memorial to the Apollo astronauts outside — and the civic museum give a town of this size an unusual cultural weight, and the Eurovision museum plays on the fame the town gained from the 2020 film.

The year's great event is Mærudagar, the "Candy Days", held on the last weekend before the August bank holiday, when thousands of people from all over Iceland come for music, colourful decorations, food and drink. The town's football club, ÍF Völsungur, last played in the top division in 1988 but remains a focus of local loyalty, and the town has a music school with a brass band.

As in most Icelandic communities, the town has a heated pool, and swimming is hugely popular. Respect for the land, staying on paths and roads, is expected of visitors as much as of residents.

About 2,450 people lived in Húsavík in 2024, and it lies in Norðurþing municipality, with an upper secondary school, a primary school and a small airport that now handles only general aviation and medical flights. Income comes from tourism and fishing, as well as from retail and small industries.

The town climbs from the harbour up the slope towards Húsavíkurfjall, a hill 417 metres high on its eastern side, and from almost every street the view runs across the bay to the mountains of Kinnarfjöll; on a clear day Flatey is visible and sometimes Grímsey. The town has an outdoor public swimming pool, a nine-hole golf course and two gyms.

The light sets the rhythm of the year. The sun stays up through the night from 11 June until 29 June, and summer is the busy season, when the whale-watching boats run and the harbour fills with visitors. At the winter solstice there are less than three hours of daylight, and the town settles into a quieter pace of work, school and the pool.

Húsavík eats from the bay and the hills. The harbour restaurants specialise in fish and seafood, and the quality of Icelandic lamb is a point of national pride. Traditional preserved foods remain part of the table: harðfiskur, fish dried by cold air and wind and traditionally eaten with butter, and hangikjöt, smoked lamb, a staple at Christmas.

Dairy gives skyr, which has the consistency of strained yogurt but a milder flavour and is classed as a fresh sour milk cheese. The everyday snack is the pylsa, a hot dog made from Icelandic lamb, pork and beef, served with raw and fried onion, ketchup, sweet brown mustard and remoulade. Kleinur, small knotted buns of fried dough, and snúður, a cinnamon roll usually topped with glaze or melted chocolate, are long-standing favourites at the bakery.

Beer and wine are served in the town's bars and restaurants; outside them, alcohol is sold only in the state shops. The supermarket is the place for picnic supplies before a day on the roads to the east.