Ísafjörður

According to the Landnámabók, the Book of Settlements, Skutulsfjörður was first settled by Helgi Magri Hrólfsson in the 9th century. The town grew in the 16th century as a trading post for foreign merchants, at a time when witch trials were common across the Westfjords and many people were banished to the Hornstrandir peninsula to the north. Under the Danish monopoly the merchants built the post now called Neðstikaupstaður on the end of the spit, and its storehouses and merchant's house, put up between 1757 and 1784, are the oldest group of timber-frame houses in Iceland. Ísafjörður was granted municipal status in 1786.

In the first half of the 20th century the town kept growing as a centre of fish processing; the harbour and the fleet expanded, and the population with them. Ísafjörður became one of the largest fishing towns in Iceland. The decline came from the early 1980s, when fishing restrictions and falling fish stocks sent people away in search of work, and the town's population fell.

The map of the area was redrawn in the 1990s. In 1996 Ísafjörður merged with five neighbouring municipalities to form Ísafjarðarbær, and the same year the Vestfjarðagöng tunnel replaced the high, avalanche-prone pass of Breiðadalsheiði to Flateyri and Suðureyri. A tunnel to Bolungarvík followed in 2010. The University Centre of the Westfjords opened in 2005, and new companies, among them Kerecis, have joined the fishing firms as employers.

For its size Ísafjörður has a remarkable musical life. It has a school of music, and in recent years has become known as a centre of alternative music outside Reykjavík. In 2004 the musician Mugison and his father started Aldrei fór ég suður — "I never went south" — as a free concert, and it has become an Easter festival broadcast live across Iceland, a statement that culture need not be confined to the capital. The Við Djúpið festival has brought musicians from Iceland and around the world for master classes and concerts since 2003, and Act Alone, a festival of one-person theatre, is held every August.

Skiing is the other passion. Ski Week fills the town in the week before Easter, and the Fossavatnsgangan ski marathon, held since 1935, is the oldest ski race in Iceland and part of the Worldloppet series; the town has produced many Olympic skiers. The multi-sport club Vestri fields basketball, football and volleyball teams that have played in the top divisions.

Despite its isolation, the town has an unusually urban atmosphere, with a cultural centre and library in the old hospital building and a summer stream of cruise passengers through the heritage museum, where a local troupe in national costume has performed scenes of early 19th-century life.

About 2,700 people lived in Ísafjörður in 2024, making it the largest settlement in the Westfjords and the administrative centre of the Ísafjarðarbær municipality, which also includes Hnífsdalur, Flateyri, Suðureyri and Þingeyri. The town has a hospital, the region's only upper-secondary school and the University Centre, which offers master's programmes in coastal and marine subjects.

Fishing remains the base of the economy, with fish processing, aquaculture firms and the regional energy company among the major employers, and the town is also home to start-ups such as Kerecis. Tourism is growing: the harbour receives large cruise ships, and the town is the main gateway to Hornstrandir, whose ferries run daily in summer.

The rhythm of life is set by the weather and the light. Summer is busy with boats, walkers and cruise passengers; winter brings snow, high winds and very few clear days, and life centres on the pool, the ski slopes and the sports halls.

Fish has long been Ísafjörður's main industry, and it is what Tjöruhúsið serves. The restaurant, in a tar house of 1781 among the trading houses of Neðstikaupstaður, began as a summer coffee shop and turned to seafood after a new owner took it over in 2004. At the heritage museum a costumed troupe has re-enacted the old work of laying out bacalao to dry in the sun.

Dried fish with butter, harðfiskur, was once served with every meal in Iceland, and serving fermented skate on 23 December is a tradition that began in the Westfjords. Hákarl, Greenland shark cured by fermentation and hung to dry for four to five months, with a strong ammonia-rich smell, appears above all at the midwinter þorrablót feasts.

The centre's bakeries and cafés on Aðalstræti and Hafnarstræti are the everyday places to eat, and the town has its own small brewery, Dokkan Brugghús. Wild crowberries and blueberries are among the local ingredients of Icelandic cooking.