Northern Iceland - Part 1 - Siglufjorddur

We have just returned from a magnificent trip to photograph in the northern part of Iceland in January, the middle of winter. Having never been to northern Iceland before we decided to break the trip into two parts. The first half was taking the road north from Akurereyri to Siglufjorddur before venturing inland to photograph the highly volcanic area around Myvatn Lake. This part will tell you a little about the part of our journey up to Siglufjorddur.

After collecting a Toyota LandCruiser at the airport we set off north in temperatures of around -10 celsius and many snow warnings for the very top of Iceland and a tiny town of Siglufjorddur made famous a hundred years ago for Herring fishing.

It's a stunning drive, through vast fjords and huge tunnels carved through mountains and sometimes over 6 miles long, single file, with passing places.

Before arriving you pass through the lovely settlement of Olafsfjordur (see below) which was also highly photogenic in winter with all the snow and ice and we couldn't resist sending up our drone to capture the town and fjord from above as you can see below;

As we drove through Olafsfjordur we were also mesmerised by the beautiful sight at dusk of the cemetery at the church being lit up by illuminated crosses on each grave with the snow covered mountain behind. An absolutely beautiful sight and I have never seen illuminated crosses like that before.

We then spent a fantastic few days in Siglufjorddur. A more beautiful place would be hard to find. Towering cliffs and huge drops down to the sea. All covered in snow and ice. In mid January, a lot of summer places were closed down. However the local Siglo Hotel and Restaurant was open, together with the local brewery Segull 67 which had lots of great beers brewed on site. Special mention to Arnor (@arnorvals on Insta) a cool local guy with lots of great knowledge on the area. Also open was Grill 66 a burger joint inside the local fuel station and frequented by locals. Outside of that though, Siglufjorddur was pretty much locked down for the winter and no wonder, it snowed like crazy when we were there and was literally knee deep as we walked around the town.

You can see lots of old buildings and boats from the time when Herring fishing was a major industry here, and there are lots of cool buildings around the town although the Herring museum was closed for winter on our visit.

One of the main things I wanted to see and photograph here was the old orange lighthouse Sauøanesviti on the north road out of town. I'd seen lots of nice images of it in summer, but not many in deep mid winter in the snow. Its sits on steep cliffs facing Greenland and I really wanted a good day to send up my drone to try and capture the cliffs and lighthouse but that would mean sending the drone out over the frozen Sea of Greenland. Luckily we had one evening with little wind and I was able to drive out there and capture the lighthouse as I had imagined before the trip. The image is below, and I hope you like it.

After a lovely few days in Siglufjorddur, we headed for Part 2 of our northern Icelandic adventure, and that was to volcanic Myvatn Lake. More to follow......