Husavik, Nordurping, Iceland - 07/02/17

Norðurþing Coat of Arms

Leaving the Eastern Region and reaching the north coast, we arrive in Husavik, a town in Nordurping with 2.122 inhabitants. The name of the town means "bay of houses".
As with most coastal Icelandic towns, the income is based around fishing, tourism, small retail and industry.
One of the tourist attractions in the village is bay watching, due to whales of different species entering the bay. The city is known for it's whale watching, and for the presence of Husavik Whale Museum, which is already in our list, along with the Exploration Museum.
Due to it's proximity to the north pole, Husavik experiences midnight sun (when the sun is visible during the entire day) from 11 of June to June 29. - I guess we could say that people in Husavik have 18 days more than us ?(or less nights, if you like going out -or sleeping). - Anyway, we just barely missed it.

As planned, our first stop was the famous Whale Museum, a non-profit organization established in 1997. There we could learn about whales and other cetaceans and their environment, through informative and attractive displays.
The museum is run by an international volunteer program, which gives the participants the chance to learn more about the whales and experience them in their natural environment, with one trip per day on whale boats for research.
There were two floors; on the first one we learned about the habitat and ecosystem of whales, with very captivating and creative exhibits, and on the second floor we entered the "Whale Gallery", with authentic skeletons of 9 species.

Interesting Facts:

• The museum gives emphasis to Icelandic whales and cetaceans in the North Atlantic.

• Special attention is given to orcas, including the most famous Icelandic orca, Keiko, who portraits Willy in the 1993 movie Free Willy.

• The museum offers two whaling documentaries to give visitors an understanding of the issue.

The second visit on our list is a very recent and captivating museum, The Exploration Museum, opened in 2014.
The main things we experienced were objects (photographs, artifacts and documents) from astronaut training and early expeditions.
Husavik has an interesting connection with space exploration; there were geology training expeditions done by the Apollo team in Iceland in 1965 and 1967, and in 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo field trip to Iceland, the museum organised a return trip with three Apollo astronauts, Walter Cunningham, 'Rusty' Schweikart and Harrison Schitt.
The museum has also been visited by a few other astronauts.
Along with space exploration artifacts, we learned about viking expeditions and the discovery of the South Pole by Norwegian and British explorers (who tragically died on the return journey) in 1911.

Next stop, "Capital of North Iceland"