7/19/25: Hofsós' Emigration Center & Elves' Basalt Columns!

Earlier in the day, Steven and I had explored Eiríksstaðir, Eirík the Red's home, two turf churches, and an open-air museum before detouring from Iceland's Ring Road to drive north up the west coast of the Tröllaskagi Peninsula toward the village of Hofsós. For centuries, it was one of the most important trading posts in northwest Iceland and critical to the Danish trade monopoly. One of Iceland's oldest buildings was Hofsós' 1777 Warehouse, now the Icelandic Emigration Center, which told the story of 16,000-plus Icelanders who emigrated to the Americas from 1870 to 1914.

Men who were not farm workers in their own right in Iceland were long compelled to be employed by a farmer. While this policy ensured that farmers always had plenty of access to readily available and cheap labor, it severely limited workers' freedoms. They were contracted to work for a year at a time, living in the farmer's home, and the farmers received all the profits from their work. The laborers received a small wage in addition to room and board, but couldn't marry and establish their own farm until they had land to live on. Until the end of the 19th century, about a quarter of the population lived as bonded farm workers.

Before the Icelanders emigrated in large numbers to North and South America in the latter part of the 19th century, over a hundred men and women from south Iceland converted to Mormonism. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' missionaries arrived in Iceland from 1855 to 1870 to attract new people to its community in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

There were multiple reasons for the emigration: a series of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, a persistent cold period, the growing fishing industry could not employ all the workers who wanted to escape the hard rural life, and the general lack of prospects for people, particularly in northern Iceland. 

With drift ice remaining off Iceland's shores most years from 1870 to 1892, merchant ships found themselves in danger, and fishing was poor. Though a change in the country's law allowed people to move from traditional farming work to look for other opportunities, new arrivals in fishing villages were unable to make ends meet. 

Iceland's main exports in the last quarter of the 19th century were horses, sheep, and meat. The sheep sales had important consequences for emigration, as the Icelanders were paid in cash for their stock, making them able to afford the cost of travel. 

There was little initial opposition to emigration, but that changed when emigration was at its height, and there were fears that Iceland might become depopulated. More Icelanders died in 1860 than were born. People realized that the flow of emigrants had to cease by making Iceland a better place to live through economic development and encouraging people to regain their faith in the country and its future. 

When Icelandic emigration began, Canada had recently been established as a nation. The Canadian government wanted to bring in immigrants from Europe, who were offered assisted passage, free farming land, and, in hard times, even food. For Icelanders who had little or no land, Canada sounded like a dream come true. 

The Canadian government bought subscriptions in Icelandic-Canadian newspapers, which were distributed in Iceland, so Icelanders knew what was happening in Canada's Icelandic communities. Emigration was encouraged by good news from the New World, and by agents hired by the Canadian government to bring in more Icelanders. Foreign shipping companies also had agents working on their behalf to compete to bring in new immigrants. Baldvin Baldvinsson was one of the most successful agents.

Agents told Icelanders that America was the land of opportunities, and they imagined a "land of milk and honey, in contrast to penury in Iceland." Hopes of a better future led many people to emigrate to the New World. Icelanders who had already emigrated to Canada wrote home to encourage their friends and relatives to join them in the land of the free. Most emigrants went mainly to Canada, where Gimli, Manitoba, became known as New Iceland. Others ended up in North Dakota and South Dakota.

In the early 19th century, it was prohibited to live by the sea unless people had a house, a vegetable garden, and enough land to graze a cow or six sheep. These conditions made it all but impossible for poor rural workers to move to a fishing village. 

When regulations eased, fishing from decked sailing ships that could go farther afield reached its height from 1880 to 1910. People flocked to the villages by the sea in search of work on the fishing ships and in the processing centers on land. As in the country, women did all the domestic tasks, and were often employed in the factories, fish drying, fish gutting, and other tasks. Children assisted their parents as soon as they were old enough to become useful.

The fishing industry, a sideline for farmers for centuries, gained importance toward the end of the 19th century in Iceland, as farmers sent their laborers to fishing stations for the summers. When merchants began to buy fresh fish from the farmers and hire workers to process the fish, it became the first step toward the development of the fisheries as a separate economic sector. 

Small wooden homes were built in the fishing villages for seamen and workers. The museum featured a typical seamen's home, which was called a dry home.

What intrigued me the most at the museum was the Saga Brasílíufaranna, or the story of Icelanders who left for Brazil. After the worst winter in living memory made conditions severe for sheep farmers in 1858, one frustrated farmer said, "We should stop farming here and move to Greenland." Another asked how it would make sense to move from one fierce climate to another, and added that there are three countries to choose from to move to: Brazil, Canada, and the United States. After also looking into conditions in Australia, he concluded that Brazil was "without doubt one of the best conditions in the world, and we should move there."

Once the Brazilian government promised Icelanders free passage all the way to Brazil, hopeful emigrants were required to register with two Icelandic representatives to set sail in the summer of 1873. The voyage to Brazil was far from a pleasure cruise for the Icelanders, due to a cholera epidemic that caused the deaths of multiple passengers. After numerous ups and downs between 1865 and 1873, only 35 Icelanders landed in Brazil, settling in the German colony of Dona Francisca in Santa Catarina, Brazil's second southernmost state. They had hoped to go to Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state, but there was news of violence there. 

None of the nearly 500 others who had signed up to emigrate to Brazil left Iceland because a ship never came. One member of the original settlers, Magnús Söndahl, was 12 when his family emigrated. His daughter, Nanna, later became a women's rights pioneer in Brazil and the second woman in her state to earn a medical license. When she visited Hofsós in 1996, she was the last living member of the first generation of Icelanders born in Brazil. I read that she was credited with preserving the history of Icelandic settlers there.

In the early decades of the 19th century, Germans, Swiss, Portuguese, and Spanish were among the first wave of immigrants to Brazil. When the Icelanders arrived in 1873, there were only about 330,000 European immigrants in Brazil. Following the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888, there was a great demand for labor in the growing coffee industry, resulting in an estimated 4.3 million Europeans having emigrated there by the beginning of World War I. 

The adjacent black building was the repository for the genealogy library and had exhibits on Icelandic settlement in North Dakota. We didn't take time for more than a cursory glance, preferring to see more of the village instead before heading to the tip of the peninsula.

The Hofsós villagers were fortunate that two very wealthy Icelandic businesswomen gifted them with a large, thermal municipal pool, which opened in 2010. The outdoor infinity pool and a small hot pool had unobstructed views of the fjord. If we had been staying in Hofsós overnight, a dip in the community pool would have been delightful. 

Next to the pool was a magnificent view of Hofsós from the Staðarbjörg cliffs, which were historically believed to be the capital of the area's elf community! A steep trail led down to the impressive basalt columns that rose up from the sea.  

Across from the pool was Hofsóskirkja, a concrete church built in 1960 and unusual for its bright blue roof. 

Continuing north along the Tröllaskagi Peninsula between the Eyjafjörður and Skagafjörður fjords, we spotted the uninhabited offshore islands of Dragney and Malmey, both popular with birders. 

Further north, as the road curved around one of the peninsula's fingers, we looked out at the sea, knowing that we were gazing toward the Arctic Circle!

A short, one-lane tunnel had a single pullout for cars coming in the opposite direction to wait while we drove by.

The tunnel deposited us in the adorable town of Siglufjörður on the Mast Fjord, which is why we chose to detour around the peninsula.

These photos of the town's harbor would have to suffice until the morning, when we had more time to tour the excellent Herring Era Museum!

Notice the restaurant's oak barrel had been converted into a chair!

I watched as a couple braved the chilly waters to swim to the ladder by the boat that was moored by the Siglo Hotel, where we stayed. 

Thank goodness that our room that night was large and comfortable after a long day touring a chunk of northwest Iceland!

Next post: Learning all about the herring girls and whale watching by Húsavík.

Posted on August 20th, 2025, from my hometown of Ottawa, Canada, where we came to visit family and dear friends, and bury my brother Paul's ashes in a couple of days. Please take care of yourself and always make sure to let loved ones know how precious they are.