Vestfirðir, Iceland — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Vestfirðir known for?

A clawed mass of headlands and inlets hangs off the rest of Iceland by a single narrow isthmus, and the road climbs and drops around every fjord in turn. Látrabjarg holds the largest bird cliff in the North Atlantic, Dynjandi fans down the slope above Arnarfjörður, and Hornstrandir lies emptied of people and given over to Arctic foxes. Ísafjörður anchors the region. Few places feel this far out.

Where is Vestfirðir?

Vestfirðir occupies the north-western Iceland corner of the island, and its shape is written by water cutting into rock. The defining feature is the fjords, dozens of them, slicing a clawed peninsula into long fingers of steep flat-topped hills that drop straight to deep, sheltered water. It hangs on by a thread.

A narrow isthmus between Gilsfjörður and Bitrufjörður is all that joins it to the rest of Iceland, which leaves the region turned outward toward the Denmark Strait and the far coast of Greenland. Drangajökull caps the far north-east, the only glacier the region carries. Out west the land runs to Látrabjarg, the great bird cliff at the edge of the country, while the waters of Arnarfjörður take the cascade of Dynjandi falling off the heights above. Ísafjörður sits up north on the spit of Skutulsfjörður, ringed by peaks.

North of everything lies Hornstrandir, a roadless wedge of headland left to the wind and the sea.

What is Vestfirðir like?

Life in Vestfirðir gathers in small harbours tucked at the heads of the fjords. Each grew up on fishing, set close to the rich grounds offshore, and the sea still runs through how the region feeds and tells itself. Ísafjörður holds the most of it, the largest town and the place where trade, schools, and music collect for the scattered villages around. Bolungarvík and Flateyri work the same trade nearby.

The harbours are tiny. The far edges shape the rest. Hornstrandir was emptied of its farms in the mid-twentieth century and left to the foxes, and its abandonment colours how people here speak of distance, isolation, and the pull of a coast too hard to hold.

The Strandir side around Hólmavík keeps a darker thread of folklore, the old sorcery lore of these shores, while painted timber houses line the fjords elsewhere. Icelandic is the everyday tongue. Winters turn the communities inward, and the brief bright summers fill the harbours with boats again.

What is the history of Vestfirðir?

Vestfirðir was settled in the saga age, with farms taking the fjord heads and the coast living from the fish offshore. Good harbours in fjord after fjord, set close to the grounds, carried the region for centuries, and towns like Ísafjörður and Bolungarvík swelled on the back of the fishing boom. Then the far peninsula gave way.

Hornstrandir lost its last farms in the mid-twentieth century, abandoned as the coast proved too remote to work, and the people drew back toward the bigger harbours. The sea decided everything.

What is the climate of Vestfirðir?

The Denmark Strait rules the weather across Vestfirðir. Cold air and storms roll in off the water between here and Greenland, and the steep fjord walls funnel wind hard down onto the harbours, so conditions can turn sharp and fast even in the short summers. Snow shuts the high passes.

Drangajökull in the north-east holds its ice all year, a sign of how raw this far corner of the country stays.

How do you get to Vestfirðir?

Most visitors drive in over the isthmus between Gilsfjörður and Bitrufjörður, the only land bridge from the rest of Iceland. A car is essential. From there the roads wind tightly around each fjord toward Ísafjörður, which also keeps an airport with flights from Reykjavík for those skipping the long haul.

Ferries run out to Hornstrandir in summer, since no road reaches that far north. Distances are real out here.