Djupavik

Djupavik is a few buildings at the foot of a waterfall on the Strandir coast, and the reason to go is the herring factory: built in a single year from 1934, it was then the largest concrete structure in Iceland, put up in a place with no road at all because the herring were there. The fish left, the plant closed in 1954, and the village emptied. The shell of the factory still stands with its machinery in place, rusting, and it is opened for tours and used for art installations and concerts in summer. The hotel occupies the building that housed the women who worked the salting.

History

Farms stood in the area for hundreds of years, and the village was first settled in 1917, when Elías Stefánsson built a herring salting station here. In 1934, as demand for salted herring fell, the company Djúpavík Ltd. was founded on 22 September at Hótel Borg in Reykjavík to build a factory for herring oil, with a loan raised in Sweden; designed by the engineer Guðmundur Guðjónsson and built in a single year, with every supply brought by ship, the 90-metre factory was the largest concrete building in Iceland, and it worked until 1954 (Wikipedia, Djúpavík).

What you'll find

• A factory built where there was no road - the largest concrete building in Iceland at the time.
• Machinery still in place - left as it stopped in 1954.
• Art and concerts inside - the shell used as a venue in summer.
• A hotel in the workers' quarters - the women's building, still standing.

When to go

June to August; the Strandir road is closed or difficult in winter. Half a day.

Good to know

The road in is long, gravel and slow, and this is genuinely remote. The factory can only be entered on a tour - the structure is not safe to wander. Services are the hotel and nothing else. Weather here closes roads without much notice.

Nearby

The Strandir coast runs north to Krossnes; Holmavik is south.

Key facts