Siglufjörður

Siglufjörður, Iceland

Town seal
"Nickname: "Síldarbærinn" (Herring Town), Sigló"
Location of Siglufjörður in Iceland
County	Eyjafjarðarsýsla
Constituency	Northeast
Area	155 km² ( 59.85mi²)
Population	1,438
Density	9.28/km²
Postal code	580
Latitude / Longitude
[http://www.siglo.is/ Municipal website]

Siglufjörður is a small fishing town in a narrow fjord with the same name on the Northern coast of Iceland.

Population in 2004 was 1,386 but the town has been shrinking in size since the 1950s when the town reached its peak with 3000 inhabitants.

The municipality of Ólafsfjörður and Siglufjörður has merged to form a municipality called Fjallabyggð, which literally means "Mountain Settlement".

History

The town grew up around the herring industry that was in much bloom in the 1940s and 1950s, but the herring are gone now.

Siglufjörður was connected with a road for the first time in 1940, when the horse riding trail through Siglufjarðarskarð was improved enabling cars to get through. Before, ships, seaplanes, horses and strong legs provided the transport.

Currently

Today the town remains dependent on fishing industries although the herring are gone. The government of Iceland is attempting to reverse the population shrinking in the area by improving land transportation. Two road tunnels will be dug in the next decade to connect Siglufjörður to the neighbouring town of Ólafsfjörður in the region of Eyjafjörður to the east. These tunnels will be called Héðinsfjörður Tunnel and their total length will be 11 km (6.8 miles). Siglufjörður is already connected by the 800 m Strákar Tunnel to the west, currently it is the town's only road connection and often gets closed during winter because of snow or avalanche danger.

The old road to Siglufjörður is open during the summer. The road was and still is the highest mountain road in Iceland and is used today both for hiking, horseriding and pleasure driving.

The tunneling project is controversial due to its high cost and the fact that it benefits mainly a few thousand people in villages that have been shrinking fast in the last decade, there are many who are not convinced that the tunnels will reverse this development. The controversy also involves a seemingly easier access to public funds for projects in the more remote parts of Iceland than in the Reykjavík area, many allege that this is caused by the area's over-representation in Alþingi but currently 2 of the 10 MPs of the Northeast constituency are from Siglufjörður although the town comprises less than 4% of the constituency's population. Another source of controversy are environmental reasons because the tunnel project requires a road to be built across Héðinsfjörður fjord which is uninhabited and has barely been developed at all so far.

The town enjoys a large population of former inhabitants. These people had moved away to other places in Iceland, because of lack of work in the area or in quest for higher education. These people are coming back to town and choosing to spend a lot of their vactions in the area. They buy old houses and renovate them. The climate of the town is very mild, and the temperature is often high during the summer. Endless hiking possibilities in the mountains attract many, but the place is still a secret for many of the travelling crowd.

One of the aspects of the new tunnel to Héðinsfjörður, is that it will open up interesting mountain tracks, trout fishing opportunities etc, which so far have only been open to boat owners or those willing to walk the old trail over the pass between Siglufjörður and Héðinsfjörður.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.siglo.is/ The Town's official website (www.siglo.is)]
* [http://www.siglo.is/herring/ The Herring era museum in Siglufjörður]
* [http://www.sksiglo.is The unofficial website for the inhabitants of Siglufjörður, includes web cam. (vefmyndavél)]