Visit Akureyri - The Capital of North Iceland - A Nation of It's Own
Hello and welcome to join me as we explore Akureyri, the capital of Northern Iceland, the home of 20.000 people which many claim to be an ethnic group of its own As usual we start the journey on the map, overlooking Iceland’s deepest fjord, Eyjafjörður It stretches 60 kilometers inland from the north coast, surrounded by mountains and at the bottom of the fjord we find Akureyri, which is also my old home town And as I often do in my town series, I start by asking what Icelanders think of when Akureyri is mentioned. And in this case we have plenty to choose from, but first i would say, it is the beauty of the town, often the good weather they have around there, but all Icelanders would say, it’s the accent because you can easily hear if an Icelander is from Akureyri, but Iceland has indeed only 2 dialects The normal Icelandic dialect, and the Akureyri dialect, but the only difference though, is that the pronunciation is harder up north, way harder Like in the word “milk” Which sound like “mjólk” in Reykjavík, but “mjólk” in Akureyri And there is lots to come about the quirks and quarks of the Akureyri tribe, so this was a fun video for me to make, both easier and harder than many of my other town visits that i’m sharing on my channel It was easier since I have a lot of footage from all seasons to share with you with this time, but harder since I had to go cherry picking since there's just so much that can be said about the ribe up north I feel as if I'm in a way introducing you to a nation of its own, a nation with its own language and it’s own culture. And the fact that i've lived half my live in Reykjavík, and the other half in Akureyri will provide you with “unique inside information” Information that you won't find in any tourist brochure But I will try to keep my approach tourist friendly as well, since after all, this is a town that has a lot to offer to the world, but let's start with the history. This is Helgi Magri or Helgi the slim. who settled all Eyjafjörður in the 9th century and built his own farm at a site which he named Kristnes (Christ Cape) around 12 km south of Akureyri, But as for the town’s development, the first buildings were made by Danish merchants, but the first residential house wasn't built until late 18th century, when Akureyri became a certified trading post.
And the name of the town, Akureyri, originates from a field, and many of those old fields can still be seen in this aerial photo from the 1950’s so this land under the town, like most of Eyjafjörður was and still is a good farmland. Or as an old Icelandic saying goes, “it is where the butter drips from each straw” even though we are only around 100 kilometers from the arctic circle Danish influences would mark the town right from the beginning as they thought the local villagers how to plant trees and flowers, and gardening is still today the main characteristic of the town And the people around here still love everything Danish, and in fact they love it so much that the King of Denmark visited them in 1907 and those were the glory days for the villagers that all gathered downtown to celebrate his visit And 65 years later, the queen of Denmark came to visit Akureyri,, so to honor her, they made a new highway through town and called is “The Queens road” Again, those were the glory days for the people in Akureyri And ever since, there has been this myth, or that the people in Akureyri speak Danish on Sundays, and I suspect that some of my family members do so but they are reluctant to admit it. The Danes were eager to buy meat and wool products so in the late 19th century, the local farmers formed a Co-operative Society (coop) which made a strong impact in the growth and development of the town. Here was a leather factory here for a while, a clothing factory, a shoe factory and Akureyri was for a long time the main stronghold of the co-op policy, and politics But the old co-ops could not handle the retail competition that was later to come, and most of them went bankrupt, but in Akureyri, they lived on for for way longer time, and there is still a certain conservatism among the townspeople, the people around here just ate what the Co-Up sold, and if the local co-op didn't sell it, it had to be a suspicious product So Akureyri was and still is a kind of matrix of its own But i do happen to be an expert in this field since in my last job in Akureyri was as a salesman job for the largest wholesale company outside the Reykjavik region, so I used to work closely with many food importers who always said the same thing about us, up north Selling something new to people in this town is hopeless, especially when it comes to food And I remember it so well, as a young salesman, that I always had the best of times when I had something new, or some fresh ideas to sell and during this period, products such as imported frozen pizzas were introduced for the first time to the market , so i gave it a go, or to sell frozen Pizza’s to the local merchants in Akureyri But the replies would be something like this This pizza thing, if we put this into our freezers, there will be less room for the sheep heads And to describe the mentality around here even better. There is this good old Icelandic joke about people from Akureyri, but it originates from the traditional Icelandic christmas bread that looks like this, a thin crispy bread that we fry in sheep fat before christmas, but the joke goes like this. What did the guy from Akureyri say when i saw a pizza for the first time, who threw up on my christmas bread.
And this is a joke that tells a lot about the mentality up here, soi gave up on the town. And I felt as it had no room for my ideas, and I moved to Reykjavík where I would work for a progressive retail company for the next 4 years until I bought my own retail store that I would operate for the next 25 years. But my customers could recognize my accent all the time, it's just really hard to get rid of it, and i didn’t even try it actually But I'm back i Akureyri now, but only for a while and it gave me the chance to re-discover the town from a new perspective, and enjoy the best of what it has to offer. because Akureyri has plenty to offer, but things have sure changed a lot around here. The new generation is not as old fashioned as their parents were, and there is more flow of people through town as Akureyri has even its own university now This used to be a kind of closed society, but i heard from students the other day it has changed, they can actually go out pubbing and socializing nowadays with the local people, and that's an improvement for sure but despite the extensive school structure that has been built up in recent decades, Akureyri is still an industrial town, it is the home of Iceland’s largest fishery company, and the largest brewery They had a candy factory for many years but it was sold, and the new owner moved it to Reykjavík, but the townspeople have never forgiven him, for moving their own chocolate brand to Reykjavík The so-called industry smell in the towns are comes from a coffee roasting factory and also from the place where they smoke the traditional Icelandic Hangikjöt, but but meat processing is still a very strong industry in and around the town and the “inner market” in Akureyri is still very much present, these people want to get their sunday roast from a local company or a local farmer, and enjoy a cup of coffee from the local coffee roasting factory. The same goes for shopping, and they did do a good job by building the largest shopping mall outside the capital region not so long ago And for a long time there was pressure to open an aluminum smelter in the fjord, but fortunately it never came to be.
In my opinion, we should place such factories i ugly landscapes and we just don't find that around here. One of the oldest industries in town was ship building, or a profession that my grandfather used to work in for a while, the even built freight ships here for a while but due to competition and cheap labor elsewhere, they only do repairs and modifications now Akureyri is in the midst of an agricultural region, mostly dairy farms, so there is a big milk processing plant in town and other companies that service the farmers around, and some of the farmers offer tourist services like this one, who placed a little coffee shop in a cowshed, and there is a growing interest among Icelanders to buy products directly from the farmer, and in my opinion, that’s the way to do it And a tour to Akureyri should include a trip to some of the deep valleys of the fjord, and for those who have jeeps, it’s possible to drive all the way up the the highlands from the innermost valley, And as for the north part of the fjord, I have already covered all villages around there so iðm leaving links for them The distance from the mouth of Eyjafjörður to the end of the innermost valley of the fjord is around 120 kilometers, and the whole of Eyjafjörður is a wonderland of it’s own with plenty of things to do But since I'm moving a bit into tourism, let's go skiing first. The mountain above Akureyri, Hlíðarfjall, offers some of the best skiing facilities in Iceland, and we start here by this old building that has always been called the “Ski Hotel” even though it’s not operated as such. But when they built it, they used the timber from the old hospital in town, and according to the staff there, it’s a haunted house, but the locals don't mind since the ghosts of past times do simply thrive well in Akureyri The slopes are of all difficulty levels and the latest addition to the ski lifts is this one, elevating the guests to over 1000 meters. There have been winters with very little snow in the recent decades so they do have machinery now to make snow, but it seems as though it's getting colder again so it’s getting easier to keep the mountain open. So winter sports are an important, and growing part of the tourist infrastructure in town, and i do have a longer video online covering the ski slopes better and linking to it But a new motel is being built by the roots of the ski slopes, or just around here with the mountain in the background, so they have this great tourist spot there in the making and this is how the northern lights look from there.
And usually i don't recommend that people go northern light sightseeing near towns but in the case of Akureyri, it’s a photogenic town, and you can work you way around it There is an ice skating rig in Akureyri so it is by far the best place in Iceland when it comes to winter sports, it is as simple as that But lets move to summer view again, as we move down the mountain after the snow is gone, There we find the auto club with new race tracks where they can do the stunts they can't do elsewhere And one of the highlights of the tourist season are the so called car days in Akureyri, or a long weekend that's also been driving some of the residence crazy due to the noise, and often careless driving in town So the “Car Day’s” are not the days when you want to enjoy the stillness of the fjord, as the smell of nature gives way to the smell of burned rubber. What sound was this? But one of the most important part of the tourist industry is of course the local airport, which is also an international airport. It is still under construction as such, and the latest milestone was the installation of ILS landing system So it’s a constant battle to get funds for each and every step of the way, as they are moving into competition with the Keflavík International Airport And there has always been a lack of scheduled flights between Akureyri and Europe, except occasionally, but just the day i was doing this voiceover, it was announced that a new airliner will start to operate from Akureyri, as of June 2022 And they will offer scheduled flights to Spain, UK and of course Denmark, using an Airbus A319 and the airliner name, Niceair And i have the feeling that this might just be the beginning of a larger adventure for them up north But from Akureyri airport offers already scheduled flight to Reykjavík many times a day, and it’s also possible to fly to the island Grímsey, that sits on the arctic circle with 60 inhabitants and millions of Puffins and other seabirds It’s is not uncommon to see private jets parked there for a longer or shorter period, and fancy ships as well in the harbor, like in this case the Sailing Yacht A, and the private plane that accompanies it but this package was located here for 1-2 months in 2021 So for those of us who are into photography, we didn't complain, but some of Iceland's best salmon rivers are nearby so that helps to bring in the “big fish” when it comes to tourism But we are done with the airport for now, and let’s go downtown, starting in the old town For me it’s one of the most beautiful part of Akureyri, all the houses have been renovated and midst in the old town we have the local museum that includes an old church, built in 1846 and later moved to Akureyri where it’s still used for weddings and such And another part of the Akureyri Museum is the so called Nonni museum, is but he was perhaps the most famous son of the town The author of some of the most popular books children books that were ever written by an Icelander, books that were made into a TV series in Germany, so his legend lives on When the highway “Queens Road” by the shoreline opened up, we got a new pond that grew to be a big part of the appearance of the old town Or a place where we see people with cameras very frequently, and this is perhaps the best known silhouette of Akureyri, with the church in the background. For me it’s a kind of “clishe photography” since there are so many photos of this out there.
But a construction company recently suggested a tall futuristic building there, just behind this old house, and it would have changed the appearance of the town a lot And it would actually have improved the appearance of this part of town, but it needs it But the townspeople voted against it, and in that case, I'm glad old values stayed on top of decision making. But let's swap to drone view but the next shots are since last fall, as i move on from the old town and into the town's center We see the old primary school and the old theater, beautiful buildings and the old theater is still used and the primary school was renovated like 20 years ago and looks nice today And upon the hill we have the junior highschool so these houses are the old landmark buildings. But the Akureyri church is perhaps the main landmark building today, well located above the town's center.
And those long church steps in front of the church that are sometimes used for different sports like this annual competition. It’s the most famous church steps in Iceland, over 130 steps The old town center includes this first shopping street in town; it's more of a place to go pubbing or dining nowadays. And good old values are highlighted like trough the old Fuji film logo which stands for those good old times before digital cameras and mobile phones. But strangely enough, many of the townspeople are however using mobile phones today And the signature mountain of Akureyri can be seen well from downtown but it’s called Súlur, meaning “Pillars” The people around here love it, they love the mountain, they love to hike there, play around in jeeps, make love by the roots of the mountain, watch the sunset from there, even do the whole package in only a day. They have tried to get Paramount Pictures to put this mountain in the famous movie opening theme, but no luck so far. But i do think it’s a good marketing idea for the town though And Akureyri has of course a “Town’s Hall Square” that’s where everything is bustling with life during summers and the look of the square is subject of constant debate, but they have changed it every now and then, not always for the better, but that's not the main issue, it’s always nice to be there when the weather is good When it comes to new buildings downtown, they are trying to maintain the old look but it goes so and so.
Could be better, could be worse, but as for my taste, it’s a bit crowded since I'm the type that wants to see something else that my neighbors windows when I look out, and Iceland offers plenty of view This new rounded building is however a bit from out of space, it is the town's cultural center but the old theater isn’t that big, so this is the town's main concerts hall, and it’s a good house and well equipped as such, but even for the millions spent there in concrete and sound systems Akureyri is perhaps better known for this tiny little concert place in the basement of one of the oldest houses by the downtown shopping street, it’s called the “Green Hat” It was my uncle that established this little concert place, and he’s never had any troubles getting the best musicians in Iceland to play there, even if it's a small place that doesn’t sell that many tickets If you book them, they will come So It is a concert place with a old soul and during this visit, one of the oldest and biggest bands in Iceland was playing, or Mezzoforte an instrumental Jazz Funk Fusion band formed in 1977. Those guys are still touring the world when they feel like it, but despite all the doors that are open to them, doors that could sell so much more tickets thet here in the basement They come like all the others because it’s by far the best music club in Iceland, and the sound there is great So I'm gonna let the beginning of the concert roll while I show you some of my downtown shots that I didn't manage to squeeze in elsewhere. Now it’s time for water sports on the but the locals call the ocean in front of the old town “the pond” and it’s a popular playground.
There is this very active sailing club in town and those boards are getting quite popular, they are all around now. But in addition they have plenty of sport boats, fishing boats and kayaks around. I used to love to go fishing there, especially in the spring when you could catch the trout on it’s way to the river, and the kids are still at it today, like here, fishing from the docks just by the new cultural house and in this mountain behind the pond, we see this man made how waterfall but that need to be explained, but a few years back, a local private company made a tunnel through the mountain in order to create a safe road connection to north east Iceland The old road lies over a mountain pass, so to show you what we are dealing with, we move on through the old tunnels from Akureyri to East Iceland, and we drive back over the old road back into Eyjafjorður, The mountain pass looks looks innocent today, but it was never a save road as for snow, so the tunnels have created a this continuous business region, But it turned out to be a disaster to make them, costs doubled as the construction crew hit hot water by a surprise, the hot water explains this hottest waterfall in the world But it’s about to be cut off, and the water will be used for natural baths nearby that will open up soon and many will miss the waterfall for sure But as for many of the old people in town, the tunnels ment even more problems, the old generation around here doesn't travel that much, nor do they read news they don't need to see So after the tunnels opened by the old highway out of town, the old people would sometimes drive into them by accident, like during sunday trips, and in many cases these old people would freak out since they believed tat those were the “tunnels of light” and they were on their way to meet their maker. But this is getting better now, the old people have got used to the tunnels.
And despite the loss from this somewhat of a failed project, we have the tunnels, and the hot water And close by the hot waterfall, we find the largest settlement of elves and hidden people in Iceland, according to many old and new tales. But there we are into a rather large subject that I will be talking about in another video I've been working on every now and then, so I'm leaving that for later, but stories from this region will for sure be used for sure, due to how remarkable they are. And this mountain, with the tunnels, hot waterfall and hidden people is called Vaðlaheiði, and from Vaðlaheiði we find many good viewing spots overlooking the town, the skiing mountain and Mt. Súlur. This is what we often get, or cruise ships making a stopover but the most popular tours from here are to the waterfall Goðafoss and the mighty Dettifoss that's my favorite waterfall in Iceland, it’s not this sugary sweet waterfall type, but the powerful type, and shrouded in geological mystery like the nearby canyon Ásbyrgi In fact, we have some of Iceland's most spectacular geological formations close by, formations that will be the subject of some of my upcoming videos The climate in Akureyri is actually material for a separate video but it’s surprisingly good despite the high latitude. And it’s completely different than in Reykjavík and personally, i like the climate here way better than back south.
We often get real summers around here, and the winters are truly winters, so the contrasts between seasons are way sharper than in Reykjavík, where winters can be described as constant boredom until the so called summer comes, than it gets a bit better for a few months And what I like the most about the weather in Akureyri is how calm it gets, especially during evenings. That's when the pond starts to reflect the mountains around, that's when I never want to move, Or until I hear the local people talk about technology, that's when i snap back And on the downside, the winters tend to be long, and the spring tends to be cold from the northern winds from the arctic. And It’s not good for the mentality, but I have this uncle that recently moved up north, and during his first winter, that was pretty hard on us. He wrote and published a poet book about the winter, a book that turned out to be cold, dark and sarcastic. But i think he’s recovering little by little So snow removal cost has been hard on the town for the last few years but it comes with the territory, but as for winter photography, this is a wonderful place, especially in December when the snow is fresh, and again in February when the days are getting longer again.
But January is to dark for my taste, but the summer always comes, people flock out to work in their gardens and Akureyri once again stickers out the greenest town in Iceland In fact, it’s getting a bit crowded, so they have some restrictions now when it comes to the height of the trees because people are just going crazy with this tree planting stuff But the most famous garden in Akureyri is of course the northernmost botanic garden in the world where you can find over 7000 native and foregn species, and it’s one of the main pride of the town, endless source of photogenic scenes, summer autumn and winter But this time shot last year, the local brass band was trying to sell them a new idea, a new “Brass band music idea” in Akureyri! And i just had to see that, so lets see if Akureyri is indeed a Funky Town An even though people seem to be a bit backwards and old fashioned around here, they make up for it in other ways, like i've felt so well as i have been walking around in town with my camera backpack often, and the tripod. I have noticed how friendly people are, as i’m passing by, the total stranger i am here now And as I'm passing by, they almost always say “good day” , the standard Icelandic greeting, and it’s very easy to get into chats about the weather and such. And the same goes for traffic, it’s way slower than in Reykjavík, people are not in this same hurry, and drivers generally show great consideration to pedestrians, And the town is also known for the friendly traffic lights, and when it’s lunch or dinnertime, the traffic drops to almost nothing since these people eat at home if they can But when it comes to food i have to mention one strange tradition that developed differently here than in Reykjavík, and that is the fast food tradition.
It took over 10 year to teach those people to eat hamburgers so the first burger joints were short lived And finally, it was the local drive through shops that picked up this “weird burger thing idea” and made into their own, that was when things started to move The Akureyri fast food industry developed a whole new way to serve both burgers, and iceland’s fast food number one, the hot dog The Akureyri hot dog is deep fried and served with melted cheese, fries and spices And when they serve the burgers they put place the fries between the bread and the burger, but this idea spread out so there are places in Reykjavík offering this same concept, and they always call it “Akureyringur” referring to someone living in Akureyri. So again, even if those people seem to be backwards in some fields of life, they do have this wild side to them as well, so let’s move to sports There are 2 major sport clubs in town but they have worked more together in the recent years, And the sports infrastructure is excellent, just like the swimming pool that has been one of the prides of the town for the last decades, located just by one of the 3 camping grounds in and around town but there are plenty of options to choose from when it comes to accommodation. And overall, nowhere outside the capital region can you find so good selection of entertainment, culture and other options for guests, as in Akureyri And it’s the perfect location to discover the 900 kilometer long arctic coast way, chasing the the midnight sun and the northern lights But I have to warn you though, if you are on the road, and chasing the light or the weather, do not call the local people if you need to check the weather, use the internet, use webcams and DO NOT CALL THE LOCAL PEOPLE And that's because of this weakness the this people have, but they do not only lie about the weather all the time, they even have a facebook group called, “Crazy good weather in Akureyri” where the state that the weather is always great up north But this is an old habit since long before the internet, someone would call up north and ask about the weather, and they would always lie, it’s always good weather there But then came the internet, and the people in Akureyri just hated this internet thing for the first years And this group with people who are still lying about the weather has 8000 members, in a town with 20.000 people, so that should tell you a story of it’s own about the mentality of the people in Akureyri And my name is Gylfi, sending you best regards from my old hometown Akureyri, where the weather is…almost always great.
2022-02-28 06:40
