Natural History Museum

A ten-minute walk from the Maritime Museum at Vitastígur 3, the town’s only other attraction is the Natural History Museum down by the harbour; to get here, follow the main road into town, Þuríðarbraut, across the Hólsá river, and head straight on into the main street, Aðalstræti, then right into Vitastígur. Inside there’s an excellent collection of stuffed seals, arctic fox and various birds – everything from a wigeon to a pink flamingo, which oddly turned up out of the blue in eastern Iceland – you name it, they’ve got it stuffed. The prize exhibit, though. is the 3-year-old male polar bear (minus penis, which was claimed by the Phallological Museum in Reykjavík) found floating on spring pack ice off Hornstrandir a few years ago. The bear was snared by local fishermen who spotted him drifting, exhausted, on the ice, and the fact that its death was most likely caused by dragging the animal to shore, half-hanging over the side of a fishing boat, came in for much public criticism.