Ósvör Maritime Museum: A Turf Fishing Station Frozen in the 19th Century

A Fishing Station Rebuilt From the Ruins

Ósvör Maritime Museum sits on the open shore just outside Bolungarvík, at the northern tip of the Westfjords. It opened in 1988, built on the ruins of an old fishing outpost, and recreates what a working cod-fishing station looked like before motorboats reached this coast. The buildings are stone and turf, low and rounded against the wind, roofed in the same sod that covers the hillsides around them.

What You’ll See

The site is small but dense with detail: a crew hut where fishermen slept in cramped bunks between rows, a salt house for curing the catch, and a drying hut for turning fish into hardfiskur. Outside stands Ölver, a replica wooden rowing boat of the type used to row out to the fishing grounds long before engines. In summer, a guide dressed in a traditional Icelandic fisherman’s outfit — oilskins and all — meets visitors and explains how the station worked, day to day.

The Story Behind the Buildings

Ósvör tells a harder story than the picturesque turf roofs suggest. Before motorized boats, fishermen rowed out from stations like this one in open boats, in all but the worst weather, because a missed day meant no income. Winters were long, the fjord unpredictable, and drownings were common along this coast. The museum’s exhibits — the sleeping quarters, the tools, the drying racks — are built around that daily risk rather than around it as scenery.

Ósvör pairs naturally with a stop at Bolafjall, the mountain plateau above Bolungarvík reached by a steep road, which gives a wide view back over the fjord and out to sea — a good bookend to a station built to face that same sea from below.

• Getting there: about 15 km (roughly 15 minutes’ drive) from Ísafjörður via Route 61
• Duration: allow 30-45 minutes for the museum, longer if combined with Bolafjall
• Season: typically open summer season only, with a guide on site; verify current hours before visiting, as the museum operates on request outside summer
• What to bring: warm, windproof layers — the site is exposed and unheated, even in summer
• Good to combine with: the Bolafjall viewing platform and the town of Bolungarvík itself

Where to Stay

The Ísafjörður Inn puts you in the Westfjords’ main town, about 15 minutes from Ósvör and Bolungarvík, making the museum and the Bolafjall lookout an easy half-day trip without needing to relocate. Book direct on Ourhotels.is for the best rate.

Photo: Barry Marsh via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.