Westfjords Heritage Museum is a maritime museum in Ísafjörður, in the Westfjords of Iceland. It occupies Turnhúsið, a storage house of 1784 at Neðstikaupstaður, the oldest group of houses in the country. The collection covers the fisheries of the region and the lives of fishing families: boats kept in seaworthy condition, engines and models, fishing gear, a diving suit, finds recovered by divers, and over 190 accordions. The museum opened in the house in 1988.
Westfjords Heritage Museum
Local name: Byggðasafn Vestfjarða
The accordion collection runs to over 190 instruments, and the oldest, made in 1830, is still in its original packaging.
- Entrance
- Paid entry, with separate rates for adults and seniors.
- Accessibility
- Wheelchair-accessible entrance, parking and toilet. Above the ground floor there are only very steep stairs, and the tower is reached by a narrow ladder.
- Parking
- Free car park at the museum, with wheelchair-accessible spaces.
- Transport
- A short walk from Ísafjörður centre, out at the harbour in Neðstikaupstaður
- Hours
- Open for the summer season, daily 9:00–17:00.
- Address
- Neðstikaupstaður, 400 Ísafjörður
What makes it special
The museum occupies Turnhúsið, built in 1784 as a storage house and the youngest of the four Danish trading houses at Neðstikaupstaður. Three floors hold the maritime collection: boats, boat engines and models, an old diving suit, fishing gear and technical equipment, and objects divers have recovered from wrecks in the fjords. The boats are not static exhibits. The museum restores them, keeps them seaworthy, and treats the repair skills as part of what it preserves. Alongside them sits a collection of over 190 accordions, which began as a gift of 140 instruments in 2008 and has grown since. In the tower there is a peep-hole, cut so the store manager could keep ships and workers in view. The house is as interesting as what is in it.
Good to know
- Stairs: the main house has three floors and the stairs between them are very steep. Not for anyone unsteady on their feet.
- The tower: the ladder up fits one person at a time, so take your rucksack off first. The view over the area is better from outside the house.
- Paying: you pay in the smaller of the two buildings, and the one ticket covers both.
- Gift shop: the shop sells crafts made locally.
Getting there
The museum stands at Neðstikaupstaður, the old trading site in Ísafjörður where four eighteenth-century houses are grouped together. Turnhúsið, the one with the tower, is the museum; Tjöruhúsið beside it is a seafood restaurant. There is a car park at the site, and the way in from it is step-free. Everything after that is stairs: three floors in the main house, and a ladder to the tower.
Best time to visit
Better: the summer season, and a time of day with no cruise ship in port. Avoid: the hours just after a cruise ship docks. Ísafjörður is a regular call for cruise ships and their passengers come to the museum in numbers; with stairs and a tower ladder that take one person at a time, a busy house is felt straight away. Around Easter the museum puts up a ski exhibition for Skíðavika, the ski week festival.
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Frequently asked questions
How long has the museum been in Turnhúsið?
It opened there on Fisherman's Day in 1988, after the restoration of Neðstikaupstaður in the 1970s. The museum itself is older: the idea came from a newspaper article by Bárður G. Tómasson in 1939, and it was founded in July 1941.What is in the collection apart from boats?
Boat engines and models, an old diving suit, fishing gear, technical equipment of many kinds, objects divers have brought up from wrecks in the surrounding seas, and over 190 accordions.Can the museum be managed without using stairs?
Only in part. The entrance, the car park and the toilet are wheelchair-accessible, but the three floors of the main house are joined by very steep stairs, and the observation tower is reached by a ladder wide enough for one person.Are the other old houses part of the museum?
No. Neðstikaupstaður holds four houses built by Danish traders: Krambúðin (1757), Faktorshúsið (1765), Tjöruhúsið (1781) and Turnhúsið (1784). Only Turnhúsið is the museum. Tjöruhúsið is a seafood restaurant, and the other two are lived in.Does anything happen at the museum beyond the exhibitions?
Yes. A local theatre group in Icelandic national costume acts out daily life of the early 19th century, singing, dancing and laying salt cod out in the sun to dry. The museum has held an annual bacalao fest since 2002, and mounts a ski exhibition during Skíðavika and a Christmas exhibition with Ísafjörður Safnahús.