A new and extraordinary museum featuring stuffed birds and their eggs opened last year on the shores of Lake Mývatn. Uniquely located and cleverly designed, with a stunning view over the bird paradise that is Lake Mývatn, the museum is one of a kind. Behind it lies the tragic story of a man whose life was claimed by the lake.
Published in the 2009 spring issue of Iceland Review – IR 47.01. By Bjarni Brynjólfsson, photos by Páll Stefánsson and Ragnar Axelsson (portrait).
Sigurgeir Stefánsson was known as the man who collected birds. He was born amongst them and lived with them. All his life he lived and worked near the magnificent Lake Mývatn—a UNESCO World Heritage Site and bird sanctuary—a lake so special and renowned for its geology and wildlife that it has been a magnet for naturalists and geologists from all over the world for centuries. Stefánsson was captivated by the lake and knew it better than most people. But then the lake claimed him—suddenly, unexpectedly and violently.
Stefánsson worked for the silicon plant in the district. One day a telephone cable lying across the lake was severed by the boat that dug siliceous algae from the bottom of the lake. Stefánsson took two men from Iceland Telecom out onto the lake in order to repair it. A sudden storm struck and the small boat capsized. All three men drowned.
The tragic accident happened at the end of October 1999. Sigurgeir Stefánsson was 37. He had never married and had no children. He left behind a unique collection of 330 stuffed birds that were on display in a small shack at Ytri-Neslönd, the farm where he lived with his parents. Amongst them were all the indiginous Icelandic birds except the red phalarope (Thórshani), almost all the stray birds that come to Iceland, and some rare specimens from abroad.
Most of those had been found dead by Stefánsson or by people in the district, who would call him if they stumbled upon a dead duck or another species near the lake. “He was a passionate collector and people here knew about his hobby,” says Pétur Gíslason, Stefánsson’s brother-in-law. “Sigurgeir’s interest in collecting started when he was ten and he began collecting eggs. He collected all the eggs of the Icelandic birds. When he was 14 someone gave him a stuffed bird. That boosted his enthusiasm. He really loved birds and knew them so well that he only had to hear their sound or the flutter of their wings to know what species of bird it was. And he could spot a bird faster than anyone I have ever known.”
Visit the farm Ytri-Neslönd where Stefánsson was raised, and you will understand why. The farm is situated on the shores of Lake Mývatn and is almost surrounded by it. There are birds everywhere—115 species have been spotted in the area—making the district one of the world’s richest in aquatic birds. Over 30 species of duck have been spotted there and some, like the Barrows Goldeneye, choose Mývatn as their only nesting site in Europe. The Black Scoter, Harlequin Duck, Scaup, Wigeon and the Horned Grebe are all fairly common birds there during the summer months. The lake is shallow and extremely rich in nutrients, which makes for abundant insect life. Lake Mývatn takes it name from the trillions of non-biting midges that sometimes form clouds when hatching.
It is this extraordinary conjunction of teeming life that naturalists, scientists, ornithologists and bird watchers come to see when they visit Lake Mývatn. Many of them would contact Stefánsson, who was able to provide them with sound knowledge of the district and where the birds nested. He traded duck samples for foreign samples that he could not obtain in Iceland. “He was in contact with ornithologists and collectors from all over the world,” says Gíslason. “But most of his contacts were lost when he died because he simply kept the records in his head.”
His room in his parents home soon became too small to accommodate his collection. Most of his spare money was used to pay taxidermists who preserved the birds for him. The house became stuffed with birds and something had to be done, as the family was being suffocated by the collection. In the end, two friends of Stefánsson’s presented him with a small shack that had been used to house tools to measure earthquakes in the Krafla district, and to warn the people around Lake Mývatn of possible volcanic eruptions.
The shack was 13 square meters in size and had heat and electricity, and in it Stefánsson placed his entire collection of birds on display. The bird shack was never advertised, but word about this extraordinary collection spread. Stefánsson and his family welcomed all visitors. “There were up to 1,000 visitors a year,” says Gíslason. “It was probably the world’s smallest nature museum. People came and asked if they could peer into the shack.”
When Stefánsson died the shack had already begun to decay. His dream had always been to construct a proper building with a view of the lake to house the collection. In an interview with Gísli Einarsson of daily paper Morgunbladid, published one year before his death, he said “Everybody wants a building, but no one wants to pay for it.”
It was Stefánsson’s dream that prompted his relatives to build a proper museum for the collection. “There were only three options, really. To throw away the collection or sell it, to build a new shack for it, or build a proper museum with a state-of-the-art exhibition room and other necessary facilities, like rest rooms and a cafeteria,” says Gíslason.
You can read the remainder of this article in the 2009 spring issue of Iceland Review – IR 47.01. Four times a year the print edition of Iceland Review brings you a wealth of articles on all aspects of life in Iceland including Páll Stefánsson's latest images of the country's majestic landscape. Click here to subscribe and here to browse through a selection of pages from the current issue.