Published in the 2010 summer issue of Iceland Review – IR 48.02. By Bjarni Brynjólfsson, photos by Páll Stefánsson.

Film maker and museum curator Kári Schram standing at the white sand beach at Hvesta by the deep Arnarfjördur fjord which, according to him and others, is the home of sea monsters. Sea monster sightings and encounters in Arnarfjördur are numerous.

Picture this tale of horror. A foreign trawler is fishing illegally in Arnarfjördur fjord in the West Fjords in the early 20th century. In comes the trawl net with something big and squirmingly alive. When the fishermen try to open the trawl the creature viciously fights back and sprays something slimy over them. When they finally manage to cut the net and drive the creature overboard a few of the crew are seriously burned and have to be treated. No one aboard knows what this terrifying beast was.

This is one of the many stories film maker Kári Schram tells me when I meet him in Bíldudalur, the fishing village in Arnarfjördur. In 1997 he made a documentary film about eerie sightings in the fjord and local encounters with sea monsters through the ages. The film was done in collaboration with Iceland’s only monster expert, radio newsman Thorvaldur Fridriksson, who has collected tales extraordinaire all over the country, specializing in monster legends.

There is something supernatural about Arnarfjördur fjord. It looks prehistoric on the map, resembling an eagle claw. In fact it is named after an eagle, Arnar means eagle’s, fjördur fjord. In reality the fjord is deep and wide with an abundance of shellfish, shrimp and reportedly other murkier life organisms.

Stories of encounters and sightings of sea monsters which have come ashore to terrify, sometimes attack and even kill the remote farmers in this fjord are abundant. This spurred Schram to make the film where he interviewed people who had seen the supernatural beings with their own eyes. Some had been chased by weird and wicked looking ‘things’ coming from the sea and some had heard legendary stories about monsters trying to break down farmhouses in order to reach the humans inside.

This inspired Schram to form the Icelandic Monster Research Center in 1997, and in 2007 Schram and four other local men from Bíldudalur established the Sea Monster Museum located in an old factory building above the harbor. The museum opened in summer 2009 after a year and a half of hard work done mostly by volunteers and is now nearly complete.

Multimedia screens and quirky, dark lit rooms create a unique atmosphere where the history of sea monsters in Iceland and Arnarfjördur is conveyed in an eerie manner. When the museum is complete visitors will also be able to take a high tech Jules Verne submarine tour of the fjord to see what people in these parts think dwells in the sea. The museum is well worth a visit when you travel to these parts because afterwards you will look differently at what you see in the fjord. It will add a new dimension to your imagination—one which points towards the shore and the sea.

You can read the remainder of this article in the 2010 summer issue of Iceland Review – IR 48.02. 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.

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