The Húsavík Whale Museum opened an anniversary exhibition in May 2019 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

In the next weeks, some parts of the museum's story will be revealed here on the museum blog. We began our journey in 1992 because as in all good stories there is always a preface behind it.

The origin of the Húsavík whale museum can be traced to whale watching tours that were operated in Höfn from 1992-1994 on the initiative of Discover the World. In the first trip were a British guide Mark Carwardine and Ásbjörn Björgvinsson which would later establish the Húsavík whale museum. The tours took about 8 hours. In 1994 scheduled whale watching tours in Húsavík were operated for the first time by the company Sjóférð Arnars. In the following year a few groups arrived in Húsavik for whale watching, some from Discover the World. Whale sightings had decreased in Höfn at the time but Húsavík which was known as an old minke whaling area also had its advantages for a whole lot shorter distances than the tours in Höfn's area. In 1995 a whale watching course was held in Keflavík where foreign speakers gave an inside knowledge about whale watching as a phenomenon. One of the speakers was Erich Hoyt. By the summer of 1995 two whale watching companies, North Sailing and Arnar's Sea Tours were operating from Húsavík harbor on a daily basis.

The whale museum in Húsavík opened in the spring of 2019 an auspicious anniversary exhibition on the occasion of the museum's 20th anniversary a year earlier.
In the near future, chapters from the museum's history will be published here at hvalasafn.is. We start the game in 1992, but like all good stories, there is a bit of backstory.

The origin of the Whale Museum in Húsavík can be traced back to experimental whale-watching trips that were first set out from Höfn in Hornafjörður in the summers of 1992-1994. On the first trip, there was a British guide named Mark Carwardine together with Ásbirn Björgvinsson, who later founded the Whale Museum in Húsavík. It was a long voyage or about 8 hours. In 1994, whale-watching trips began in Húsavík with Arnar Sigurðsson, who ran the company Arnar's Sea Trips. A year later, several groups came to see whales in Húsavík, among others from Discover the World. The number of whales had decreased in the vicinity of Hafnar, and the sailing time was much shorter at Skjálfand. The area was known to be an old whaling area, so there should be whales to be found. A course was held in Keflavík in 1995 where whale watching as an industry was discussed. Foreign speakers, including Erich Hoyt, were brought in to give an insight into this industry, which would later become huge. This past summer, two whale watching companies operated in Húsavík, Norðursaigling and Arnar's Sea Tours.