Hindisvík
Vatnsnes, Northwest Iceland
The Farm
Hindisvík is a farm on the tip of Vatnsnes, a peninsula on the northwest coast of Iceland. It is situated in the middle of Húnaflói with a clear line of vision towards the Arctic Circle. Hvammstangi, the nearest town to Hindisvík, is the administrative centre of the area.
Hindisvík is privately owned and the only farm in Iceland bearing that name.
Owners
The owners of Hindisvík are direct descendants of Jón Sigurðsson and Margrét Jóhannesdóttir who settled down in Hindisvík in 1837.
The present owners are: Anna Norland and Helga Norland, daughters and heirs of Gunnar Norland and Jósefína Norland; Kristín Norland, Jón Norland and Halla Norland, children and heirs of Sverrir Norland and Margrét Norland.
History
Pastor Sigurður Norland, the brother of Jón Norland (the grandfather of the present owners of Hindisvík), was well-known during his lifetime and numerous people still remember him.
Sigurður bought Hindisvík from his mother, Helga Björnsdóttir, in the spring of 1919. The parish of Tjörn in Vatnsnes was entrusted to him at the end of 1922.
Sigurður started the preservation of seals in the 1940s, but he was also known for his large herd of horses of the so-called Hindisvík breed, which was recognised all over the country. However, systematic breeding of horses in Hindisvík stopped many years ago. Now there are no longer any horses of the Hindisvík breed in Hindisvík.
Sigurður had a poetic vein just like his brother Jón Norland. In 1965, Sigurður published a book called Nokkur kvæði og vísur (A Few Poems and Quatrains).
Some of Sigurður’s quatrains have gained popularity nationwide; among them is the “hringhenda” that he wrote in English and which is well-suited to demonstrate the metre of “ferskeytla” and its variations to people who do not speak Icelandic:
She is fine as morn in May,
Mild, divine and clever,
Like a shining summer day,
She is mine forever.
The Reverend Sigurður Norland died in 1971.
The Present
Hindisvík is a preservation area and closed to all tourists and other unauthorized traffic, primarily to preserve wildlife and delicate vegetation.
In recent years, the number of common seals at the haul-out site in Hindisvík has decreased rapidly. According to The List of Threatened Species made by Náttúrufræðistofnun Íslands (The Icelandic Institute of Natural History), the common seal around Iceland is severely threatened with extinction. Its number has decreased by 75% since the beginning of systematic counting of seals in 1980.
The seals in Hindisvík are under total conservation and have been so for many decades. Selasetur Íslands (The Icelandic Seal Center) has in co-operation with the owners been conducting a study of the seal colony in Hindisvík for many years now. For this reason it is essential that the closure of Hindisvík be respected. By doing so people are helping to assist scientists in gaining a long-term knowledge on the natural behaviour and spread of the common seal.
Please take this into consideration!