Vopnafjörður, Iceland
The bay of Vopnafjörður was first settled by Vikings in the late 9th century CE. The name Vopnafjörður (Old Norse: Vápnafjorðr literally means "Weapon Fjord" or "Weapon Bay", and comes from the nickname of one of the settlers, Eyvindur vopni.
Disputes between local chieftains led to a number of killings in the 10th century. The story of the disputes is told in Vopnfirðinga saga, one of the classic Sagas of Icelanders, a series of epic family histories written in the 13th century. Little is known about the history of Vopnafjörður after Iceland lost its independence to Norway in 1264. Foreign merchants sailed to Vopnafjörður in the early modern age, and it was one of three trade ports in East Iceland in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Danish trading company Ørum & Wulff had extensive operations in Vopnafjörður in the 19th century. A local cooperative, Kaupfélag Vopnfirðinga, was established in 1918, and was one of Vopnafjörður's largest employers throughout the 20th century, but filed for bankruptcy in 2004. In the late 19th century, poor farmers were forced to move into the mountains above Vopnafjörður, when they could no longer afford living on densely populated land in the lowlands. For several decades, many families lived in the highlands, experiencing extreme hardship. The highland farms inspired the setting of the novel Independent People by Halldór Laxness. The book helped him win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955. |