Comments & reviews

  • The President of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, spoke at the inauguration of the Boathouse on 24 July 2004 and summed up the impact of the museum as follows: With the Herring Museum – Siglufjörður‘s wounds from the disappearance of the herring in 1968 have been healed.

  • We received the following telegram on the occasion of the Micheletti Award EMF (European Museum Award) in 2004, granted to the Herring Museum as the Best New Museum of Industry in Europe: "the Icelandic Museum Council send congratulations on the heartily deserved recognition of your thorough and ambitious museum work. " 
- Ólafur Kvaran, Chairman and Rakel Halldórsdóttir, Manager.

  • Wim van der Weiden, chairman of the European Museum Forum and Chairman of the Jury of EMF, has studied and visited hundreds of museums across the globe.  He visited the Herring Museum in 2003 when it was nominated for the European Museum Award. He was supportive of the Museum receiving the Micheletti Award as 'Best New Museum of Industry' in Europe the following year. 
In the Fall of 2005, he returned again. On visiting the Boat House for the first time he exclaimed"Magnificent!  Excellent! I have never seen anything like this before!

  • Orri Vigfússon is an advocate for the conservation of the North-Atlantic salmon stock and is the son of Vigfús Friðjónsson, a known figure in the herring industry in Siglufjörður. As Orri walked the docks of the Boathouse for the first time, he was heard to say"Now I'm home!

  • Páll Gestsson, a resident of Siglufjörður and former captain of herring vessels and trawlers for decades, visited the Boathouse in his later years. As he walked the piers together with his daughter Rakel, he commented: "I feel like a little boy again."

  • Kjartan Ragnarsson, theater director and director of the Settlement Museum in Borganes said in an interview on Radio 1, on 16 February 2008: "The Herring Museum...is one of the greatest things that exist in Icelandic culture."
    

  • Bogomil Font, a singer who has performed widely, performed a concert at the Herring Museum with a folk music trio in 2004 and stated: "I think I've never sung in such a gorgeous space." The audience of 300 greeted his words with thunderous applause.


  • Ólafur Kvaran, Director of the National Gallery of Iceland and the then Chairman of the Museum Forum, made his first visit to the Herring Museum in the Spring of 2005. Reviewing the ships and piers of the Boathouse he commented: "This is the most impressive installation in Iceland."

  • A group of senior citizens from Akureyri was visiting the Herring Museum in the Fall of 2005. Two friends in the group met in the lobby of the Boathouse. As one entered she asked 'Is there anything interesting to see in there?'  The answer: 'Yes-yes, there is a little of this and that.'

  • At a crowded meeting of the Social Democrats in Siglufjörður in mid-March 2003, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, the former mayor of Reykjavík, made her first public appearance. In her speech, she complimented the Herring Museum and recalled how in 2001, she welcomed a French tourist from UNESCO in Paris to her office. The visitor had traveled all over Iceland, visiting museums and other cultural institutions and exhibitions within Reykjavík and the country at large. Ingibjörg had asked him what he thought of it all. He replied: "One place that outshines all others, is the Herring Museum in Siglufjörður.

  • Various visitors to Grána have described it as having an otherworldly atmostpher, akin to being in at a religious temple.

  • John Robinson, Chairman of the European Maritime Heritage and a longtime employee of the British Museum, is an influential figure in British and International coast culture heritage. He stated: "I shall do my best to make the remarkable Herring Era Museum at Siglufjörður widely known internationally. I worked as a museum professional for 24 years, and the Herring Era Museum is one of the best I have seen."