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Raufarhöfn - Town - North East Iceland

By road no. 85 , in Þistilfjörður

Region: North East

About: (Description)
Raufarhöfn, (pop. 235) a village which was once one of the biggest herring ports in Iceland.

Heimskautagerðið, (The Polar Enclosure) This is where the day is the longest in the summer and shortest in the winter. Around the summer solstice the sun does not set for several solar days. The light there is unique and owing to how low the surrounding landscape is nothing blocks the horizon for a total of 360°. The spectacular show put on by the interaction between light and shade there prompted men to contemplate how to capture all of this for exploitation by tourism.

The first ideas were to somehow define the three-hour periods of the solar day with some sort of solar watch and utilize the influence of the midnight sun to magnify the effect. But no matter what configuration was tried it was obvious that the conditions on the Melrakkaslétta plateau contained something even more powerful, something that was hidden there. Something was needed that could lift this idea to higher flights and intensify the sunset in a potent way. Bit by bit, things began to fall into place. In the end, a circle was formed with a diameter of 54 m, enclosed by a stacked rock wall. On the wall there are four gates with openings to the four cardinal points. The
lower layer of the wall is about 2.5 m high. On top of it there are 68 gateways with a continuous rock layer upon them.

The visual effect is that this upper layer floats on the rays of the midnight sun and at sunrise and sunset at other times of the year. In the middle of the circle there is an 8- 10 m high pillar resting on four bollards. The spaces between the bollards point to the four gates so that the midnight sun will appear in the north gate. The spring equinox and fall equinox have also been kept in mind as well as the winter solstice when the sun barely peeks up over the horizon. Around the middle there are four columns, each one unique. Inside the wall there are 68 rocks, the dwarfs, which form a circle.

The concept behind the dwarfs is taken from the Dwarf Tale in Völuspá. The dwarf concept is well-known throughout Europe where dwarfs and plants associatedwith the seasons have had the purpose of ensuring growth and prosperity in nature.

With these concepts in mind the year circle of the dwarfs is formed inside the big wall circle. Each dwarf has his restricted role. The artist, Haukur Halldórsson, has drawn each individual dwarf according to his function. The author, Jónas Friðrik, has simultaneously written a poetic text about them. The cooperation of these two artists has awoken great expectations as they are actually working on designing merchandise for selling as souvenirs about the phenomenon discussed above – The Polar Enclosure.

How to get there:
From Húsavík take road no. 85 direct to Raufarhöfn about 151 km.

source Iceland Road Atlas

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