Eldheimar - the Pompeii of the North

- darkometer rating: 6 -

A special kind of museum, with a focus on the destructive 1973 volcanic eruption on Heimaey, Iceland. The centrepiece of the exhibition is the ruin of a house that was covered in lava and ash during that eruption and has been carefully excavated.

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More background info: for the historical background of the island and the 1973 eruption in general see under Heimaey!

The museum is the end result of a project that was begun in 2005 and that had been dubbed “Pompei of the North” (obviously in allusion to Pompeii in Italy). This slogan is still used by the museum to this day.

Note that the same phrase was also the nickname given to an archaeological excavation site of ancient Roman ruins and relics in London, Great Britain, in 2013. But here in Iceland it’s even part of the official marketing for Eldheimar. Whether anybody asked the Italians whether it’s OK to appropriate the name I do not know. See also the “Pompeii of the Caribbean”, Montserrat.

The original plan of the “Pompei of the North” project on Heimaey was to excavate a whole group of buildings that were buried by the volcano in 1973, so that they could form a kind of “ruin village”. That plan was evidently changed (why and when I do not know); and today it is just a single, but fairly large, single-storey house ruin that forms the heart of the museum. It once had the address Gerðisbraut 10 and was the home of a couple and their three children. They all had to flee in the middle of the night, like most of the rest of the islanders on 23 January 1973. Within a few days the house had disappeared under lava and ash.

The museum around the house ruin was purpose-built to house it and an accompanying exhibition. It was first opened in May 2014, 41 years after the 1973 eruption.

What there is to see: Before you enter the museum take a look at the just partially excavated house to the right, poking out from the hillside. It gives you an idea of how tall an order it was to shovel a structure like this free from all the ash and pumice it was covered in.

Inside the museum proper is a lofty atrium with a small gift shop, some artwork and the ticket desk. Here you also get outfitted with an audio guide – and on this occasion I accepted the offer as the staff said that it’s the main narrative. Text panels are comparatively reduced here (to a bare minimum in fact). The audio guide is played on a modern smartphone-like device that automatically senses its relative location within the various sections of the museum exhibition and then automatically plays the relevant audio track accordingly. I found, though, that it wasn’t always accurate and sometimes the next track started playing prematurely or an already finished one restarted. But overall it’s not bad.

The first thing you come to is already the main sight here: the excavated house that was once a family home but which got covered by volcanic ash and lava within days of the start of the eruption in 1973. There it lay completely buried until it was dug out again 40 years later. It’s quite evocative to behold …

You can peak into the inside of the building but you are not allowed to enter it as such. You can see why. The ceilings have to be supported by steel supports. So it’s probably all rather unstable. On a set of interactive screens in front of the house you can look up various details and individual objects discovered inside during the excavation.

Round the back of the house begins the more traditional museum exhibition part. The first section is about life on Heimaey before the disaster of 1973. Then follows a section about the eruption of 1973. It is here that you encounter many of the famous photographs taken at the time, including an especially atmospheric one of the church with the nightly glow of the lava fountains of the eruption in the background. The evacuation of the entire island population during the first night is also covered.

The next section focuses on the efforts of damage limitation (such as the spraying of the lava flow with seawater to protect the harbour), the aftermath of the eruption and eventual clear-up operation and reconstruction of Heimaey. Physically, the exhibition consists mostly of photos and very little text (hence the audio guide is so important), in addition there are yet more interactive screens, but few artefacts.

The latter include a display of some firefighter gear and a large box with volcanic ash in it together with a few small shovels. It’s a hands-on exhibit where you can gauge for yourselves just how heavy such volcanic ash actually is. (For me it wasn’t such a surprise because I had encountered volcanic ash for real, and had to shovel it, when I was on Montserrat during an eruptive phase of that island’s volcano.).

Stairs then lead up to a second level, from where you can look down on to the central house ruin. More importantly, there is an additional exhibition up here that is about Surtsey, the new island that was “born” in a four-year-long volcanic eruption that started under the surface of the sea in 1963. This exhibition has more traditional text, photo and graphics/diagrams panels. And parts of these get quite technical (for non-geologists/volcanologists at least).

Also upstairs, towards the back of the building is a museum cafe and a small stage with a (covered) grand piano. I guess this will be used for special events hosted here.

All in all I found this a very worthwhile addition to Heimaey’s dark-tourism portfolio. It is now surely the No. 1 dark site to visit here. The audio guide that you depend on to get the full story has its flaws, but overall it works quite well. The images of the eruption are the most impressive ones, but the real top highlight remains the excavated house ruin. It is this that sets Eldheimar apart and makes it unique. A must-see when on the island, in fact the main reason for a dark tourist to come here in the first place.

Location: at Storagerði, off Helgafellsbraut, in the south-eastern outskirts of the town of Heimaey, Iceland.

Google Maps locator: [63.4349, -20.2603]

Access and costs: a bit of walk from the centre of Heimaey’s town; not cheap (as you would expect in Iceland), but not too excessively priced.

Details: The museum can be reached on foot from the town centre of Heimaey or the ferry terminal. From the latter it is about a mile (1.6 km) taking less than half an hour. By car it’s just a short drive – down Skildingarvegur, Vestmannabraut and Helgafellbraut. The large rusty-orange museum building is impossible to miss. There’s plenty of parking (free) right by the museum.

Opening times: daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (May to September). Open for groups outside regular hours on request and by prior arrangement.

Admission: 2900 kr. (ca. 20 EUR), several concessions apply. The audio guide (available in several languages) is included in the fee.

Time required: 45 minutes to an hour (or longer if you want to go through absolutely everything available on the interactive screens)

Combinations with other dark destinations: see under Heimaey.

The most obvious combination would be to climb Eldfell, which rises up just behind the museum. The trailhead is a short drive or 10 minute walk away to the south-east.

Combinations with non-dark destinations: see under Heimaey.