Attractions

In Grímsey puffins usually arrive around 10th of April and leave the island around 10th of August each year. Grímsey is one of the best places in Iceland to photograph puffins in Iceland.

In Grímsey one can find 3 century stones showing where the Arctic circle was around Summer solstice in 1717, 1817 and 1917.

The Fiske monument is just above the harbor in Grímsey. Daniel Willard Fiske (November 11, 1831 – September 17, 1904) was an American librarian and scholar, born on November 11, 1831, at Ellisburg, New York.

The Arctic Circle is a line close to the 66,5° parallels in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It marks the approximate area in which the sun never rises in winter and never sets in summer for 24 hours or longer. It's where one can see the midnight sun.

Orbis et Globus (Circle and Sphere) is an artwork that was placed on the Arctic Circle in 2017. It is a 3m diameter globe that will follow the fluctuating North-South part of the Arctic Circle until it leaves the island.

This is one of the notable buildings in Grímsey, It is 9,6 m high and built in year 1937 according to the design of the engineer Benedikt Jónasson.

Grímsey has many beautiful basalt columns formations especially at the south west corner of the island. Basalt is a volcanic material that can crystallize into special formation if thick lava flow is cooled relatively rapidly from a horizontal angel – then the lava cracks and creates these special hexagonal formations.

A symbol for the Arctic Circle can be found in many places of the world at a fixed spot, but due to the fact that the Arctic Circle is constantly moving this is just a symbol of where it has been at a given time.

Between the village and the airport, shortly after the pond on the way to the airport one can see two caps on the left hand side, which the story tells is the burial site of the first settlers of Grímsey.

Miðgarðar is the site of the most northerly church in Iceland. It was consecrated by Bishop Jón Ögmundsson in the early 11th century and was dedicated to Ólafur the patron saint of the Nordic people.

In former times the cliffs along the coastline where important to the inhabitants as they were a major source of food supply. Each farm owned their part of the cliffs and could collect eggs and catch birds from that area.