Húsavík Whale Museum

Husavik Whale Museum is a whale museum run by a non-profit organization established in 1997. Its main goal is to provide interesting information about whales and their habitat.

The museum is located in the harbor, right next to the marina from which cruises depart for whale watching in the bay of Husavik and further out in the open ocean. It’s worth a look here before your cruise to get a better understanding of the animals, which you’ll later – if you’re lucky – see live in their natural habitat.
The museum has more than 8 exhibition halls and is one of the few museums in the world dedicated exclusively to whales.

Petrel Skeleton

The newest exhibit at the museum is a real, natural skeleton of the largest mammal living on Earth – the blue whale. It comes from a deceased 25-meter-long female that washed ashore at Ásbúðir in northern Iceland in 2010. There are only a few such full-sized blue whale skeletons in the world. The only one in Iceland is on display right now at the Whale Museum in Husavik. The skeleton is presented differently from the others, because it is as if the whale were lying on its back. This is to show how most of the fallen whales are actually found, including the female from which the skeleton came.

Other exhibits

There are 11 whale skeletons in the whale room. All died of natural causes in Iceland, with the exception of the narwhal, which was a gift from Greenland.

The History of Whaling exhibition presents information on whaling in Iceland, as well as the history of whaling worldwide.

The art exhibition by Renata Ortega is a tribute to the world’s largest living creatures, in all oceans and seas. The author treats whales not as animals, but as pure art. This is also how she portrays them.

The exhibition Evolution and Biology explains how whales have evolved over time, how they live and how they behave.

Documentary films

The museum also presents documentaries related to the ocean and whales. The film “Giants of the Deep” can be viewed in the large cinema room on the second floor of the museum. The film is a celebration of the extraordinary beauty of whales. Thrilling, romantic and dangerous, it is filled with stunning photography, reminding us of the beauty of nature and its power. Duration: 60 minutes.

A shorter film – “Voice over Nature” – deals with noise pollution in the deep sea and how we neglect the voice of our oceans. Fish and marine mammals use sound for communication, navigation and hunting. Proper acoustics are therefore critical to the survival and development of entire ecosystems. Unfortunately, as much as 90% of the world’s trade goes through the oceans, and ecosystems…are losing their voice. Duration: 12 minutes.

Opening hours of the Húsavík Whale Museum

Ticket prices

Photos from the Whale Museum