Þingeyri
Dýrafjörður is named by Dýri, its settler. Dýri lived at Hálsar in the territory of Hvammur. Indication of his residence can not be seen but some remains of gathering for parliamentary sessions in Þingeyri, can be recognized from the settlement period, which was from 870-1000 A.D.
Already in the 13th century, sailors from foreign merchant vessels were bartering products with the Icelanders and in the 16th century, Þingeyri had become the trading centre of the fjord and the area around. Those, mostly German merchants bought fish, fish liver oil and homespun cloth and in 1579, Eggert Hannesson was the only Icelander who had a patent for bartering.
In the 15th and 16th century, British, German and Spanish sailing vessels were frequent guests in the fjord, but in 1602 Icelanders were forced by law to trade only with the Danish merchants who took over almost the whole barter. The locals, nevertheless kept on trading illegally with the French sailors.
In 1684, whole Iceland was divided into small trading areas and the area of Þingeyri reached from Önundarfjörður in the North to Arnarfjörður in the South.
In 1742, four houses were in Þingeyri, a store selling the necessities for the locals, a workshop making barrels and other wood equipment, a warehouse and a turf-walled farm house.
In 1788, 1st of January the monopoly trade of the Danish came to an end and N.C. Gram came into possession of all the trading in Þingeyri. His trading period lasted over 30 years and he owned a fishing company here as well.
Agriculture and fishing were and still is the main industry in the area, and before up to 49 farms were lived on here in the fjord.
Sharks were mostly caught from the north side of the fjord, from Fjallaskagi around 1850 and the local hunters build their own ships for the shark-hunting.
In the late 19th century around 300 French fishing ships were fishing around Iceland. The Frenchmen were frequent visitors to Haukadalur and sometimes 80 ships could be seen lying by anchor on the sea out of Haukadalur.
The Frenchmen tried intensively to start a fish-factory in Haukadalur, which would have been fallowed by an enlargement in their fishing-industry in Iceland. They needed around 5000 employees, and to explain this further, 1st of October 1855, 735 people were living in Dýrafjörður and 1353 in Reykjavík.The Frenchmen did not succeed, making an agreement with Denmark, which at the time ruled in Iceland. England threatened to declare war on Denmark if the Danish would allow the Frenchmen to establish a fish-factory in Dýrafjörður with all those employees. England feared that the area would turn into a French colony, which was not in favour of the British Empire.
From 1884 to 1897, Americans from Glouchester in Massaschussets were based here, fishing halibut, without all complications caused by England.
In 1890, Norwegian ship-owner started hunting whales, based at the North side of the fjord at Framnes. His operation lasted some years.
Þingeyri is one of the oldest trading villages in Iceland. Here we had an hotel, a bakery, a candy-factory and the oldest, still working machine workshop in Iceland, established in 1913, which has served the Icelandic ships and boats well, especially during the Second World War, when spare-parts were hard to get from Europe. The workshop was also well known among the foreign trawlers.
One of the oldest houses in Iceland is situated in Þingeyri. That is a timber house build in 1787 but was taken apart to be repaired in 1994.
Today the inhabitants of Þingeyri still live mostly from the fishing-industry. Professions connected to public service are quite a few, here we have a kinder-garden, a primary school, a indoor sport-centre and a elderly home. We have a small clinic and a priest and a few jobs in the service line, a bank, a garage, a gas station and some jobs connected to the tourist industry which is growing.
The census from 1930, tells us that the population of Dýrafjörður counts 783 inhabitants.
In 2008, when this is written, the inhabitants of Þingeyri are around 300.