"You're sitting on a gold mine"

"I first came here in 2018," says Ted Karlberg of Siglufjörður, but since then he has traveled there annually. Karlberg is a Swedish photographer and filmmaker who participated in the making of the Netflix film The Abyss. He is a trained chef and a big herring enthusiast, which is how the connection to Siglufjörður comes about.

He wrote the book Herring Diplomacy, together with the Swede Hakan Juholt, which was published in Icelandic in collaboration with the Icelandic Herring Museum late last year and is called Síldardiplómasía in Icelandic.

"You don't know what you're sitting on here. You're sitting on a gold mine." Karlberg is no less fond of the town of Siglufjörður than of the herring itself.

When asked what place he most wants to visit in 2025, he quickly answers: "Siglufjörður." Karlberg is not sure when in the year, but he expects to be in July. First, he has to finish a film project in which he follows the Swedish blues singer Louise Hoffsten, including to South Africa and Memphis in the United States.

Siglufjörður is a small town on the northern side of the Tröllaskagi Peninsula. Its population is just under 1,200, but outsiders have invested in properties that are either rented out or kept for personal use. In the right wind direction in the summer, from the southeast, a sunny day in Siglufjörður can be compared to a good day in Spain.

My family is here

But what is it about Siglufjörður that you are so drawn to?

“First and foremost, I feel like I am coming home when I visit the town and that my family is here,” says Karlberg, explaining how welcome he was in the town from the first moment.

“This place has a big part of my heart.”

One of the most enjoyable things Karlberg says he experienced in Siglufjörður was a day trip on the oak boat Örkin. He describes how interesting it was to go to places that are so significant in the history of the people of the area. A place that has inspired many writers for their stories, including Hallgrímur Helgason and Einar Kárason. He found it most exciting to go fishing and enjoy the scenery and birdlife on the northernmost shores of Tröllaskagi peninsula.

Karlberg, also known as the Herring Chef, helped the Herring Museum in Siglufjörður set up the Herring Café. He designed the menu for the café, trained the staff and showed them how to use herring in as many ways as possible.

He says he is actually surprised by how small a herring nation Iceland is compared to how long the country has had with "the silver of the sea", while the herring culture in Sweden is much greater and herring is more common on tables there.

He gets his inspiration for his cuisine from the townspeople and the environment in Siglufjörður, but he uses what grows in the surrounding nature to prepare the herring, such as rhubarb and chervil. He adds that it is easy to maintain eating habits for the next generation with foods such as herring, but it is just as easy to lose it.