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Writer's pictureDave Goble

Perfect spot for a COVID Christmas

Just off Iceland’s south coast, on the remote, deserted, island of Elliðaey in the Vestmannaejar archipelago, sits a lonely, solitary white house on the side of a green hill.

Discredited since, rumour once had it that the Icelandic government gifted the island to the pop singer Björk. Another theory held that it was owned by an eccentric billionaire who planned to move there in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Others have suggested the island is a retreat owned by a fanatically religious hermit. Some have even speculated that the house doesn’t exist at all and that it has simply been photo-shopped onto images of the island in order to cook up an interesting story.

Reality is a bit less exciting. Although a handful of families are known to have lived on the island from the 18th century, it has been completely uninhabited since the 1930s. Life for the few people who did brave the elements here was grueling and lonely, existing primarily on a diet of fish and puffin.


It was the abundance of puffins that attracted small numbers of people to return to the island periodically to hunt. In the 1950s the Elliðaey Hunting Association built a base on the island - the white house in the photograph - to make these trips easier. The association continues to maintain the house as a hunting lodge to support their activities during their hunting expeditions.

It may appear to some to be an idyllic retreat from the world, however, the little white house has no electricity, running water or indoor plumbing. It does, however, boast a sauna fed by a natural rainwater collection system. No doubt a treat after a long day of puffin hunting.

Today the island remains haven for bird life, where the many puffins there are joined by storm petrels and other sea birds for whom it is a significant nesting area. For this reason it is officially listed as a nature reserve and a protected area to which tour companies operating in the Vestmannaejar peninsula offer day trips.

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