Hof í Vesturdal (Hof in Vesturdalur valley) in

Skagafjörður Skagafjörður () is a deep fjord and its valley in northern Iceland. Location Skagafjörður, the fjord, is about 40 km long and 15 km wide, situated between Tröllaskagi to the east and the Skagi, Skagi Peninsula to the west. Ther ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, is now an abandoned farm but it was previously a ranch and church site. It was the homestead of Eiríkur Hróaldsson in

Goðdalir Goðdalir is a town and church site in Vesturdalur valley in Skagafjörður, Iceland. According to the ''Landnámabók'', the name encompassed a much wider area, even including all of , Vesturdalur, Austurdalur, and Svartárdalur, however, this ...

as well as the ancestral home of the Goðdæla clan—Eríkur's descendants. New farms built on the land of Hof were inhabited; however, the main farm has been abandoned since 1999. Hof's land holdings are incredibly vast, encompassing all the land between the

Hofsá Hofsá (, "shrine river") is a river in Vopnafjörður in the Northeastern part of Iceland. It is long and is a productive salmon river. Salmon fishing The average annual catch between 1974 and 2013 was 1,119 salmon. The maximum catch during t ...

river in

Vesturdalur Vesturdalur ("west valley") is a valley that runs from the head of Skagafjörður, Iceland and cuts far into the central Highlands of Iceland, highlands. Austurdalur valley runs parallel to it. The valleys are surrounded by tall, steep mountains ...

and the

Vestari-Jökulsá Vestari-Jökulsá or Jökulsá vestri (English: Western Glacier River) is a glacier river in Skagafjörður, Iceland. It originates in the northwest corner of Hofsjökull and is formed from many branches that fall together and flow northward. The ...

all the way south to

Hofsjökull __NOTOC__ Hofsjökull (Icelandic language, Icelandic: "temple glacier", ) is the third largest ice cap in Iceland after Vatnajökull and Langjökull and covers the largest active central volcano in the country, which has the same name. It is si ...

glacier, which is named for Hof. Furthermore, the estate included Hof's pasture land and was one of the largest properties in Iceland. Hof is about 20 kilometers from Hofsjökull and around 65 kilometers from the sea by Sauðárkrókur. There is

geothermal energy Geothermal energy is thermal energy extracted from the crust (geology), crust. It combines energy from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay. Geothermal energy has been exploited as a source of heat and/or electric power for m ...

in Hof and the water from there is used to heat two towns.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Northwestern Region (Iceland) Skagafjörður Farms in Iceland