The land of Móskógar

Móskógar is the eastest land on Bakkar in Fljótin. The land lies up to Laugaland Westward, down to the sea North-East and up to Ysti-Mór Southward. The land is in total around 140 hectares and are farming conditions good, though no farming is done there today. Crops on the land were never bigger than 4-5 hectares. The land of Móskógar is mostly made up of ancient hills that fell from the mountain. Móskógar is in Barðscounty and in early days there were great benefits from seafood and wood that drifted ashore.

Margrét Þorvaldsdóttir was the first known owner of the land but she bought the land from the church of Reykir in Flókadalur with wood and half a whale that drifted ashore. The land was then either inherited or purchased up until 1962 when the last inhabitants moved away and the land was deserted. In 1964 the land was owned by the coop of Fljótin and two years later, or in 1964, Sæmundur Árni Hermannsson bought the land. The land had then been deserted for four years and it stayed like that up until 1973 when Sæmundur rented a portion of the land to his friend Gottskálk Rögnvaldsson for the price of one whiskey bottle. Gottskálk built the summer cabin Skógar. Skógar is 42m2 with considerable amount of cultivation surrounding it. The next house to be built on the land is the summer house Háskógar which was built in 1989. Original owner was Níels Friðbjarnarson from Siglufjörður but he later on sold it to Erna Rósmundsdóttir and Jóhann Rögnvaldsson who renovated the cabin in order to expand it to 46m2. In 2010 the owners of Móskógar bought the cabin and later in 2016 renovated it again. In 1991 Sæmundur and Ása finally decided to build their own summer cabin on the premises. A cabin for all their family to gather at.

You can find many ruins on the land of Móskógar that all have their own unique history. While laying grounds for district heating in 2016 they found ruins of an old farm located near the Háskógar cabin. They were not able to determine exactly the age of the ruins but everything points to it being the oldest known farm on the land.

The best known farm is the one located near the old road that runs along the roots of the mountain. That is where the old farm built with turf walls stood. People lived in that farm up until after World War Two, thereafter the owners built a wooden house that was inhabited until the land was deserted. The timber house stood around 100 meters down the old road which is today around 4,4 km from Haganesvík.

On the land you can find an old boat from the herring years that Baldur Björnsson, previous owner of Móskógar, bought. The boat was delivered with a truck and put down by to road but in a storm shortly after it was delivered, the boat flew up into the air and landed upside down in a swamp. Nothing was done about it and the boat still stands there today, broken and upside down. The view is excellent from the land of Móskógar and that is considered one of the best traits of the land. From the main cabin you can see all over the fjord, look over the sea and all the way to Haganesvík village. You can watch the boats sail by but in the old day there was a lot of life in the harbor of Haganesvík. From Móskógar you can see the beauty of the East mountains but discussion about how the snow falls on the East mountains has through the years been a popular topic in the fjord.

Despite of Móskógar probably not being the best arable land, are current owners very pleased with what the land has to offer and they often vacation there to get out of the city and breathe the fresh countryside air.