MOVING TO HÚSAVÍK
It was the year 1977. Sadat met Begin in Israel. The first personal computer, "Commodore PET", was demonstrated in Chicago. Jimmy Carter became president in the USA. Deng Xiaoping was restored to power in China. Elizabeth II celebrated her silver jubilee as queen and Led Zeppelin's last concert tour in USA.
This is the year when we graduated from the University of Iceland, Snædís, as a lawyer, and her husband Sigurjon, as a dentist. We were under the influence of the hippie culture, characterized by peace, concern for the environment, and rejection of Western materialism, and the dream was to move away from the capital, Reykjavik.
OUR GOALS
Our goals are to provide our guests with:
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Peace and quiet in the bosom of nature
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Environmentally friendly experience
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Healthy indoor air in the cottages
The peacefulness and beauty of the nature surrounding Kaldbaks-kot, elevated with fresh air from the ocean, is unique, still only one km away from urban Husavik town. Each cottage is spaced and oriented in such a way to maximise the feeling of being alone with nature.
Procedures are to clean and wash with fragrance free detergents and earth friendly chemicals. This is both to suit people who suffer from allergies, respiratory problems or chemical sensitivity and our environment. Our ambition is to keep the indoor air in our cottages free of fragrance, mold, chemicals, smoking and solvents.
Chemicals and cleaning agents we use in our daily lives can not only damage the environment but also be hazardous to our health and often is the cause of symptoms such as headaches, restless sleep, muscular pain, fatigue etc.
KALDBAKUR
We heard that there was a shortage of dentists in the small town Husavik in North Iceland. So, in August we packed all our household items and our three years old daughter in our Willys Jeep and started our journey to Husavik. Sigurjon worked as the local dentist and Snaedis as a lawyer at the sheriff's office. We discovered an abandoned farm, Kaldbakur, south of Husavik, fell in love with the place and bought it. The land surrounding the farm was very poorly vegetated and eroded, due to overgrazing for decades, but the view was unbeatable. Our first work was to put up fence all around the farm to keep the sheep away and plant trees. After a hard work for 25 years the surroundings had changed dramatically.
In the year 2000 Sigurjón and Snædís began to build small cottages to be able to share their little paradise, they had made just outside Húsavík, with others - to enjoy.
ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH
The houses are all natural solid wood from Estonia where forestry is under control, supervised and certificated by EEC. They are built with natural, solvent free, and non-toxic building materials, with minimal negative human impact. The downies and pillows are washed frequently at 60°C. The linens are synthetic to minimize the growth of mold, mildew, dust mite, bacteria and viruses. The floors have no carpet, only small “cozy mats” which are machine washed frequently. Since we at Kaldbaks-kot realize that "clean" does not have a "scent" we only use fragrance free chemicals. When you enter our houses you might smell the sulfur from our hot water which we used to clean your house. We try our best to keep our houses allergen-free to suit people with allergy and asthma. The hot tubs have constantly natural geothermal hot water running into them and that keeps them clean. The temperature of the hot tubs varies between 36°- 41° C.