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Jon Heidar, Editor of Stuck in Iceland Travel Magazine
I was baffled when I first saw the acronym ‘GOAT’. Somebody tweeted that some athlete was the #GOAT! I thought about this for quite a while. It was a little strange to shout out online that an athlete was a goat. A Google search revealed that GOAT just means ‘Greatest of all time.’ Simple enough, I suppose. When driving the ring road in Iceland this summer, I visited the country’s only goat farm at Háafell and finally got to know the Icelandic goat. It is the GOAT!
The Icelandic goat got here early
The goat farm of Háafell is near the historical site of Reykholt with its great Fosshótel and the nearby and superb spa of Krauma. and has been on our list of destinations for a long time. The farm is a sanctuary for the almost extinct Icelandic goat, which formed a part of the livestock brought here by the settlers in the so-called ‘ Viking age.’
Saving goats ain’t easy
The lady who founded the farm, Jóhanna Þorvaldsdóttir, has made it her mission to save the Icelandic goat. She and her husband, Þorbjörn Oddsson took over the farm from her parents in 1989. This is when Jóhanna got her first three goats. A decade later they took on four last hornless goats which are only types of Icelandic goats which give brown coats. This was the passion for preserving the Icelandic goat breed was born for Jóhanna and her husband. They set up the set up her goat farm back in 2012 and had a rough start with uncaring bureaucracy and general ignorance about this unique breed. For example, I had no idea there was a breed of Icelandic goat until I read about Jóhanna’s crowdfunding campaign. But her resourcefulness and tenacity coupled with successful crowdfunding campaigns, saved the day and the Icelandic goat. The goat farm at Háafell is now a sustainable business. You can enter an enclosure for a low admission fee and get close and personal with the goats.
Tasty and furry. Perfect combination
Cuisine connoisseurs will love the delicious goat paté, sausages, and cheeses made and sold at the farm. Jóhanna also makes and sells lovely jams, ice-cream, and of course, goatskin. I am delighted to recommend all of this.
Staying the same through the ages
Icelandic goats have been unchanged since the eighth or ninth century. They are hardy animals, during the 18th-century holocaust of the so-called Mist hardships, the Icelandic settler’s breed of pigs became extinct. But the goats endured.
Saved from the brink
When Iceland was an agrarian society, the goat was the poor people’s cow since it takes a lot less to maintain than a full-blown cow. Keep in mind that the word ‘poor’ for Iceland before 1950 describes impoverished people on the edge of starvation.
But with more prosperity and a tightly centralized system of government subsided farming of sheep and cattle, goats seem to have become irrelevant to farmers. But thankfully, Jóhanna saved those unique creatures from the brink.
Gentle and beautiful
The Icelandic goats are incredibly beautiful and gentle animals. If you show them care and respect when approaching them, expect serious cuddling time. Their handler, or should I say their cuddler-in-chief, Ragnhildur explained that goats are smart and easy to handle. I noticed that there was a herd of goats outside a fence in the hill above the farm. Ragnhildur told me that unlike sheep, goats are smart and calm and rarely stray away from the farm.
Family-friendly Háafell
There is no doubt that the Háafell goat farm is the most family-friendly destination in Iceland. Obviously, adults and children enjoy getting close to the goats and petting them. But there is also a lot of things kids can learn about the animals on this fully working farm.
Claim to Game of Thrones fame
The goats of Háafell played their part in the Game of Thrones series. About 20 of the goats made up the herd that was fried and devoured by the dragon Drogon. The impressive Casanova is one of them, and I am happy to report that he is no primadonna despite his international fame!
Here is the segment from Game of Thrones. No goats were hurt!
So if you are in west Iceland, you should take that drive up to Háafell and endear you to the goats there. Your soul will be thankful for it.
How to get to family-friendly goat farm at Háafell
From Reykholt, drive to road 518 and then turn on to road number no. 50, turn on to road 522 and then finally on to road 523. Proceed to Háafell goat farm.
