In August 2020, midway through a 3,300 km drive around Iceland and about 65 km from Lake Myvatn, I was driving east on the ring-road when I came across a remote cafe – Fjalladýrð Kaffi. It was the only building at the intersection with a dirt road (#901) to the south. I stopped for a coffee and randomly picked up a brochure on “one of the most isolated farms” in Iceland; the brochure included a photo of an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus). This was of interest as it appeared that they were locally protected, unlike many other parts where they are hunted. I had seen habituated Arctic Fox earlier at Heydular and when I mentioned that later to the owner of another farm-stay she replied that it was not right to encourage foxes; she also said she had been to a mink farm and “the mink seemed happy” **. So instead of continuing east on the ring-road I headed south on the track to Modrudalur/Fjalledyrd, about 7 km south of the ring-road. Modrudalur at 469 meters above sea level is the highest inhabited farm in Iceland and it includes turf houses, a church, restaurant, campground and an Arctic Fox den. The den is easily found on a grassy bank about 50 meters north of the restaurant and just off the wooden boardwalk that leads to some accommodation.
The den was home to three subadults that mostly played and roamed around the restaurant area, sometimes interacting with the farm dogs; sometimes hunting up to at least 200 m away from the den; and seemingly active all day. They basically ignored the humans.
When not with the foxes I made extensive use of the comfortable restaurant, its freely fillable coffee and the wifi; and tried the Icelandic Moss Soup. I also car-camped in the campground and at 6.30 am the next morning the foxes were again hanging around with the farm dogs and active around the edge of the camp area and buildings. This was certainly my most memorable mammal encounter on the trip as my four whale-watching trips did not produce anything wildly exciting.
** There are apparently nine mink farms in Iceland and as of November 2020 there were no mink covid cases; unlike Denmark where there was a case of mink to human covid transmission, and all mink there were subsequently killed.