A visit in January

Iceland is not as cold in general in mid-winter as the other places you mention (though in Canada coastal BC is milder). In the coastal strip of Iceland, where nearly all the population lives, the snow often melts between falls. Rain, as well as snow, falls in mid-winter. For this reason, dog-sledding was not a significant form of traditional winter transport as the snow-cover was not sufficiently reliable. Though it is an available activity for the tourist. More modern winter sports such as ski-ing are not very reliable either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorrablot is the other midwinter festival (after Christmas).

Icy waterfalls are a spectacular winter sight.

Dog sledding has no tradition in Iceland - or Scandinavia.
It is only set up there as entertainment for tourists. Dog sledding belongs to Greenland (northern part only!! - husky-dogs illegal in southern part of Greenland!!)) and Canada/Alaska - where inuits live.

I think SHORT days must be as impressive for "tropical" visitors as the looong summer days???

For ppl. like me that comes from more south but still with short days in the winter - the (only) really interesting thing in Iceland in the winter is Northern Light if lucky - oh, and then there used to be only few tourists - bar and restaurants in reykjavik was full of icelanders and not Brits! ;-)

But the discount flights from London has that wiped that advantage away. OK frozen waterfalls - but most as I know of are a bit difficult to reach in wintertime - and you can see that in the Alps, Scandinavia and many other palces, too.

Thanks for the tips. It's pretty much what i figured. Although i hadn't figured on so many british tourists.

Actually, i just mentioned dog-sledding as the first winter only sport that popped into my head. #2 i disagree about dog sledding in Scandinavia. While it has it's origin in Inuit culture, Scandinavians do it too. A Pulka (Swedish) / Pulk (Norwegian) / Pulkka (Finnish), while often pulled by a skier, can also be pulled by a dog. Not to mention the expedition led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen used dog sleds to reach the South Pole.

Hmm - 99% sure that no pulks were pulled by dogs in Scandinavia 100-150 years ago - by skiers and first of all by reindeers (Sami culture). Amundsen did directly copy the use of dogs from the inuit/Greenlanders - even got the dogs there as I remember the books about him..