Introduction
Provided by:
Visit Hammerfest
Hi and welcome to this short round tour around the streets of Hammerfest. My name is Bjørn Sundquist, and this is where I grew up, and it was here that I sat my high school exams in 1967. Today, you will hear about the town’s most important eras and events, both good and bad. You will get to hear about the history, the people and not least how the town has reinvented itself time after time, despite despots and politicians who have made hapless choices affecting the town. Today the town flourishes with an optimism which is built on hard work, courage, and a strong will. Join me, listen, see, and learn! And when you are finished you will be a little bit wiser, and if you want, you can follow some of the other routes on the App and learn more about the different places, houses, and sculptures. God tur :-)
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Points of interest
#1
The Northern Lights
The Northern lights – the aurora borealis – are one of the most fantastic things that we have here in Finnmark. Even a hardened Finnmarker can find themselves with a tear in their eye when the magical lights dance in the sky. It is the greatest light show of all time and should be experienced at least once in a lifetime. You will get the best and most spectacular experience of the Northern lights the further away from artificial lights you are, although you can still have a magical experience right where you are standing now. The Northern lights have been the subject of superstition from ancient times and there are many myths that have arisen around them. In Viking times, it was said that the beautiful lights came from the armour and shields of the Valkkyrienes warrior girls dancing in the sky. Children were told that if they waved a white handkerchief at the northern lights, they would come and take them. Dare you try it? The Northern lights occur when electrically loaded particles are emitted from the sun and collide with the gasses in the earth’s atmosphere. The collision of the different gasses gives the light movement and creates the different colours, almost like a burning bonfire. Maybe that is why the Sami call the Northern lights the “the crackling lights” which were the souls of the dead.
#2
The Rebuilding
Close your eyes and transport yourself back nearly 100 years. Imagine that all the buildings around you have been levelled to the ground and that their ashes cover the town like a gloomy blanket. That was the experience that awaited the first people to travel home to Hammerfest after liberation day on the 8th of May 1945. Imagine the deafening silence and the empty streets. The town looked, so small, naked, so elusive. Luckily the people of Hammerfest don’t give up easily, they had overcome disasters many times before. When the town celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 1889, it obtained the following motto «Industria hominum naturam vincit», “The Industry of men can defeat nature”. Both the town fire and the Nazi burning of the town evoked an unprecedented power in the hardy population, who rebuilt the town with courage and determination, everyone working together from the top ranks to the common man. The first people to return sacrificed everything to help. There were no houses, no solid rooves or isolated walls. The sea and the roads were contaminated with mines , food supplies unstable and access to materials reduced and delayed. They experienced snow that settled in October that year, but with frozen hands, they built the quays, cleared the roads and harbours, repaired the network, built barracks, and washed their clothes in ice cold streams. They were the first, but others soon followed, and it took a whole 15 years before the houses and infrastructure were returned to normal.
#3
The world’s most northerly town
«This is the world’s most northerly town at just under 71 degrees latitude» wrote Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson decisively, when he arrived in Hammerfest by boat in 1869. When Hammerfest obtained town status in 1789, it became the world's most northerly town. Today, other small hamlets around the world have gained town status, but our town remains the world’s most northerly with more than 5000 residents. Hammerfest has also had and continues to have everything needed to be called a town. Here you will find designated areas for housing, offices, shopping and culture, and roads, harbours and an airport connecting Hammerfest with other towns and cities across the world. So, we will do as Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson did, and once and for all declare Hammerfest as the world’s most northerly town!