Brumunddal, popularly called «Dala», is the largest city and municipal center in Ringsaker municipality in the Inland. The city has 10,919 inhabitants as of 1 January 2020 and is located at the mouth of the river Brumunda on the eastern shore of Lake Mjøsa, 15 kilometers north of Hamar. Brumunddal together with Moelv got city status from 1 January 2010. Brumunddal Football comes from here and plays its matches at Sveum sports park. Brumunddal is a service center for large parts of Ringsaker, with particular emphasis on services to the agricultural sector.
Brumunddal grew as a town after the Dovre line opened
from Hamar to Tretten in 1894. Brumunddal station is located at 134
meters above sea level. Brumunddal has numerous industries with
connections to agriculture and forestry, especially the wood and
furniture and food industry, as well as the clothing and machinery
industry, especially the production of agricultural machinery and
equipment. Two examples of this are Globus Maskinfabrikk, which was
established in 1911, and the timber company Berger Langmoen A / S,
which became Brumunddal's largest industrial company and is one of
Norway's largest timber producers. In the following period, a lot of
business activity grew here, among other things, Huseby dairy was
founded in 1898.
Eventually, the settlements on both sides of
the river grew, and the city became a natural center for large parts
of three municipalities: Ringsaker, Furnes and Nes. Brumunddal as
the center was thus an important reason why Ringsaker was merged
into a large municipality in 1964. Europaveg 6 was built outside
Brumunddal center from Økelsrud to the top of Bergshøgda with
completion in 1982 as Motortrafikkvei and then removed the through
traffic from the busy center. In 1962, plans were presented for the
four-lane E6 motorway to Lillehammer by 1980, but that schedule did
not hold. In the new National Transport Plan, a new E6 will be built
as a four-lane motorway from Kolomoen to Brumunddal with
construction starting no earlier than 2018. Brumunddal is under
Brumunddal / Veldre parish, and Brumunddal church was consecrated in
1965.
Mjøsparken
In the spring of 2019, Mjøstårnet, the
world's tallest wooden building, was completed in Mjøskanten. Here
is Mjøsbadet, a public swimming pool, and Mjøsparken, an open-air
and recreation area of 82,600 square meters is next to this.
Mjøsparken has a jetty for Skibladner, boat harbor, skating rink,
basketball court, petanque court, playground with mini-zipline,
beach with swimming bin, sensory garden, barbecue areas, toilet
building, charging station for electric bikes and benches.
«The Battle of Brumunddal»
In the 1980s and 90s in Brumunddal,
there had long been an emerging resistance to immigration. Store
8-8, which was owned by a Pakistani immigrant, was attacked with an
explosive device on February 9, 1988. Later, the store burned down
after a firebomb was dropped on April 30, 1988. The police inspector
at Hamar police station stated that "It is not talk about organized
racism. I would rather call it mob jokes ». Out on Mjøsisen, a cross
was erected and lit. The municipality put up planks in front of
windows in houses where immigrants lived to prevent stone-throwing
and soiling. A Vietnamese family who had lived in Brumunddal since
1979 often had their house vandalized. On the night of March 27,
1991, the father of the family was beaten outside his home.
On April 20, 1991, Aftenposten published an article by Vetle Lid
Larssen. The article was entitled "Brumunddal - the place God
forgot?" and told about the racist incidents in the city years
before. The article sent shock waves through the local community.
Public meetings were arranged, and the action group "Brumunddal on
new roads" was established. Ringsaker municipality paid 140,000
kroner for a full-page advertisement in Aftenposten, where they
called the article "A verbal swing skull," and continued after a
facsimile of Larssen's article, "But we needed it."
On 31
August 1991, the well-known immigration opponent Arne Myrdal and his
supporters from the People's Movement Against Immigration (FMI) held
a meeting in Brumunddal. The meeting ended with a street fight where
several hundred blitzers and anti-racists, including from SOS
Racism, were chased by Boot Boys, FMI supporters and neutral
brumunddøler. E6 and Brumunddal station were blocked off for about
half an hour, and police with shields and helmets had to keep the
furious mob away so that the more than 100 flashers could be picked
up by three buses. One mob was equipment with sticks, iron bars,
chains, bottles of gasoline and battery acid.
A thousand
people attended a public meeting in Brumunddal 14 days after the
Brumunddal battle. "Brumunddal on new roads" received strong
political and financial support from the authorities. When Myrdal
returned to hold a new meeting on September 20, 4,000 people showed
up and turned their backs on him.
From 1992 to 1994, the
Brumunddal Action Plan was the school's work against bullying,
discrimination and racism. With the project "Brumunddal on new
roads", Brumunddal has through hard work managed to get rid of the
racist stamp and instead become a good role model for other towns
with the same problems.