Hammerfest (Northern Sami: Hámmerfeasta, Kven: Hammerfästi) is a
municipality and a town in Troms and Finnmark. The municipality
borders Måsøy in the northeast, Porsanger in the east, Alta in the
south and Hasvik in the west. The city is located at 70.7 degrees
north and was for over 200 years until 1996 considered the world's
northernmost. In 2009, Hammerfest received trademark protection for
"the world's northernmost city". Hammerfest town is located on
Kvaløya with a bridge connection to the mainland. Despite its
location north of the Arctic Circle, the city has an ice-free
harbor. On Melkøya, just outside Hammerfest, is the onshore facility
that processes and cools the gas from the Snøhvit field. The
facility was launched in the autumn of 2007. In 2005, Hammerfest was
added to the UNESCO World Heritage List with the northernmost
measuring point in Struve's meridian arc.
Hammerfest has a
long history of Pomor trade, Arctic fishing, fishing and the fishing
industry. Hammerfest town received city rights on 17 July 1789, the
same day as Vardø, and these two towns are the oldest in northern
Norway. The settlement began already in the period between 1250 and
1350, but traces of people have been found even further back in
time. Despite hurricanes and city fires, the city has risen time and
time again.
Geography
Hammerfest municipality consists of Hammerfest town,
Forsøl, Hønseby, Rypefjord, Akkarfjord, Hellefjord, Kårhamn,
Skarvfjordhamn and Sandøybotn and Kvalsund. The municipality had
10,509 inhabitants as of 1 January 2019, of which 8,016 of the
municipality's inhabitants lived in the town of Hammerfest, 1,855 in
the town of Rypefjord and 202 in the town of Forsøl as of 1 January
2020. The rest is distributed between the villages on the islands of
Seiland and Sørøya.
Hammerfest town is located on the west
side of Kvaløya, towards Sørøysundet, and has a bridge connection to
the mainland. The municipality borders Kvalsund in the east, Alta in
the south and Hasvik in the west. Despite its location north of the
Arctic Circle, the city has an ice-free harbor. Hammerfest also has
midnight sun, which can be experienced from 16 May to 27 July.
Topography
Hammerfest municipality covers 848.6 km²
The landscape in Hammerfest is characterized by densely populated
areas around the city center. Otherwise, the landscape on Kvaløya
consists mostly of rounded, forestless mountains.
The highest
points in the municipality are Seilandstuva (1078 masl), and
Nordmannsjøkelen (985 masl). Both of these mountain peaks are
located south of the municipality, on the border with Alta, on the
island of Seiland. Closer to the city center, Tyven (418 masl) and
Storfjellet (328 masl) are popular hiking destinations.
Geology
The bedrock in Hammerfest consists mostly of relatively
strongly transformed gneisses from Eocambrian times. On Sørøya and
Seiland smaller sections of gabbro and mica slate. A couple of minor
finds of coke and iron ore have been made on Sørøya, but these are
not of economic significance.
Climate
Hammerfest typically
has a northern climate in northern Norway, with relatively mild
winters and moderate summer weather. Hammerfest often has very large
amounts of snow in the winter, and in some cases has been hit by
avalanches very close to the city center. Normal values for the
period 1961−1990 are given in the table below.
History
Tombs have been found in Hammerfest, which can be dated back to the
Stone Age. In 1684 Hammerfest got its first church and priest. The
population was then around 60 people. The town's location made the
town an important place for fishing and Arctic fishing, but lost the
right to trade at the behest of King Frederik V of Denmark-Norway.
This leads to Russia starting to send ships with grain to
Hammerfest, the so-called Pomor trade. On July 17, 1789, the city
was granted town rights by a royal decree by Christian VII of
Denmark-Norway. Hammerfest gets its first doctor in 1792.
The
Napoleonic War
During the Napoleonic War, Denmark-Norway was
attacked by Britain and forced into the conflict on the side of
Napoleon and France. As one of the most important trade and
transport centers in Western Finnmark, Hammerfest became a natural
target for the Royal Navy blockade. Therefore, the city received
four six-kilo cannons from the central cloth house in Trondheim, at
the request of local merchants. Then a 50-man coastal defense squad
was formed to defend Hammerfest. A number of merchants formed the
officer corps for the troop, while naval Sami and Kvens were
mobilized as crews and soldiers.
British attack
On July
22, 1809, the expected British attack came with the brigades Snake
and Jobb. Before the ships reached Hammerfest, the British vessels
had looted Hasvik, and left the fishing village in rubble. The
ensuing battle between Hammerfest's two cannon batteries and the
British warships with a total of 32 cannons was surprisingly intense
and did not end until the Norwegian cannons had run out of
gunpowder, after a battle of 90 minutes. Both of the attacking
warships were hit by a number of cannonballs and lost at least one
man, a sailor who was buried in the local cemetery. During the
battle, the city's population had been able to flee with most of the
city's assets, but the British warships remained in Hammerfest for
eight days. During their stay, the British looted everything they
could get their hands on, including the church donation box and some
of the church's silver.
After the raid, Hammerfest became a
garrison town with regular forces and much better and expanded
fortifications. A small flotilla of rowboats armed with cannons
operated out of Hammerfest during the rest of the Napoleonic Wars.
1830-1890
About. 1830: The city barely avoids a cholera
epidemic.
1839: Hammerfest gets its first employed firefighter.
1852: Hammerfest hospital established in Nedre Grønnevoldsgate.
1859: Finnmark's first lighthouse is built at Fuglenes. The city's
first zoning plan is being drawn up.
1868: The city's first
waterworks is built.
1870: A telegraph station used by the whole
of Finnmark is built.
1886: Roland Bonaparte (1858–1924), 6th
Prince of Canino and Musignano, visits Hammerfest during a journey
along the Norwegian coast. Bonaparte was part of a scientific
expedition that photographed and measured the anatomy of the Sami
population in northern Norway.
Struve's meridian arc 1816-1855
in 1845, Norway took part in
the survey of the earth's shape and size, which included
triangulation points at 265 locations in three countries, Norway,
Sweden and Russia (today ten countries). Struve's northernmost point
is at the meridian support in Hammerfest. A signal point was built
that stands on the mountain Tyven, Håja, Seilandstuva and Gosviktind
which served as a sight point to be able to calculate the length of
the sides. These were most likely built by locals and most of the
cairns are authentic today. This extensive scientific survey work is
today inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The city
fire in 1890
Hammerfest was hit by a city fire in 1890 which
started in the bakery and burned down almost half of the town's
houses. After the fire, Hammerfest received donations and
humanitarian aid from around the world. The largest single donor was
Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. The emperor had personally visited
the city several times with his yacht.
During the reconstruction
of the city, Haakon Hauan was employed as a functioning city
engineer.
1890-1940
1882: St. Vincent's Hospital
(Catholic) established in Hammerfest
1890: Two thirds of the city
is destroyed by fire
1891: Hammerfest becomes the first city in
Norway, and among the first in Europe, with electric street lighting
1910: Norges Bank establishes a branch in Hammerfest
1911:
Vestfinmarkens Damskipsselskap formed in Hammerfest (later FFR)
1915: Finmarkens Privatbank, established in Hammerfest (now Dnb)
1926: Hammerfest hospital moves into a new building at Fuglenes
1936: St. Vincent's Hospital moves into a new building
1937:
Hammerfest Grave Chapel completed (today the city's oldest building)
Second World War
After the attack on Norway during World War
II, the Germans occupied Hammerfest and used it as an important base
during the war. Hammerfest's significance for the Germans increased
dramatically after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
The occupiers installed three coastal batteries in and around
Hammerfest, one with four 10.5 cm cannons on Melkøya near the city,
one with three 10.5 cm cannons at a height just outside the city and
a final battery with casemate 13 cm cannon at Rypklubben in
Rypefjord.
The most important German submarine base in
Finnmark was located in Hammerfest and served as a central supply
base for the ships that attacked the Allied supply convoys to
Russia. Luftwaffe's seaplane was based on an impromptu seaplane base
in Rypefjord. The garrison in Hammerfest was also protected by
around 4,000 landmines and a large number of anti-aircraft guns.
During the long retreat from the Murmansk front, the Germans
were no longer able to transport troops by sea further east, due to
the attacks of the massive Soviet air force. Thus, in the autumn of
1944, Hammerfest became their most important port in Finnmark.
On February 14, Russian planes dropped explosives and firebombs
over the city for the first time, but the damage was small. On 29
August, there was a similar but far more powerful air strike in
which a number of buildings and streets in the city center were
destroyed, in addition to two ships in the harbor being sunk. The
ships that sank were the local freighters Tanahorn and Brynilen.
In the autumn of 1944, the population of Hammerfest was forcibly
evacuated by the German occupation forces, after the Murmansk front
on the northern part of the eastern front was pushed into eastern
Finnmark. The whole of Finnmark, including Hammerfest, was looted
and burned to the ground by the Germans when they withdrew in 1945.
The last part of the city was destroyed when the Germans finally
left the city on February 10, 1945. The only thing left was the
city's small funeral chapel, built in 1937. The Reconstruction
Museum for Finnmark and North Troms tells the story of how the war
hit Hammerfest and how the city was rebuilt after the war. The
Soviet forces in East Finnmark were withdrawn in September 1945.
Mines and ammunition from World War II are still found in the
Hammerfest area.
After 1945
1954: St. Elisabeth hospital
completed
1956: Hammerfest hospital at Fuglenes completed
1965: Horseshoe block, BYBO, completed. 124 apartments
1980:
"Ross Rigg" starts exploration drilling on Tromsøflaket. Supply base
established in Hammerfest
1992: Sørøysund municipality is merged
with Hammerfest municipality after a referendum
2007: The snow
white plant on Melkøya is put into operation in September. This is
Northern Norway's largest industrial development
2009: Arctic
Cultural Center (AKS) officially opens. The building is Hammerfest
municipality's new culture house.
Hammerfest was the first to
come out with a municipal power plant, a water-powered generator of
65 hp utilized a drop of 44 meters and delivered a voltage of 1000
volts.