Kristiansund (formerly both Christianssund and Fosna or
Lille-Fosen) is a town and municipality on Nordmøre in Møre og
Romsdal with 24,179 inhabitants. The municipality consists of five
larger islands in addition to a number of smaller islands, islets
and reefs. Kristiansund is surrounded by sea and fjords: In the
northeast, above Trondheimsleia, lies Smøla municipality; east of
Talgsjøen lies Aure; southeast of Freifjorden Tingvoll and in the
south Gjemnes municipality. West of Bremsnesfjorden is Averøy
municipality and to the north, northwest is the Norwegian Sea.
The town of Kristiansund is located on four islands, right out
to sea and has 18,210 inhabitants as of 1 January 2020. Here the
charging place Lille-Fosen grew in the 17th century and gained
official city status in 1742 under the name Christianssund. Prior to
the municipal merger with Frei in 2008, Kristiansund municipality
was limited to four islands, Kirkelandet, Innlandet, Nordlandet and
Gomalandet, which are connected to Kirkelandet.
The good
natural harbor and the location by the shipping lane together with
the fjords towards the villages on Nordmøre are the background for a
town being established right here. Kristiansund grew based on timber
exports, fishing and clipfish production, while the business
community today is centered around the oil and gas activities at
Haltenbanken.
From the 17th century, the central parts of
the city of Kristiansund were a charging station called Lille-Fosen.
Fosen or Fosna probably means a place to find shelter or a good
harbor. It is assumed that Fosen comes from the Old Norse folksn
(hiding place). When the charging station in 1742 gained status as a
market town through royal resolution, it was named Christianssund,
after the Danish-Norwegian king Christian VI. At the beginning of
the 20th century, a Norwegianisation of Danish place names in Norway
was advocated, and the city's name was given an alternative
spelling: Kristiansund, rather than Christianssund. The spelling
Kristiansund was used in the State Calendar from 1877.
The
city coat of arms 'motif shows that the name Fosen was not
understood in Copenhagen in 1742, and the city coat of arms' motif
became a waterfall.
In 1929, a referendum was held on whether
the city should take back its old name, Fosna. Of the 4740 votes,
only 41 were in favor of the name change. The city council therefore
chose to keep the name Kristiansund.
Stone Age and
Viking Age
The first find from the Old Stone Age in Norway was
made at Voldvatnet on Nordlandet in Kristiansund as early as 1909 by
Anders Nummedal. The Fosna culture was named after the town on
Nordmøre and dates back to 8000 BC. These outer districts were
ice-free at an early age, and there was plenty of food in the sea.
People may have lived on the North Sea coast before the end of the
ice age. In addition, there was access to flint and other hard
rocks. In Kristiansund, it is also better with traces of road people
from the Neolithic.
The battle of Rastarkalv is known from
Snorre's royal sagas. The battle site from the year 955 is located
on the south side of the island of Frei. King Håkon the Good fought
against the sons of Eirik who had support from Denmark. There are
three monumental stones on Raskarkalv, on the mound behind Frei
church, in memory of this battle.
There are 15 meter long
mounds on Rastarkalv.
The Middle Ages
Stockfish was an
important export product from Norway in the Middle Ages, the
breakthrough took place in the 12th century. The fishing village
Grip was one of the production sites. The coast off Nordmøre was an
important spawning area for cod, and was the natural basis for
important fishing in late winter. There is reason to believe that
the fishing village at this time had a permanent settlement, and
that visiting fishermen from the fjords within were seasonal labor
during the most important fishing season. In the Middle Ages, Grip
was the only densely populated area in what is today Kristiansund
municipality, with the archbishop of Nidaros as the landowner. The
Stave Church is an important cultural monument from this time and
among other things the altarpiece tells about the trade connections
to the Hanseatic cities in northern Germany. But the fishing village
had no location that could be developed into a city, and in the 16th
century, the profitability of the fisheries became increasingly
poor. Now it was the fjord villages that had the most in demand
resource, namely forests.
The shipping lane and a good harbor
are the basis for the city's existence, and the harbor in
Lille-Fosen is known as far back as there are sources. Fosna farm in
Vågen is considered to be the cradle of the city, but it is
uncertain to what extent there was permanent settlement around the
harbor already in the Middle Ages.
The charging station
Lille-Fosen
In the 17th century, a small settlement developed by
the harbor between the three islands. The growth of the place was
especially due to increasing exports of raw materials (especially
lumber) to the rest of Europe. It was especially Dutch ships that
came to Nordmøre every year. Vågen in Fosna became a permanent
mooring and gathering place for vessels that visited the district.
Here the state established a customs station (in 1630) to control
the timber trade on Nordmøre. From Fosna, it was easy for the
customs officers to keep an eye on the trail and most of the vessels
that passed. Nordmøre browse customs district in 1606 or earlier.
The place was given the status of a charging station under
Trondheim, a city with a permit to trade in a limited selection of
goods. The 17th century is called the Dutch era in Kristiansund's
history. Dutch charts from this time have many names along the
fjords on Nordmøre. It was timber the Dutch were interested in. The
customs post was primarily established to control the timber trade.
The first merchants in Lille-Fosen traded in lumber, stockfish and
herring.
In the 1690s, the Dutchman Jappe Ippes brought
knowledge about the production of clipfish to Norway. On 11 August
1691 he received a royal letter of privilege which gave him
permission to manufacture and export clipfish in the loading place
Lille-Fosen and at Tustna. After a few years he had to give up.
In 1733, Lille-Fosen was visited by Christian VI and Queen
Sophie. A few years later, despite protests from the merchants in
Trondheim and Bergen, he was to give status as a market town and
city name to the charging station on Nordmøre.
The market
town Christianssund
On June 29, 1742, the charging station was given the status of a
market town and a new name, Christianssund, by King Christian VI.
The city developed rapidly and became an important city for the fish
trade. This attracted foreign merchants to the city, especially
British.
The Scotsman John Ramsay was one of those who again
took up clipfish production. In the middle of the 18th century, this
developed into a large company. The most enterprising of the
merchants in Kristiansund gained control of all stages of clipfish
production: They bought up the fishing villages and introduced a
system called host fishing. They received the catch and were
responsible for the production of clipfish, and they were exporters.
Klippfisk was at this time unknown in Norwegian cuisine. Clipfish
production was labor intensive and required many hands during the
dry season in spring and summer. The fish had to be salted and
washed before it had to be salted again and alternately dried and
pressed on the «fish mountain». Milnbrygga and Milnbergan, right in
the center of Kristiansund, are important cultural monuments from
this time.
The clipfish was to be exported, and the most
prosperous merchants could acquire their own ships. In the years
after 1776, the city built up a large fleet with several shipyards
and ropeways. Expertise in shipbuilding was obtained from
Copenhagen. Further up to 1806, the business community in
Kristiansund had an explosive development, where the city was
supplied with great wealth.
During the Napoleonic Wars,
Denmark-Norway was allied with France. On July 7, 1808, Kristiansund
was attacked by English warships, the "Cygnet" and the corvette
"Tartar". The attack was repulsed by the city's cannon batteries.
Several houses in the city were damaged, and one was killed. An 11
meter high monument was erected to commemorate the battle on the
occasion of the centenary of 1908.
The market town sorted
under Bremsnes parish in Kvernes to Kristiansund parish was
established by royal resolution of 20 August 1827.
Spanish
time
The Spanish era is called the period from 1830 onwards in
the 19th century when Spanish ships came to Kristiansund to buy
clipfish directly from the merchants in Kristiansund. This period
was important for the development of the city's business life. It
was the Spanish sailors who visited Kristiansund who are given the
honor of having introduced bacalao to the city. The originally
Danish Christian Johnsen had learned the principles of the clipfish
trade in Bilbao, and in 1854 he established himself in Kristiansund
after visiting the city several times as an envoy from his Spanish
employer Gurtubay. In Kristiansund, he built up a thriving trading
business that extended to both Asia and South America as well as to
Europe. He also built up a local industrial business that provided
jobs for many for decades.
In the middle of the 19th century,
clipfish production expanded beyond what the fisheries in Nordmøre,
Romsdal and Trøndelag provided with raw material supply. The city's
merchants had to invest in the purchase of raw fish in Lofoten and
Finnmark to satisfy demand. The city got a large fleet of small
sailing vessels, yachts and galleys for this traffic. The market was
also expanded, including to America. The town's clipfish merchants
made good money and Nicolai H. Knudtzon was considered Norway's
richest man at the end of the 19th century.
In 1884, the
clipfish industry was hit by an economic crash that hit all
companies in the industry hard. The crash was due to a sudden fall
in market prices in Spain, with the result that all clipfish
exporters, with one exception, went bankrupt.
Name dispute
The name of the town was for a time a contentious issue; It was
argued that the old Norwegian Fosna, the city's name as a charging
station, should replace Kristiansund, a name the city got in the
Danish era. As early as the mid-1890s, the name change was suggested
by some in the local newspapers, but the struggle after the First
World War became particularly fierce. This is at the same time as
many other Norwegian cities and places regained their former
Norwegian names. In Kristiansund, the name dispute culminated in
1929 with a people's train in which half the city's population
participated and finally a referendum. The result was overwhelming:
4699 (99.1%) voted against the name change, only 41 in favor. The
city council reversed the case and the city kept the name it had had
since 1742.
In a postal context, the term "Kristiansund N"
was used to separate the city from Kristiansand S. Especially
handwritten addresses could otherwise easily create problems if a or
u was sloppily written. The problem disappeared after the
introduction of postcodes.
The city before the war
At the end of the 19th century, Kristiansund was a particularly
beautiful town with many large merchant farms and boathouses or
piers. The city was nevertheless characterized by the fact that
there was no special zoning plan for the construction of buildings.
This should prove to be impractical when cars in the 20th century
made their entrance into the cityscape.
The town consisted
mainly of wooden houses with standing panels. In the first half of
the 20th century, several brick houses and larger apartment
buildings were built. Among the notable buildings that characterized
Kristiansund at that time were Festiviteten, Norges Bank's branch,
Grand Hotell and Nordlandet church.
Bombing and wartime
In
April 1940, Kristiansund was bombed by German planes. After the
bombing, large parts of the city were completely damaged. Around 800
of the city's 1300 buildings were completely or partially destroyed,
which corresponds to 28 percent of the country's total war damage to
buildings during World War II. About 290,000 m2 of buildings were
destroyed (compared to 80,000 m2). During the war, Brente's
regulation began planning the rebuilding, but little could still be
built in wartime. Most of the inhabitants who had become homeless
had to live in barracks until the end of the war.
The German
occupation forces also had significant facilities in the
municipality, including Kvalvik fort to the east of the island of
Frei.
Re-journeys
The rebuilding was initiated in 1940
under the auspices of Brente steders regulation and Professor Sverre
Pedersen. Pedersen had a sketch zoning plan ready in August 1940 and
the final zoning plan from 1941 was adopted after the war without
significant changes. Pedersen placed particular emphasis on a new
driveway from the harbor. After the war, Kristiansund was rebuilt
with a marked reconstruction architecture in a sober functional
style. The central parts of Kirkelandet and Nordlandet were
completely changed. The old wooden town with a self-grown structure
on traffic arteries and property boundaries was replaced by straight
streets. Kirkelandet was now dominated by Kaibakken, a wide new
street that connects the quays with the upper part of town. The axes
of architecture are aimed at magnificent nature motifs such as
Freikollen and Jørgenvågsalen in the neighboring municipality of
Aure. In central residential areas, some houses were equipped with
classic details such as the door portals. In some streets, such as
(Vuggaveien), prefabricated houses were sent from Sweden as
emergency aid. The erection of Kirkelandet church in 1964 marked the
completion of the rebuilding.
By 1950, 68% of the city had
been rebuilt, measured in area.
The rebuilding city of
Kristiansund has been highlighted as one of the 20th century's most
worthy cultural environments in Norway. This is justified by the
fact that the city center is one of the best-preserved examples of
post-war architecture.
The 1950s were marked by rebuilding
and a rich herring fishery in the winters. At this time, the city
also had a trawler fleet that provided raw materials for clipfish
production.
The municipal boundaries are adjusted
On 1
January 1964, major changes took place in the municipal boundaries
in Norway as a result of the work of the Schei Committee. The
boundaries were changed as a result of the transition from sea to
road communication. In addition, smaller municipalities were merged
into larger units. Grip, which was then the country's smallest
municipality, was incorporated into Kristiansund. Until now, parts
of Nordlandet had been part of the then Bremsnes municipality, but
were now transferred to Kristiansund. At the same time, Bolga and
Vadsteinsvik on Frei were transferred from Bremsnes to Frei
municipality.
The municipalities of Kristiansund and Frei
were merged on 1 January 2008 after a referendum. In Kristiansund
the result was 95.5% yes votes and 4.5% no votes, and in Frei the
result was 1330 yes votes (51.5 &%) and 1252 no votes (48.5%).