Qualla: Bleikvasslia https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Bleikvasslia https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia Bleikvasslia: Introduction https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia/ Photo credit AkselWiki, CC BY-SA 4.0. Water made Bleikvasslia and water finished it, and the two events happened about forty years apart within a few kilometres of each other. At the village's edge, a controlled fall of 135 metres out of Norway's second-largest lake drives three Francis turbines that push roughly 900 gigawatt-hours onto the grid every year. Underground, a short way off, water did the opposite: it seeped into the shafts of the Bleikvassli mine until pumping it out cost more than the zinc and lead coming up were worth. The mine closed in 1998. Same substance, two verdicts, one village of a few hundred people sitting at 314 metres in the upper Rossaga valley.

Read more: Bleikvasslia on Qualla

Image: AkselWiki | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/u79y-bleikvasslia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Bleikvasslia: An Arestue From the 1750s https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia/ Photo credit Hallvard Kjelen, CC BY-SA 3.0. People lived here long before either the turbines or the ore. Settlement in Bleikvasslia goes back to the 1700s, and an arestue from the 1750s still stands - a hearth-house, the old Norwegian form where the fire burns in an open central hearth and the smoke leaves through a hole ...

Read more: Bleikvasslia on Qualla

Image: Hallvard Kjelen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/u79y-bleikvasslia-an-arestue-from-the-1750s.mp3 0:06 2 full Bleikvasslia: What the Rock Held https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia/ Photo credit Hallvard Kjelen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bleikvassli Gruber A/S went after a mixed body of ore - svovelkis, zinc and lead, with small showings of other metals. Pyrite, in English, though the money was in the zinc and lead. The mine opened in the 1950s and ran for roughly four decades, which in the arc of Norwegian metal...

Read more: Bleikvasslia on Qualla

Image: Hallvard Kjelen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/u79y-bleikvasslia-what-the-rock-held.mp3 0:06 3 full Bleikvasslia: The Top of the Water Chain https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia/ Photo credit Hallvard Kjelen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bleikvasslia sits between two very different bodies of water. Northeast of the houses is Bleikvatnet, the small lake the village is named for. South, along the municipal boundary, is Rossvatnet - dammed in 1957, raised about ten metres at the cost of shoreline farmland, and at 21...

Read more: Bleikvasslia on Qualla

Image: Hallvard Kjelen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/u79y-bleikvasslia-the-top-of-the-water-chain.mp3 0:06 4 full Bleikvasslia: Karihaugen https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia/ Photo credit Hallvard Kjelen, CC BY-SA 3.0. During the German occupation a labour camp stood at Karihaugen, above the village. Northern Norway was dotted with such camps, built to supply forced labour for roads, rail and installations, and the men held in them worked through winters they were neither clothed nor fed for. T...

Read more: Bleikvasslia on Qualla

Image: Hallvard Kjelen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/u79y-bleikvasslia-karihaugen.mp3 0:06 5 full Bleikvasslia: Cabins, a Shop, and County Road 806 https://qualla.com/bleikvasslia/ Photo credit Hallvard Kjelen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today the village runs on quieter things. One filling station and one shop serve the road. County Road 806 runs the roughly twenty kilometres north to Korgen, and it carries a steady weekend traffic in the other direction: cabins are scattered thickly through the country around B...

Read more: Bleikvasslia on Qualla

Image: Hallvard Kjelen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/7/9/y/bleikvasslia-wp/u79y-bleikvasslia-cabins-a-shop-and-county-road-806.mp3 0:06 6 full