Qualla: Hemnes Municipality

Hemnes Municipality: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finn Rindahl, CC BY-SA 3.0. At half past six on the evening of 10 May 1940, a ship people recognised came up the Ranfjorden toward Hemnesberget flying Norwegian colours. The Nordnorge was a coastal steamer, an ordinary sight on this run. She had been seized in Trondheim three days earlier, her Norwegian crew replaced with Kriegsmarine men, and she was carrying about three hundred German soldiers - mostly Austrian mountain infantry - who had spent forty hours at sea under a flag that was not theirs. Holding the village was a single platoon of British troops from No. 1 Independent Company. The fighting in the streets of Hemnesberget lasted roughly an hour.

Read more: Hemnes Municipality on Qualla

Image: Finn Rindahl | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hemnes Municipality: Operation Wildente

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Magne Aga, CC BY-SA 4.0. The landing had a name and a purpose: get behind the Allied line further north without fighting through it. It worked. The Norwegian Army sent a detachment to counterattack the German positions and was pushed back. At quarter past eight that evening the Royal Navy arrived - the ...

Read more: Hemnes Municipality on Qualla

Image: Magne Aga | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hemnes Municipality: A Boat Clamp on a Blue Field

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PeltonMan, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the municipality settled on a coat of arms - granted on 4 April 1986, designed by Anne Lofthus Valla - it chose an object that would mean nothing at all in most of Europe. The blazon reads Azure, boat clamps Or: gold clamps on a blue field. The blue is for the sea, which is ...

Read more: Hemnes Municipality on Qualla

Image: PeltonMan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hemnes Municipality: Sor-Rana, Renamed

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Event, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hemnes exists because of a division. In 1839, shortly after the Formannskapsdistrikt law brought local self-government to Norway, the large Rana Municipality was split into Sor-Rana and Nord-Rana. Five years later, in 1844, Sor-Rana was renamed Hemnes. The name came from the old...

Read more: Hemnes Municipality on Qualla

Image: Event | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hemnes Municipality: Fifteen Hundred Square Kilometres, Forty-Five Hundred People

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hallvard Kjelen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hemnes covers 1,590 square kilometres, which makes it the 49th largest of Norway's 357 municipalities. It holds 4,485 people, ranking it 194th by population, at a density of 2.8 per square kilometre - and the figure has slipped 1.5 per cent over the last decade. The land runs so...

Read more: Hemnes Municipality on Qualla

Image: Hallvard Kjelen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hemnes Municipality: Ninety-Nine Years, Then Gjovik

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arkiv i Nordland from Bodø, Norway, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 2023, the window manufacturer Natre Vinduer announced it was closing its Hemnesberget factory after ninety-nine years and moving production to Gjovik, in the south. About a hundred jobs went with it. Run that number against a municipality of 4,485. It is not a rounding error;...

Read more: Hemnes Municipality on Qualla

Image: Arkiv i Nordland from Bodø, Norway | CC BY-SA 2.0