Qualla: Spithami

Spithami: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Meky, CC BY-SA 3.0. The sign at the edge of the village reads Spithami, and beneath it, Spithamn. Estonia made this corner of Lääne County officially bilingual in 1997, so a settlement with eight registered residents carries its name in two languages — the second belonging to a community that has almost finished disappearing. Swedish-speaking families farmed, fished, and built wooden boats on this headland for centuries. They left for Sweden during the war, the Soviet army knocked down most of their houses and closed the coastline for the next forty-seven years, and what stands here now is a handful of rebuilt summer houses scattered among concrete bunkers.

Read more: Spithami on Qualla

Image: Meky | CC BY-SA 3.0

Spithami: Spear-Harbour

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Abrget47j, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name is a fossil of the language that used to be spoken here. It comes from Old Swedish — spit, a spear, for the long thin cape, and hamn, a harbour — and clerks have been mangling it in writing since at least 1514, when it appears as Spithaven, Spithave, and Spithaff in the ...

Read more: Spithami on Qualla

Image: Abrget47j | CC BY-SA 3.0

Spithami: Aiboland

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amadvr, CC BY-SA 3.0 ee. Swedish-speakers had been on this coast a very long time. The first written mention of them in Estonia comes from 1294, in the town laws of Haapsalu, and they stayed for some 650 years. They called themselves aibofolke, island people, and their territory Aiboland: the offshore is...

Read more: Spithami on Qualla

Image: Amadvr | CC BY-SA 3.0 ee

Spithami: The Leaving

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sumistaja, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between 1943 and 1944 nearly all of them went. Occupation and the border restrictions that came with it had made their traditional work impossible, and a second Soviet occupation was visibly coming. Families crossed the Baltic to Sweden. By 8 June 1945 there were 6,554 Estonian S...

Read more: Spithami on Qualla

Image: Sumistaja | CC BY-SA 3.0

Spithami: The Night of 2 September 1951

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sumistaja, CC BY-SA 3.0. Four Estonian men came ashore on the beach here in darkness on 2 September 1951. They had been trained in Sweden and sent back to move inland and gather intelligence — Lembit Ustel, who led them, Aksel Pors, Friedrich-Priidu Põld, and a fourth recorded under the surname Kreums. S...

Read more: Spithami on Qualla

Image: Sumistaja | CC BY-SA 3.0

Spithami: What the Cape Is For Now

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rossiplika, CC BY-SA 3.0. Põõsaspea neem is the northwesternmost cape of mainland Estonia, a narrow rocky ridge running out into the sea in the direction of Osmussaar, with a small light on its tip. Every spring and autumn, an enormous volume of Arctic waterfowl funnels past it, which has made this one of...

Read more: Spithami on Qualla

Image: Rossiplika | CC BY-SA 3.0