Place:Vadsø, Finnmark, Norway

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Vadsø is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark County, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Vadsø, which was the administrative centre of the former Finnmark county. Other settlements in Vadsø include Ekkerøy, Kiby, Krampenes, Skallelv, Valen, and Vestre Jakobselv.

The municipality is the 84th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Vadsø is the 163rd most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 5,788. The municipality's population density is and its population has decreased by 5.1% over the previous 10-year period.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

In the 16th century, the settlement of Vadsø consisted of a fishing village and the old Vadsø Church, located on the island of Vadsøya. The settlement later moved to the mainland. Pomor trade led Vadsø to be a major trading centre in this part of Norway. Township privilege was granted in 1833, and soon settlers came from Finland and the northern part of Sweden, which suffered from famine.

Finnish was rapidly becoming the language of the majority, and this continued for decades. As of 2016, Finnish is still spoken in some households. During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Vadsø suffered several air raids from the Soviet Union, which bombed German troops. However, there are, unlike most places in Finnmark, a number of 19th century wooden houses preserved close to the city centre, notably the house of Esbensen, built by a Norwegian, and the house of Tuomainen, built by a Finn. On the island of Vadsøya is the airship mast used by Umberto Nobile and Roald Amundsen for their expedition over the North Pole with the airship Norge in 1926, and used again on Nobile's flight with the airship Italia in 1928.^[1]

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