Bragdøya is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a city and Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality is the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 116,000 as of January 2020, following th ...

municipality in

Agder Agder is a counties of Norway, county () and districts of Norway, traditional region in the southern part of Norway and is coextensive with the Southern Norway region. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Au ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The island is in the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

in the Kristiansandsfjorden, just south of the city of

. The island is surrounded by the smaller islands of Svensholmen and Langøya to the north (across the narrow Bragdøyrenna strait) and the island of Hestehaue to the southeast. The heavily populated island of

Andøya , , or is the northernmost island in the Vesterålen archipelago, situated about inside the Arctic Circle. Andøya is located in Andøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The main population centres on the island include the villages of ...

lies to the southwest. Bragdøya has been owned by the municipality of Kristiansand since 1969 when they bought it with a government grant as a public open space. It was purchased with the requirement that the islands would be a recreational space for the city. During the summer, the island is used as grazing land for

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

History

For centuries, Bragdøya has been inhabited. "Siffuord Bragdøen" is mentioned in written sources as owner from 1610 and onwards. The first manor house in Kristiansand was built in Bragdøya around 1770 for the family of Henrik Arnold Thaulow. Thaulow was the grandfather of Oscar Wergeland,

Henrik Wergeland Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland (17 June 1808 – 12 July 1845) was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist. He is often described as a leading pioneer in the develop ...

, and Camilla Collett, and his grandchildren spent time on the island during the summers. There are several older cottages on the island. In 1915, two large warehouses were built on the west side of Bragdøya where

mackerel Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. ...

was salted and packed for export. The business did not go particularly well, however, and in the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

the business was ended. The

Nazi German Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

occupiers committed

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

s of at least 28

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

POW POW is "prisoner of war", a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. POW or pow may also refer to: Music * P.O.W (Bullet for My Valentine song), "P.O.W" (Bull ...

s on Bragdøya during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Leisure

''Bragdøya Kystlag'', a

voluntary association A voluntary group or union (also sometimes called a voluntary organization, common-interest association, association, or society) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement, usually as volunteers, to form a body (or organization) to a ...

which aims to preserve local maritime culture along the coast, is now the owner of the warehouse complex named Bragdøya Coastal Heritage Centre. From 1996-2012, the centre hosted an annual

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

festival. On some days there are organized boat trips to the island. There is a special boat from the city centre of Kristiansand during the Norwegian school holidays which makes a round trip of Bragdøya and several other islands.

References

External links

Bragdøya Coastal Heritage Centre

About Bragdøya

Shuttle boat, Auglandsbukta - Bragdøya
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bragdoya Geography of Kristiansand Islands of Agder