Bragdøya is an

island An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be ...

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, f ...

municipality in

Agder Agder is a county (''fylke'') and traditional region in the southern part of Norway. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties were merged. Since the early 1900s, the term Sørlandet ("sou ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The island is in the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

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 Andøya 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 ...

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 or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals 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 domesticated sh ...

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 Oscar Arnold Wergeland (12 October 1844 – 20 May 1910) was a Norwegian painter. He is best known for his historical painting of the Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll (''Riksforsamlingen på Eidsvoll 1814''). Two of his paintings are held in t ...

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 develo ...

, and

Camilla Collett Jacobine Camilla Collett (née Wergeland; 23 January 1813 – 6 March 1895) was a Norwegian writer, often referred to as the first Norwegian feminist. She was also the younger sister of Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland, and is recognized as being ...

, 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 the business was ended. The

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

occupiers committed

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

s of at least 28

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

POW A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of ...

s on Bragdøya during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

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 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