The Toka Gorge ( no, Tokagjelet) is a river gorge in

Kvam Kvam is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The municipality is located along the Hardangerfjorden in the traditional district of Hardanger. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Norheimsund. Other larger sett ...

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 gorge lies west of the village of Norheimsund in Hordaland county. The gorge is traversed by

Norwegian County Road 7 County Road 7 ( no, Fylkesvei 7) is a road in Vestland county, Norway. The road runs from Trengereid in the municipality of Bergen to Kollanes in the municipality of Voss. The route branches off from European route E16 and passes through th ...

, which was laid out around 1890, started being built in 1903, and it was opened in 1907. Large parts of the road were built by hand while workers hung on ropes against the sheer mountainside. A new route with four tunnels was built between 1953 and 1956. In 2009 the

Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage The Directorate for Cultural Heritage ( no, Riksantikvaren or ''Direktoratet for kulturminneforvaltning'') is a government agency responsible for the management of cultural heritage in Norway. Subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of the Enviro ...

protected the old road as part of the National Protection Plan for Roads, Bridges, and Road-Related Cultural Heritage. The name ''Tokagjelet'' comes from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''tǫk'', the plural of ''tak'' 'grip, hold' plus ''gjel'' 'gorge, ravine' (< Old Norse ''gil''), and is suffixed with the definite article ''-et''.

References

External links

Toka Gorge
at ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' Canyons and gorges of Norway Cultural heritage of Norway Kvam {{Vestland-geo-stub