Whale Island: The Argument About Kvaloya's Name

Punti chiave

A Tromso yearbook published in 1939 argued flatly that the very impractical name Kvaloya must have arisen through a mis-writing or a mis-reading.
An eighteenth-century note by Heitman, quoted in a 1938 geographical journal, says of the large island outside Tromso simply that it has no known name.
A 1931 geological paper measured a moraine terrace at Kraknes on Kvaloya, at the south end of Kvalsundet, one hundred and ninety-eight metres above today's sea level.
As late as 1939 the county records show Tromso council still pressing the state to hurry the road link out to the island.

The island on your left

Almost every whale safari out of Tromso begins with the same view: the town falls behind, the water widens, and a very large island fills the western side of the horizon and stays there. That is Kvaloya, and in modern Norwegian the name reads as whale island.

It is a good name for a boat going to look for whales. It may also be an accident.

A yearbook says the name is an error

In its 1939 volume the yearbook of the Tromso and district tourist association put the case bluntly: the very impractical name Kvaloya must have arisen through a mis-writing or a mis-reading. ^[1] The writer is not hedging. The argument is that somebody, at some point, copied down something that was not what the island had been called, and the mistake stuck.

The Norwegian geographical journal had gone at the same question the year before, quoting an older note by Heitman about the large island outside Tromso: this isle has no known name, it says, and therefore ought to be called after the old usage. ^[2] Read plainly, that is a surveyor from an earlier century writing down that a very big, very inhabited island had nothing on the map to call it.

None of this settles anything, and we are not going to pretend it does. Whale island is what it is called, on every chart and every bus timetable. What the archive shows is that the name was already being argued about eighty years ago by people who lived on it, and that it may be younger and shakier than it looks. There are whales in the water beside it either way.

Snowy mountains across fjord viewed from boat railing

What the island actually is

The parts of Kvaloya that appear in the record are not the pretty parts. A geological paper printed in 1931 recorded a moraine terrace at Kraknes, at the southern end of Kvalsundet, sitting one hundred and ninety-eight metres above sea level. ^[3] That is a beach. It is one hundred and ninety-eight metres up because the land has been rising ever since the ice came off it, and it will keep rising.

In 1933 the local history journal Haaloygminne carried an account of a journey right across Kvaloya, made the previous autumn, to fix and mark the boundary between the two districts of Hillesoy and Tromsoysund. ^[4] People were still walking the line to decide where it ran within living memory of anyone reading this.

And the county assembly's own printed proceedings for 1939 record Tromso council asking the state authorities to speed up the road link out to the island as much as possible. ^[5] The island you now see covered in cabins and hairpin roads had, at the end of the 1930s, no road worth the name connecting it to the town it sits beside.

The other islands, and who used them

Kvaloya is not the only one on the route. Ringvassoya lies further north, and a description of Tromso county printed in 1874 called it one of the largest islands in the county by extent, and surpassed by none in wildness and barrenness. ^[6] That was meant as a warning. It reads now as an advertisement.

These islands were not empty. A 1938 book records a man named Clements who kept his summer pastures out on the sea islands around Tromso, and whose people could be followed from there inland as far as Helligskogen. ^[7] Reindeer were swum or ferried out to the outer islands for the summer grazing and taken back in autumn, which is why the coast has so many place names for landing points that lead nowhere.

So the water your boat is crossing was a road. It carried animals to grass, fish to town and ore to ships, and the islands beside it were worked hard by people who did not think of them as scenery.

The island in the record

1874: the neighbour
Ringvassoy is described as one of the county's largest islands and surpassed by none in wildness and barrenness. ^[6]
1931: a beach 198 metres up
A moraine terrace is measured at Kraknes on Kvaloya, at the south end of Kvalsundet. ^[3]
1933: walking the boundary
A party crosses Kvaloya to fix and mark the line between Hillesoy and Tromsoysund. ^[4]
1938: the island with no name
A geographical journal quotes Heitman's older note that the large island outside Tromso has no known name. ^[2]
1938: reindeer on the sea islands
A book records summer pastures held out on the islands around Tromso, and the route inland to Helligskogen. ^[7]
1939: the name called a mistake
A Tromso yearbook argues the impractical name Kvaloya arose by mis-writing or mis-reading. ^[1]
1939: still asking for the road
Tromso council presses the state to hurry the road link out to the island. ^[5]

Go and look at it

Verifica disponibilità

Prima di prenotare

Does Kvaloya mean whale island?

In modern Norwegian, yes: kval is a form of hval, whale. Whether the island was ever meant to carry that name is another question. A Tromso yearbook argued in 1939 that the name arose from a mis-writing or a mis-reading. ^[1]

Are there whales around Kvaloya?

Whales are found in the sounds and fjords around Tromso in winter, following the herring. Kvaloya is the large island the boat passes on the way out; the sightings themselves usually happen further along the route, in the fjords and sounds to the north and east.

How big is Kvaloya?

It is one of the largest islands in the Tromso district and a full landscape in its own right, with mountains, valleys and open coast. Its neighbour Ringvassoya was described in 1874 as one of the largest islands of the county and surpassed by none in wildness and barrenness. ^[6]

Why is there an old beach high up the island?

Because the land is still rising after the last ice age. A geological paper in 1931 measured a moraine terrace at Kraknes, at the southern end of Kvalsundet, one hundred and ninety-eight metres above present sea level. ^[3]

When did the island get a road to Tromso?

Late. The county assembly's proceedings for 1939 record Tromso council still asking the state to hurry the work on the road link out to the island. ^[5]

Where do these facts come from?

From digitised Norwegian journals and books held by the National Library of Norway, read in the original Norwegian. Every statement above names the publication and the year, and the full references are at the foot of this page.