Vågland Mekaniske Traditional Cache
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Vaagland Mekaniske is a piece of Halsa, and Norwegian, history. The Norwegian is full of shipyards and smaller boat building companies. There used to be even more. The busiest era was when the Norwegian trade fleet was the world's second largest. Around the times of the world wars. This "Vågland" dock was established in 1927.
Vågland Mekaniske collage
NORWEGIAN:
Dette er et eksempel på båtbyggertradisjon langs kysten av Norge. Denne dokken ble først bygget opp i 1927 under navnet "Einar Vaaglands båtbyggeri". Senere økte driften her, navnet skiftet og i 1977 ble dette anlegget solgt og båtbyggeriet flyttet lenger inn i Skålvikfjorden. I dag drives fortsatt noe båtbygging og vedlikehold ved anlegget her, men slippen en kan se fra cachestedet er for det meste brakk. Det er ofte trangt langs norske fjorder, så det er morsomt å se hvordan en den gang da fikk klemt en slipp, vokterhus, vinsjhus og en vei inn på de få meterne inntil bergveggen her.
ENGLISH:
This is an example of an industry that has long traditions in Norway. Relative to boat building history, this is a fairly new site, but it still is nearing it's 100 year "anniversary". This boatbuilding faciliyt was established in 1927. There were several hundred slips and docks along the coast back then and many of them built wooden freight and fishing vessels between 25 and 35 feet in length, so did this one. Eventually, the size of the boats increased and aluminium and other metals took over from wood.
This particular slip was discontinued in 1977 and the company moved a bit further towards Liabø, where they are still "going strong". The buildings next to the cache is now run by a mechanical shop that still does maintenance and small scale boat building.
The site is somewhat messy, and that is not unusual for shops like this. The typical attitude is practicality before appearance and in rural areas it is common to have sites large enough to store "stuff" without it being in the way. What other people might see as "untidy" might be seen as valuable storage for others.
The space between mountain sides and the sea is, on the other hand, ofte crammed. It is interesting to see here how they have managed to cram the actual slip, watchtower, a road and a hut for the winch in just a few metres.
This site is an important part of Halsa history. It os one of the most active boat building communities along the western coast. The REALLY big boats aren't built here (like cruise ships and oil tankers), but the boat "types" that run everyday life are built here: Ferries, fishing vessels, fish farm maintenance, feed-freighters and so on. There are three-four boat building companies in Halsa today, in addition to the "Geitbåtmuseet" whom are one of very few companies that still build boats like they did up until the 20th century.
Halsa
Halsa has it's pluses and minuses. Great nature. Beautiful scenery. Excellent hiking possibilities. Easy access to the main road along the Western coast (E39). Still, population is declining. Urbanization has hit Halsa harder than many other municipalities, even though people leaving for the cities is a problem in many rural areas in Norway.
Different areas of Halsa have very different identities. Valsøyfjord is an old industrial area and used to be the largest industrial centre in Møre & Romsdal county. Here, people from all over the world used to come to find work. The labour movement was very strong. Traditional boat building still stands strong here.
The other side of the Municipality (Halsa and Halsanaustan) was more proned to farming the land, land ownership and running timber industries. The labour movement was, therefore, not very strong here. One can still sense "remains" of that difference today.
Halsa is not spectacular at first glance (besides the scenery), but it is a very "honest" piece of rural Norway. And, as with most things, once you get to know the place, it actually is quite spectacular and has a very interesting history.
I therefore found making a kind of Halsa themed series was a fun cache project. There are/will be caches with short snippets of local history all over the municipality. At least one for each "grend" (village) and noticable site. If you are new to Norway, this example of a typical Norwegian municipality, everyday rural life and varied scenery, could make for an interesting experience and sightseeing.
Halsa has 1595 inhabitants and 300 sq. km. land mass, whereof 8 sq. km. is water. Halsa is also known for being the place where the world famous Killer whale "Keiko" swam to and stayed until he died some years ago.
The "Halsa" chapter in every cache decription will be identical.
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