Provided by:
Stiftelsen Nordmøre Museum
Welcome to Averøy! In this audio guide you will get to know Averøy's ancient history related to the surroundings around the Kvernes church . You can experience all this through good narrator voices with pictures and text as you approach the different places.
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Thank you for taking a trip here to the Kvernes Cultural Area which is a key point along the Coastal Pilgrim Path. You are now standing at a place that held great significance as a religious and cultural centre of power for large parts of Nordmøre. Kvernes held a strategic position from which you could look out over the fjords – with a full overview of the traffic in and out of the four fjords and provided a safe route to land for those who wanted to avoid the dangerous waters of Hustadvika. Kvernes continues to be an important meeting place for many, and we hope that you will spend a little time here in the area so that we can tell you more about what can be found here. This is a place which was allowed to keep the old Church when the new one was built, established a museum during the Second World War, is one of the few places in Norway that has a rainforest, and which probably has a greater number of burial mounds waiting to be found than have already been discovered. We could continue but we suggest that you take a tour yourself and visit these places. This audio guide can take you on a four kilometre walk through the cultural landscape, as shown on the map on one of the signs in the carpark by the Church. You can also enjoy a visit to the museum and Stave church during their opening times or enjoy a concert in the new Church after eating a warm svele in Klippen. Whatever you choose to do, you will be very welcome! We hope you enjoy your visit!
Klippen is the name of this house which has become an important meeting place in Kvernes Cultural Area in recent years. The house was originally built as the prayer house on Veiset in 1927, and in 2008 the house was picked up and moved three kilometres over to Kvernes as a part of the National Heritage Board’s value creation programme. It was set up again here thanks to the hard work carried out by volunteers. And since then, many people have greatly enjoyed the gift of the house. Klippen is owned and run by Kvernes parish council, and the history association rent an office in the house. The house serves as a meeting place, often in connection with other activities that happen in the Cultural Area. Klippen can also be rented out for meetings, christenings, confirmations, or funeral wakes. Or you can drop in and enjoy a good cup of coffee and a chat after one of the Church concerts that are arranged throughout the year, but especially during the summer months here on Kvernes. If you are lucky, there may also be an exhibition showcasing the work of a local artist hanging on the walls when you arrive. Klippen has a great atmosphere, and it is a place that you can come to relax. This house was certainly a lovely gift to the Cultural Area.
The path you are walking on now, goes in some places along the old sunken lane, an old traffic artery that could no doubt tell us some stories if it were able to. In some places you can see the u profile of the old road here in the landscape, due to wear and tear from traffic over such a long period of time. But much of it is now overgrown or gone. We don’t know how old the road is, but it could be very old. What we do know is that Kvernes has been an important place for many, both before and after the introduction of Christianity. After the Church arrived on Kvernes, the road was probably used by many as a Church Road, and the servants of the Priest could have used this road to transport timber from the forests, or to move animals to pasture. Those who lived at the top of the valley on the other side of the fjord, also belonged to the congregation of Kvernes Church. They would take day old babies across the mountain to have them christened and would also come over with coffins to lay their dead in consecrated ground. Today the car has taken over, and the main road no longer runs over the mountain or along the old sunken lane. But traces of the old transportation ways can still be found in the landscape.
Did you know that we have rainforests here on Kvernes? It is often thought that rainforests are something that are found in southern parts and not here in Norway. But you are now standing in the middle of a rainforest. Maybe, you think this is impossible. But it is not, for this is a coastal rainforest, which stretches along the coast of Vestlandet up to and including Nordland. And such forests are only found in four other areas in the whole world. We can find them in abundance in Chile and Argentina, New Zealand and Australia, in the south-eastern corner of the Black Sea - Georgia and Turkey, and along the Pacific coast from Alaska to North California. Here in the North-western part of Europe this type of forest can be found in Scotland, Norway, Ireland and Iceland but in these areas much of the rainforest has been destroyed. It is therefore imperative to take care of the remaining rainforest. A coastal rain forest is a temperate forest, which means that it is a forest with constantly high humidity. Here the oxygen level in the earth is low, and this in addition to low temperatures mean that decomposers fail to decompose everything, which provides good conditions for the formation of bogs and a large biological diversity.
You are now standing at Prestsetra, which was once the farm of the Priest at Kvernes. If you look around you, you can maybe see many small mounds in the landscape? Can you see them? They aren’t big, but after you have noticed the first one then it is easy to see that there are many of them. For you are now actually standing on a burial site. Around you, archaeologists have found 72 burial mounds which they believe date from the Bronze age. The Bronze age in Norway spanned from around the year 1800 BC to 300AD. At that time the sea level here at Kvernes was higher than it is today, there was also no dense forest at that time, so the place we are standing at now had a good view out towards the fjord. And it was important to lay the dead so that they could be seen by people on their way to the camp. You can find traces of pre-historic times around the whole Cultural Area and this burial site is one of many in the area. In Kvernes you can walk in a landscape that reflects 4000 years of burial customs.
You now find yourself at Old Kvernes Rural Museum. The first house was moved here at the end of the 1940s, to an area that was previously used as grazing land for the vicarage. After a while the museum collection grew, and it helps us to tell the story of life out here on the coast. The houses are named after the places that they were moved from, in such houses three generations could have lived under the same roof. The outside area would usually would have been used for a combination of fishing and agricultural use, and whilst the men left to sea, the womenfolk took care of everything on land. it was a hard life characterised by frugality, a strong work ethic and unity, at a time when there was not the same social safety net that there is today. Every year the museum arranges a series of large public arrangements, the high point of which is the ‘Olsokstevne’ at the end of July. Which focusses on food and craft work traditions, and you can be lucky enough to taste; herring soup, klepp soup – which is soup made of dough balls in milk, sour cream porridge and freshly baked potato cakes and flat bread, before making a stop by the smithy to greet the blacksmith up in his craft loft and ask if you can have a go on his loom or if he has caramels for sale behind the shop counter.
You have now moved along to the ‘Museumsstøa’ – which is a part of the museum’s maritime department. These houses represent an important part of life here on the coast, where a combination of fishing and agriculture were the lifeblood. Here in this area, there were many fishermen, and before the 1920s most of them operated from open boats, with the wind in their sails and strong hands around the oars, this was their means of transportation. During the season, to get closer to the fishing grounds, they rowed out towards the outermost islands and islets and lodged in fishermen’s cottages, such as ‘Gammelhurran’, which is the house that is closest to the road. Gammelhurran originally stood on Røeggen in Svegen at the far end of Averøya, right down on the foreshore. The men in the boat team lived here side by side for several weeks at a stretch. Fishing cooks also lived here, young, unmarried girls who were seasonal workers – it was their job to make sure there was food on the table, and fire in the stove. They also helped with the gutting of the fish, as and when necessary. The oldest boathouse at the museum is the Church boathouse from Røkken and the other was built on site according to the old building technique – with a bar line construction. Inside the boathouses are boats and equipment that have been well used before they came to the museum. Everyday working life out on an open boat could reap great rewards for a fisherman, but it was also a workplace with big risks, not everyone returned home from sea
Feel free to take a detour down to the Vicarage boat house and read the sign that is down there. This was the Vicarage’s boathouse and there were many boats moored here when people were arriving for Church. They came ashore here and walked up to Borgstua to get dressed and maybe get a bite to eat before they continued up to the Church. The Priest would also have rowed out from here on his travels. Today, the boat house is protected and a part of the museum. Inside the boatshed you can find amongst other things the ‘Kaarvaaggjeita’ a boat which capsized with four men onboard in 1903, but which was recovered on Smøla a short while later. The story of the wreck and those who lost their lives is one of the stories that is told at the museum today.
Borgstua is located on an old historic Church site to the side of Kvernes Stave Church. In the olden days the place was a traffic hub where four fjords met. Borgstua was ‘the people’s house’ where people met to dress before and after Church services and where they shared news with each other. Borgstua stands on the grounds of the Vicarage and is a protected building from 1840. It was restored according to antiquarian guidance in 2020. The house has a living area, kitchen, bathroom and four bedrooms with 8 sleeping places. Here you will find good mattresses and bedding. One bedroom is decorated in the old style. Maybe you will dream yourself back to when Kvernes was a centre of power. In the living area it is possible to fire up the wood burner and there is wood provided. The house is furnished with traditional furniture in keeping with the style of the house. If you would like to have breakfast or other food it is possible to arrange that at the time of booking, but Borgstua is fully equipped for self-catering. It is located in a tranquil area with a view over the fjords with the mountains in the background. Nearby there is a 4km hiking path the ‘Pilgrims Path’ which runs past a ‘gapahuk’ where you can light a fire and sit and enjoy the view. The Pilgrims Path passes Kvernes Old Rural Museum where you can stop for a visit and Kvernes Stave Church which has guided tours from the 20th June to the 20th August (off season you will need to book beforehand). Kvernes lies 25 minutes from the Atlantic Road, 30 minutes from Kristiansund and 1 hour 15 minutes from Molde. We guarantee that you will love your stay at Borgstua and will feel replenished after a break from everyday normality.
Kvernes Stave Church is owned by the history association and is the youngest Stave Church in Norway. Kvernes Stave Church on Averøy has, after recent investigations in 2020 been dated back to 1633. But there was certainly a Church on the same site long before that. Kvernes is an old Church town at a place where four fjords met. Here you can clearly see from the landscape that the sea was the road, and the boat was the car. There are 28 Stave Churches in Norway and amongst those 3 are of the so-called Møre type. This Stave Church has many more middle stakes in the walls in addition to those in the corners. Using this type of construction made it possible to build longer churches. The slats on the side are to support the construction so that the Church could withstand the weather here in North Møre. Welcome in! there are many exciting things to see here. The wall decoration with the painted acanthus vines was painted only a couple of decades after the church was built. The Altarpiece has its origin in an altarpiece from the Middle Ages which dated from the end of the 15th century. The pulpit and nave are special as they have been styled on a frigate from the battle of Dynekilen in 1716. On the altar is the original altar cloth from the end of the 1600s and this is only some of the history that can be found inside the Church. When you stand here in this distinctive churchyard you feel as though you have travelled back in time. Maybe you can hear the Priest giving a sermon from the pulpit if you listen? Here you can experience a unique journey back in time. The Stave Church is open every day from mid-June to mid-August from 11:00 to 17:00. Out of season, contact 0047 95181111 and you can arrange for the Church to be opened for groups. Kvernes is located 20 minutes from Kristiansund and 90 minutes from Molde and is a stopping point on the Coastal Pilgrim Path to Nidaros.
Kvernes Church is the youngest of the parish Churches on Averøya. When the old Church was deemed to be too small and draughty, it was decided that a new Church should be built at Kvernes. It was finished in 1893 and it was agreed that the old Church would be taken down once the new one came into use. Luckily, that didn’t happen, and they were allowed to keep both Churches. If you position yourself between the two churches, perhaps you can see that the landscape is raised up? Especially next to the stave Church? And maybe you can also see some bumps here and there? That is because the old graveyard is here. In addition, cooking pits and other archaeological finds have also been discovered on the site, therefore, if improvements need to be made around the Church that require digging work, archaeologists need to be called in to carry out excavations first. A little further down, between the road and the new Church is a monument commemorating 1000 years of Averøy municipality. Kvernes was the focal point of the municipality’s 1000-year anniversary. Here the artist Rolf Øidvin set up a conversation - a dialogue between the monument and the Churches, around 1 o’clock in the afternoon the sunlight will fall between the two pillars and hit the third pillar.