Eid Municipality
Cecilie Marie Åshamar Municipal Office Planning Officer The heart of Eid Municipality, situated in Western Nor-way among the fjords and mountains, is the town of Nordfjordeid – an area which has remained inhabited for centuries untold, allowing it to accumulate an immense wealth in terms of cultural heritage.
Today, the remnants of the days gone by – the burial mounds of the Vikings found in the centre of the town,
the wooden houses on Eidsgata and Tverrgata streets as well as the military proving grounds by the Eidselva river form a crucial part of the identity of the local community.
Hospitality is considered to be the most important vir-tue for those who live here; because of this, we would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to explore and experience the cultural heritage of the region, allowing the legacy of our ancestors to reach a broader audience.
Work is underway in Eid Municipality to develop a plan intended to disseminate the knowledge of our cultural heritage, which will serve as a foundation for the
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opment of the local identity, fostering active involvement and creating an added value. In the course of the develop-ment of this plan it is extremely important to remember that historical monuments must be perceived as a source of potential for the development of local communities.
There are many people in our Municipality who pos-sess knowledge of the cultural heritage of the region.
A number of groups and institutions take advantage of his-torical monuments in the course of their activities; some-times they do it fully consciously, somesome-times less so. The key prerequisite for ensuring the continuing development on the basis of cultural heritage is to make available the existing knowledge to all those who are willing to exploit this potential. For this purpose, Eid Municipality uses the national historical monuments database. This database fa-cilitates the creation of added value based on our heritage;
it is used both by businesses and by institutions of various kinds. Making heritage available to both residents and vis-itors remains immensely important for the Municipality.
Owing to the development of the local plan for the exploitation and protection of heritage, our society has the opportunity to concentrate on those sites which are considered to be the most valuable.
Increasing the interest of local residents in cultural heritage and ensuring that they pass this knowledge on from generation to generation is intended to reinforce this feeling of local identity.
In the course of the meetings, the municipal author-ities and the residents have discussed the cultural herit-age of individual towns and villherit-ages regarding the cultural heritage which characterises selected areas in Eid as well as regarding which of the surviving historical monuments best symbolise this heritage. The meetings were attended by the local residents who are keenly interested in history
and deeply involved in the development of their commu-nities. We have conducted joint discussions on the funds which the municipality allocated to the protection of his-torical monuments as well on the use of those funds for the purposes of fostering the social and economic devel-opment of the local communities.
The training course pertaining to the use of the nation-al historicnation-al monument database, intended to draw atten-tion to the most significant historical monuments in every location, formed a continuation of the meetings with the local residents. In order to keep the residents interested, we focused on those historical monuments which remain most important as far as the regional history is concerned.
The participants of the course were able to broaden their competences pertaining to the communication of knowl-edge on cultural heritage and were able to learn more about the historical monuments of Eid Municipality.
The plan pertaining to putting the heritage of Eid Municipality to practical use is still being developed. The talks with the local residents have proved to be useful for the purposes of understanding the cultural heritage as a source of growth of our Municipality, based on its unique features; Eid Municipality could never complain about the lack of grass roots initiatives aimed at fostering its growth. The residents of the Municipality have recently become more involved in efforts aimed at the protection of cultural heritage; this applies, in particular, to the cen-tre of Nordfjordeid. The activities involving the preschool children in Eid may serve as a good example here; during the Night of Culture held by the Municipality in Novem-ber, the children were invited to participate in an event called Buns and cakes, held against the background of the Viking burial mounds. Only time will tell whether this method of promoting history proves efficient.
Kannesteinen, Vågsøy Municipality, photo by I. Holm, Riksantikvaren archive The parade of choirs on Eidsgata street, Eid Municipal Office archive
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4. | Cultural heritage in municipalities
Vågsøy Municipality
Odd Gunnar Myhre Head of the Culture Section Vågsøy Municipal Office Vågsøy remains a truly natural wonder; located at the edge of Nordfjord, the Municipality prides itself on a vi-brant economy (including, first and foremost, the mari-time sector) as well as the presence of numerous high-tech companies. The Municipality has about 6 thousand residents in total. The centre of the Municipality is the town of Måløy with a population of about 3500 people.
Historical monuments and the cultural environment are perceived by the local community as a source of great potential for the community.
The local residents consider their heritage to be not only a source of knowledge and valuable experiences, but also an asset to be exploited economically. It is the Munici-pality, understood as a community which inhabits the given area, that decides on which historical monuments are sig-nificant and which of them are to be considered as valuable assets from the local point of view. In addition, historical monuments are not only perceived as valuable for the giv-en municipality, but also for the giv-entire region, country, and in some cases even the entire international community.
Public administrative bodies are responsible for en-suring the implementation of the national objectives re-lated to historical monuments. Through the application of the spatial planning and construction laws, the Munic-ipality plays a vital role in these efforts. The government expects the municipalities to create inventories of histor-ical monuments and cultural environment having a value for the local communities and to protect them by includ-ing such monuments in the local spatial development and
construction plans. In accordance with the social element of the municipal master plan of Vågsøy Municipality, the Municipality shall develop municipal sub-plans for herit-age sites located in the said Municipality.
The Directorate for Cultural Heritage and the major County Councils invited the municipalities to engage in cooperation intended to enhance heritage management activities through the development of an appropriate plan. This plan provides, among others, that efforts shall be made to increase the level of interest and knowledge on historical monuments among the local population.
This document is also important for owners of histori-cal monuments, since if the buildings or structures they own are covered by the plan, they will benefit from the possibility of applying for subsidies from public funds. In addition, the owners of such historical monuments will be able to obtain professional guidelines as to the use and conservation of the monuments in question.
The Directorate asked the municipalities to create in-ventories of historical monuments and enabled them to apply for funds for that purpose. Vågsøy is one of those municipalities which have successfully applied for the funds in question. The Municipality established cooperation with the Coastal Culture Group in Vågsøy, the Museum of Fish-ery in Måløy, the Måløyraidsenteret foundation and the Vågsøy History Association. Their joint efforts led to the in-clusion of some of the historical monuments in the Histor-ical Monuments Search database. The Vågsøy Municipality has also managed to secure funds from the Sogn og Fjor-dane County Council; the funds in question are earmarked for the development of a plan for the local historical mon-uments. Cooperation with groups and institutions which have helped us in the process of registration of historical monuments is now bringing measurable results.
The Tserkva at Krupiec in Narol before and after conservation, photo by R. Pinkowicz, K. Świętojański, Narol Municipal Office archive