Old Kvernes Rural Museum – Up on the yard

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.