LITTLE NORWAY

HM King Haakon VII of Norway visits workers at the Norwegian Slip in Buckie, 10 July 1943.

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Little Norway
on the Moray Firth

In 1940, following the German invasion, hundreds of Norwegian and Danish refugees – men, women and children – sailed across the North Sea in small fishing boats to seek refuge in Scotland. Many of these refugees settled in Buckie, a community of some eight thousand people on the Moray Firth coast, and the town often became described as ‘Little Norway’ during the war years. There was a Norwegian Consulate, reading room and Sjømannskirken opened in the main street in 1942 and King Haakon VII visited the town in the summer of 1943. The Danish refugee population, although smaller, was no less significant a part of the town’s wartime experience and collective memory.

This project is a partnership involving Buckie and District Fishing Heritage Centre and Professor Peter Reid of Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen is drawing on archival sources, oral history testimony, personal narratives and storytelling (now largely second generation), photographic collections (both publicly accessible such as the extensive holdings of the heritage society and those personally retained), newspaper reports and other sources to explore the stories of the Norwegian and Danish communities.

Commemorating the North Sea crossings

In April 2022, four Norwegian sailors, Frode Stokkeland, Jarle Føreland, Tony Teigland and Willy Pedersen sailed Fri IV from Kristiansand to Buckie to commemorate their heroic compatriots who crossed the North Sea during the Second World War. They departed Norway on Wednesday 13 April and arrived in Buckie at 11.15am on Saturday, 16 April 2022. They were formally welcomed by Mrs Frances McKay, Deputy Lieutenant of Banffshire (on behalf of the Lord Lieutenant, represented Her Majesty the Queen) and by pipers, Rab and Holly. The carried with them a letter from the Norwegian Minister of Defence.

Med spesielt fokus på Sørlandet og sjektene ønsker vi å hedre menneskene som deltok i overfartene som gikk fra Norge 1940-41 til Storbritania da Norge var okkupert av Nazi-Tyskland under 2. verdenskrig. Prosjektet er etter ide fra Jarle Føreland.