Millennium site Kya
The history
Kya has been an important place for fishermen and at its peak as many as 750 people stayed here during the spring fishing season. Unfortunately, the fishing village has a dramatic history of hard work, unpredictable weather, major fires and loss of life, gear and vessels.
The houses
The cabins and houses on Kya are privately owned by families with various connections to the fishing village. Several of the houses have historical names and while some of them are mostly unused, you can often find people in some of the others.
Wildlife
Kya is home to fantastic wildlife, both on land, in the sea and in the air. Everything from rare birds to common red crabs thrive here. Completely free from human light and sound pollution, this is also the perfect place to enjoy starry skies and crashing waves.
A memorial for HMS Glowworm
In 2025, 85 years will have past since HMS Glowworm sacrificed everything to protect Norway from the German occupation. The Royal Navy has been approached with a view to creating a memorial to HMS Glowworm on Kya, which is the closest point on land to where the battle took place. Have you not heard of HMS Glowworm?
Life under the sea
Kya is an amazing place, but perhaps the greatest magic lies beneath the surface of the sea. In the shallow straits we find one of Norway’s largest, thickest and densest kelp forests with a wealth of fish, crustaceans, echinoderms and molluscs that is completely unique. If you love diving, Kya will offer encounters with many beautiful and strange creatures.
Visit Kya
Anyone can go ashore on Kya and visit the fishing village whenever they want. However, there are a few things to consider when planning your visit, while you’re there and when you’re leaving.
Poem about Kya
There is a whisper of the sea, a smell of the sea, where the fisherman builds and lives;
the breaking of the ground and the chafing, the places where legends grow.
The land of the dead and the land of the living merge into one, only a wreath of foam shows us the way,
as we sail outward on a westerly breeze, following the fishermen’s old lei.
And we approach Kya’s sheltering castle, in sunshine and rolling sea,
…neither cross nor pillar giving any sign of the seaweed-brown grave of the drowned.
But we know that they are there, for tears and weeping, have interpreted it more than in words,
and the legends know, and report, that here death sings in chorus.
For in Kya’s faldgard, in the west wind, so many have found their grave,
and over the fallen, the sea plays so gently every time it calms down.
And Langflessa hunts in foaming foam, over the sea bleached legs,
and no one knows when it will next become a fisherman to the point of death.
Source: An old newspaper from 1920.
Author: Unknown (freely translated from Norwegian by kya.no).