The historic Torsken Church in the village of Torsken dates back to the 18th century. Ånderdalen National Park was partially located inside the old borders of Torsken and neighboring Tranøy municipalities.
At the time of its dissolution as a municipality on 1 January 2020, the 243-square-kilometre (94 sq mi) municipality was the 310th largest by area out of the 422 municipalities in Norway. Torsken was also the 401st most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 943. The municipality's population density was 4 inhabitants per square kilometre (10/sq mi) and its population has decreased by 0.6% over the previous decade.[4][5]
General information
The municipality of Torsken was established on 1 January 1902 when it was separated from the municipality of Berg. The initial population of Torsken was 1,229. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the Rødsand area of Torsken (population: 160) was transferred to the neighboring Tranøy Municipality.[6]
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Torsken farm (Old Norse: Þoskar) since the first Torsken Church was built there. The farm (and municipal) name were taken from the nearby mountain, Torsken. The name comes from the word þorskr which means "cod". (Several mountains in Norway are named after their likeness with a fish.)[9]
Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted on 23 March 1990. The official blazon is "Sable, a cross molineOr" (Norwegian: I svart et gull ankerkors). This means the arms have a black field (background) and the charge is a cross moline (Norwegian: ankerkors; lit.'anchor cross'). The cross moline has a tincture of Or which means it is commonly colored yellow, but if it is made out of metal, then gold is used. The cross is a symbol for both Christianity and the importance of the local harbor. The economy of Torsken is largely dependent on its harbors and an anchor cross is an appropriate symbol. The arms were designed by Ivar Enoksen.[10][11][12]
Most of the inhabitants lived in the fishing village of Gryllefjord in the northern part of the municipality. The second most important village was Torsken, only a few kilometers to the south. Kaldfarnes/Medby, Grunnfarnes, and Flakstadvåg were other fishing villages further south. The municipality was close to the resources of the major fishing grounds off the Vesterålen archipelago, and 2004 landed 9.8 million tons of fish with a value of 76.3 million kr for fish-processing in Torsken, Gryllefjord, Kaldfarnes, and Grunnfarnes. Most people worked in the fields of fishing or fish processing.
The municipality had few productive forests, but there were some spruce trees planted in sheltered areas. In the southern parts of Torsken there was some usable farmland. There were five farms with more than 5 decares (0.0050 km2; 0.0019 sq mi) of agricultural land in the entire municipality (as of 1999).[13]
Transportation
View of the Gryllefjord
The Andenes–Gryllefjord Ferry that went across the Andfjorden to Andenes on the island of Andøya was operated during about two months each summer. The road from the northern part of the municipality to Kaldfarnes, Grunnfarnes, and Flakstadvåg was far from direct. One had to drive north and then east to Berg and then south to Tranøy before turning northwest and returning to Torsken. These were the only road connections from the rest of Norway to Torsken.
The municipal council(Kommunestyre) of Torsken was made up of 15 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
Torsken was a rugged area on the west coast of the island of Senja. Many different fjords cut into its mountainous coastline including Sifjorden, Selfjorden, Torskefjorden, Gryllefjorden, and Skipsfjorden. Between mountain peaks that ranged from 600 to 1,000 metres (2,000 to 3,300 ft), there were deep valleys and narrow depressions. Many of the valleys contained marshes or lakes. The bedrock under Torsken consisted mostly of gneiss and granite.[13]
−0.6%
