Bjørnevatn is a village in

Sør-Varanger Municipality Sør-Varanger ( sme, Máttá-Várjjat, fkv, Etelä-Varenki, fi, Etelä-Varanki, russian: Сёр-Вара́нгер/Syor-Varánger) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town ...

Troms og Finnmark Troms og Finnmark (; sme, Romsa ja Finnmárku ; fkv, Tromssa ja Finmarkku; fi, Tromssa ja Finnmark, lit. Troms and Finnmark in English language, English), is a Counties of Norway, county in Northern Norway, northern Norway that was established ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The village lies about south of the town of

Kirkenes Kirkenes (; ; Skolt Sami: ''Ǩeârkknjargg;'' fi, Kirkkoniemi; ; russian: Киркенес) is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, in the far northeastern part of Norway. The town ...

and about west of the Norway-Russia border. The village has a couple of suburbs including

Hesseng Hesseng is a village in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The village lies about south of the town of Kirkenes. The village of Hesseng lies at the intersection of the European route E105 and European route E6 high ...

to the north and

Sandnes Sandnes () is a city and municipality in Rogaland, Norway. It lies immediately south of Stavanger, the 4th largest city in Norway and together, the Stavanger/Sandnes area is the third-largest urban area in Norway. The urban city of Sandnes lies ...

to the west. The Bjørnevatn IL is the local sports team. The village has a population (2018) of 2,540 which gives the village a

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of .

Mine

The bedrock below Bjørnevatn is located in the East Finnmark mountain formation (''Øst-Finnmarks grunnfjellsområde''). Iron ore deposits were originally discovered in the area during 1868 with commercial production of iron ore by 1910. The Sydvaranger iron ore mines are located just south of Bjørnevatn. The

Kirkenes–Bjørnevatn Line The Kirkenes–Bjørnevatn Line ( no, Kirkenes–Bjørnevatnbanen), or the Sydvaranger Line (), is a long railway line between Kirkenes and Bjørnevatn in Sør-Varanger, Norway. Owned by the private mining company Northern Iron, the single-tr ...

is a short railway line that runs from the mines to the town and port at Kirkenes to the north.

History

The village used to be located near the shores of the lake Bjørnevatnet, but the lake was drained in 1958 so that the iron ore under the lake could be mined. During the liberation in 1944 at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, a large number of people lived inside the mines during the fighting; estimates vary between 1,000 and 3,500. Their story is portrayed in the 1974 film ''

Under a Stone Sky ''Under en steinhimmel'' (Under a Stone Sky; russian: Под каменным небом) is a Norwegian war film directed by Knut Andersen, Igor Maslennikov, and Stanislav Rostotsky. The film is a fictionalized portrayal of historical events. ...

''.

References

Other sources

*Henriksen, Gudbrand (1904) ''On the Iron Ore Deposits in Sydvaranger, Finmarken-Norway'' (Grøndahl & Søn)

External links

Sydvaranger Iron Project (Northern Iron)
Villages in Finnmark Sør-Varanger Populated places of Arctic Norway {{Finnmark-geo-stub