Lakså ( smj, Laksoavvo) is an abandoned village with no road connection in a valley above Øvervatnet ( en, Upper Lake) in the municipality of
Fauske
or is a municipality located in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Salten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Fauske. Some of the villages in Fauske include Nystad, Venset, Straumsn ...
in
Nordland
Nordland (; smj, Nordlánnda, sma, Nordlaante, sme, Nordlánda, en, Northland) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region, the least populous of all 11 counties, bordering Troms og Finnmark in the north, Trøndelag in the south, N ...
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
,
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 ...
. There were two farms in the valley: Lakså on the shore of Lakså Bay ( no, Laksåbukta) and Nordal (or Norddal) somewhat further up the valley.
History
The Lakså farm was first mentioned in the
rent-roll and census of 1665–1666, where it is referred to as ''Laxaaen Øegaard''. Later, in 1801, several farms were mentioned in the valley: ''Laxaae'', ''Nordre Laxaae'', and ''Lieland'' or ''Laxaaenbakken''. At that time there was also a farm further out along the bay called ''Laxaaemark'', later known as ''Skognes''.
[Berg, Gunnar. 1975. ''Bygdebok for Skjerstad og Fauske''. Bodø: Nordland Boktrykkeri A/S.] With the establishment of the municipality of Fauske on January 1, 1905, the Lakså farm was assigned the number 93, Nordal (''Lakså nordre'') was numbered 94, and Skognes (''Laksåmark'') was numbered 95.
(1807–1888), an impoverished
Sami known for having found copper ore in
Sulitjelma, came from the Skognes farm in Lakså.
In 1957, the
Sulitjelma Line
The Sulitjelma Line ( no, Sulitjelmabanen) was a railway line that ran between Finneid in the town of Fauske to the village of Sulitjelma near the border with Sweden.For a history of the line see Bjerke, Thor, "Sulitjelmabanen" (1983, Norsk Jer ...
was extended to
Finneid
Finneid is a small town with a population of 210 (2016 census) that lies southeast of Fauske in Nordland county, Norway.
Finneid was the port for shipping out the ore that came from the mine in Sulitjelma
, , or is a village in the municip ...
; this ended the steamship traffic on Øvervatnet ( en, Upper Lake), which was previously used for transport to settlements along the lake. The villages along the lake were isolated for several weeks each fall and spring, when ice formed or thawed on the water and was unsafe for travel. Without the steamships, which had created a navigable stretch of open water through the ice, it was no longer possible to travel with one's own boat. Not only Lakså, but also the smaller villages of Engan and Stifjell were eventually abandoned.
[Strøm, John. 1993. Vandring langs gjengrodde stier på Stifjell. ''Fauskeboka 1993'', p. 43. Fauske: Fauske Kulturstyre.]
The old houses in Lakså and Nordal are used as vacation houses. A construction road was built through the valley in the 1960s as part of building the
Siso Hydroelectric Power Station.
The village formerly had its own school.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laksa (Fauske)
Fauske