Tafjord – wild and exciting

The Fundergata has a very special architectural environment from bygone ages.Many church huts have been left behind. These were used by people living far up in the mountain valleys. (Photo: Frank Iversen/tafjord.net)

Tafjord is the most easterly district at Sunnmøre and is a very old settlement. The mountains bear many traces of an ancient hunting tradition.

The village is situated at the end of the World Heritage fjord of Tafjord. The power company, Tafjord Kraft, is also situated here and has been a good source of income for Norddal municipality through power development in the Tafjord Mountains. In 1967 one of the highest dams in Northern Europe, the 96-metre-high Zakarias dam, was built here. The first power station from 1923 is today a power station museum. Not far away is Tafjord open air bathing area, with two outdoor swimming pools.

The Tafjord Mountains are increasingly popular with visitors. The Tourist Association have accommodation cottages, with or without hosts, that may be used by walkers. When walking from Herdalen to Tafjord, one crosses the Kallskaret nature reserve, a large eclogite field of olivine with garnet crystals and anorthosite.

Before the advent of road and tunnels in 1982, Tafjord was an isolated district which could only be accessed by boat or on foot

The Fundergata has a very special architectural environment from
bygone ages.Many church huts have been left behind. These were used by people living far up in the mountain valleys for changing into church clothes. They also ate the food they had brought along before they rowed the long way to and from Dale church in Norddal.

The district’s population has declined in the last few years. The school was therefore closed down in 2007. That same year the people of Tafjord celebrated 25 years of road links and tunnels along the road to the neighbouring district of Fjørå.

40 people lost their lives in the districts of Fjørå and Tafjord in 1934 when a crag fell off the mountain side into the fjord from Heggura causing waves up to 64 metres high. Nowadays this mountain is monitored for the risk of new rockslides. In Tafjord the waves made it up to Fundergata, a small charming street.

On the west side of the Tafjord, there are two abandoned farms without road links called Korsneset and Kastet. In the Sødalsvika to the east one can walk up to deserted farms in the Muldalen valley.