Bodø & Jekt Trade Museum

by coach & on foot

Discover Bodø’s history and natural beauty on this experience.

A short drive from the pier will bring you to the first stop – the historical Nyholmen Skandse. The fortress was built in 1810 to protect the local grain stores from British warship raids during the Napoleonic Wars.

Your journey then continues to the Bodøsjøen Open Air Museum, where, located beside the sea with mountains in the background, you will find the Jekt Trade Museum. Discover stories of raw coastal culture, and learn how the Jekts (traditional cargo vessels) brought northern Norway and the rest of Europe together through trade.

With the only original preserved Jekt from the Nordland province standing at the heart of the exhibition, the museum takes you back in time to a world that is unrecognisable today. Enter a world of power and helplessness, profit and risk. Learn about life on board, fishing and farming communities, and gain an understanding of the history of the stock fish trade and its importance to the region.

As you return to the pier through the heart of Bodø, your guide will describe how most of the city was reduced to rubble during a German bombing raid in World War 2, and how the subsequent rebuilding changed the shape of the city.