Fosnavåg

Fosnavåg wraps around a narrow inlet, about 700 metres long, on the north side of Bergsøya, one of the islands of Herøy on the outer Sunnmøre coast. Low rocky hills ring the harbour. On one side stand old wharf sheds in red and green, on the other the new hotel and concert hall, and bridges tie Bergsøya to the islands around, out to Runde.

For a town of 3.667 people it has a lot of ships. Fishing and shipping are what it lives from, and shipowners such as Havila Shipping and Rem Offshore run their supply vessels from here. Havila's coastal ships on the Bergen–Kirkenes route are also run from offices in town. By catch value, Herøy's own fishing fleet has been the biggest in the county. The name goes back to Fólgsn, an old name for Bergsøya meaning "hiding place", most likely for the sheltered harbour.

Local knowledge: Fosnavåg got town status from the municipal council in 2002, the same year a new church went up here on the site of one with a long story. For centuries the main church of the whole outer Sunnmøre stood on Herøya, a small island in the fjord. In 1916 the parish was split in two, and the wooden church on Herøya was taken down, moved and put up again, larger, in Fosnavåg. It stood until the night of 26 December 1998, when it burned to the ground and took many medieval works of art and furniture with it. The new church, with an 18 metre high altar decoration, was consecrated in February 2003. A piece of the old font from 1572, broken in the fire, is set into the new one.

Born here: brain researcher May-Britt Moser (born 1963) grew up the youngest of five on a small farm and shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine with Edvard Moser, born in Ålesund, whom she remembered from secondary school, for finding the grid cells that help the brain know where it is.

Visiting: the pin points to the tourist information in the reception of Thon Hotel Fosnavåg, right on the harbour, where you can ask about boat trips and the bird island of Runde. Walk the quays around the inlet and look into Herøy church. On a rainy day, Sunnmørsbadet has five indoor pools under one roof with the culture centre and library. Runde is a short drive over the bridges. Its western cliff is the southernmost large bird cliff in Norway, more than 240 species have been seen on the island, and in the protected areas you stay on the marked paths.

Fact sheet

• People: 3.667 in Fosnavåg, 9.003 in Herøy municipality
• County: Møre og Romsdal
• Town since: 2002
• Typical industries: fishing and fish farming, shipping and offshore vessels

Population on 1 January 2026, from Statistics Norway. Typical industries are the ones with a much bigger share of the jobs here than in Norway as a whole (Statistics Norway, 2025).