Video report
Leaving the North
In the beautiful north of Norway, the struggle to make people stay remains.
Rural areas of Finnmark County keep losing people to big cities. The Barents Observer travels to the remote town of Vadsø to talk to the local community about it. Watch the documentary report "Leaving the North" here.
Highlights:
I need to go a lot of places for experience, and here in Vadsø is a little small for that. And from here, if you want to go anywhere else, it's super expensive, "
Pei-Han Lin, artist
Well, we have this large cohort of the population of youth from about 19 to 29 that have left the high north",
Aileen A. Espíritu, UiT Arctic University of Norway
I grew up in Vadsø and people loved football, skiing, and I was like, yeah, but I don't want to do that. I want to be on stage,"
Vadsø resident Anette Dørmænen
We want the young people here to get their basic education here, then go out to study and come back to give it back to Vadsø,"
André Kvernhaug, Varanger Festivalen
I will have a study loan of 400,000 kroner. If you move back to Vadsø and work here at least one year, 30,000 will be deleted from that,"
Jonas Tjelle, a student in Trondheim.
It's a signal to Putin and Russia that Finnmark is important for Norway and we want to stay here. It's not like everyone packed and leaving Finnmark. If we do, Finnmark lay open for an annexation,"
Hans-Jacob Bønå, Mayor of Finnmark county
