Hvalba spreads around the bottom of a deep inlet, Hvalbiarfjørður, northeast on Suðuroy.
Two tunnels connect Hvalba to its neighbour-villages. The southbound tunnel (1400 meters) leads to Trongisvágur/Tvøroyri and the northbound one (1500 meters) leads to Sandvík.
In the mountains around the southbound tunnel brown coal has been extracted from deep and unpleasantly low mines since the 1770-ties. The brown coal was an important source of energy on the Faroe Islands until the end of World War 2.
A few miners are still extracting coal from the mines.
Hvalba is located on the east side of the island but the inlet is so deep that the distance to the west coast is short. On the west coast there is a place of call that makes it possible to go fishing in small boats from both sides of the island. Hvalba is a beautiful village and the nature on the west coast is definitely worth visiting.
Pirates ravaged Hvalba, as other villages on Suðuroy, in the 17th century. In 1629 three North-African pirate ships attacked the village. When they left the village after the ravage two of the ships ran aground on some rocks and were shattered by the surf. Tradition says that more than 300 bodies washed ashore.
Down by the shore there is a place called ‘Turkargravir’. Here all the bodies were buried. 30 women and children were taken away to be sold as slaves in North Africa. On the Faroe Islands a collection was organized to raise enough money to by back the people. They did not succeed though and the people never returned to the islands. |
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