In June 1352, Archbishop Olav sat in Kapellvågen and wrote a letter to Bishop Sigfrid of Stavanger to summon him to a bishops’ meeting in Bergen in August of the same year.
This is the first time we meet the place name that has later been shaped “Kabelvåg”. It is not only in 1352 that we have documentation that prominent clergy were visiting Vågar.
Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it seems that the archbishop or a deputy for him, held a “priests’ conference” with all Hålogaland’s priests here in the summer. Vågar was a convenient meeting place, where the priests could at the same time check that they received their share of the fishing tithes and other important fees.
We have to imagine that the clergy needed a place to hang out that was a little secluded from the busy harbor buildings in Storvågan. The clergy probably also needed their own church outside the parish church in Kjerkvågen. Perhaps this was the reason why Kapellvågen was created? Today, the picture is the opposite, Kabelvåg is a busy commercial center, and in Storvågan you can walk in peace and quiet.
As it became too narrow for large ships to sail into Storvågan, Kabelvåg came to take over as the most important port in Vågan during the eighteenth century. The first municipal centre also grew up here, and merchants and craftsmen settled. The village was given schools, hospitals, prisons, hotels, restaurants, a bank and housing for civil servants.
An institution such as the Norwegian Port Authority (now the Norwegian Coastal Administration) has been of great importance for the development of Kabelvåg from its establishment in 1875. We find here an urban village that has grown up around the sheltered harbour. Here are many interesting examples of well-preserved architecture from the latter half of the eighteenth century and from the early part of this century.
Due to the large amount of activity that has been here in the last century and a half, it is difficult to find traces of the first settlement. However, it has been documented that people lived in Smedvika in the middle ages. Source: Fotefar mot nord, by Reidar Bertelsen.
