Villa Fredheim

How to translate Fredheim? Maybe "Peaceful home"?


Fredheim is the homestead next to Sassenfjorden where the trapper/hunter Hilmar Nøis ("King of Sassen") lived for many years - he overwintered 38 times on Svalbard, and most of them here. The big house, Villa Fredheim, was built in 1924, then later rebuilt and enlarged several times. His wives (one at a time) Ellen Dorthe Johansen Nøis and Helfrid Nøis stayed and worked there with him.

Underneath is Helfrid and Hilmar.



Hilmar married Ellen Dorthe in 1913, she gave birth to their son Johannes in 1922 (they´d earlier had a daughter, who was brought up by her parents on the mainland). After the birth, Ellen was ill, and didn´t recover completely afterwards. Life on Svalbard became too hard for her, and she moved back to Norway - not long after, the marriage was over.

In 1936, while visiting the mainland, Hilmar met Helfrid and invited her up to Svalbard, she came, and decided to stay. The following year Sysselmannen married them, and they stayed married until Hilmar died in 1975, 84 years old. During the second world war, they spent a few years evacuated in Scotland, and there they adopted a girl, Else Marie. After the war, Helfrid spent most of her time on the mainland, but their last overwintering together on Svalbard was in 1963. Helfrid passed away in 1996.

You can read about his wives here and here - particularly Helfrid is interesting read, she was a tough lady it seems.

Next to Villa Fredheim lies Gammelhytta (the Old Cabin), also called Danielbua (the Daniel shack). This was built as early as 1911, by Daniel Nøis, Hilmar´s uncle. The beach at Fredheim keeps crumbling up, and in 2001 the cabin had to be moved to safer grounds. It was renovated at the same time, with peat stuffed into the walls and on the roof. It now looks like it did when it was built.

Fredheim was quite exceptionally more comfortable than your regular hunting station in the Arctic, and the "female touch" probably had a lot to do with it. The house still looks fairly snug on the inside - sometimes Sysselmannen opens it up for visitors. But even when closed, Fredheim is a popular place to go on daytrips (on snowmobile) from Longyearbyen. It´s location is quite spectacular, with the Tempel-mountain on the other side of Sassenfjorden.

This was my first trip to Fredheim, and I became so curious about life there that I had to look up all the above information about Hilmar and his wives. There´s of course lots more to read about them (probably not translated), here´s some books:

Berset, Odd; Hilmar Nøis : storjegeren fra Svalbard, Bergen 1953
Jacobsen, Tor; Ishavskvinne, historien om Helfrid Nøis, Oslo 1979
Fjørtoft, Kjell: Kongen av Sassen Bay. Fangstfolkenes historie, Oslo 1995.

After Sassen, we looked at the seals, and rode on to Vindodden to picnic on the beach.

We drove up Flowerdalen on the way back -

then down on the other side, towards Kreklingpasset.

William coming down from the top of Flowerpasset.

After Kreklingpasset we crossed the glacier Tellbreen into Mälardalen, and then home.

All along we had beautiful weather and perfect snow conditions. Who needs spring when it´s like this?