Island Games: Get to know... Hitra
Hitra, which is to be found half way up the west Norwegian coast, is 12 times bigger than Guernsey but only has a population equivalent to St Andrew’s and St Saviour’s combined.
In what would appear to be a first for the Island Games, a competing island will be arriving having grown in size since the previous games.
On 1 January 2020, Hitra’s municipal boundary was expanded to include the island of Hemnskjela and a small part of mainland Norway in the north of Snillfjord.
Although competing under the flag of Norway, Hitra takes pride in its own coat of arms which depicts the white silhouette of a stag on a light blue background. This is in honour of its cherished red deer, which populate the island more densely than anywhere else in Europe. There are almost as many deer as people.
‘We shoot about 1,000 deer every year,’ said Hitra Island Games Association deputy leader Jorgen Olsen.
Hunting and fishing are not so much pastimes as a way of life for Hitrans.
‘We’re not very populated, we have a lot of open spaces. Many of us like to use the nature around us for several purposes.’
The world’s first seawater salmon farm was established off the coast of Hitra in 1970 and the region now exports a quarter of a million tonnes of salmon annually.
The industry now dominates the economy, with fish farming and processing becoming by far the most common occupation, attracting workers from all over the world and making Hitra a much more cosmopolitan place than it had been.
‘Probably every fourth or fifth person in Hitra is from off-island and most are here to work in the fish industry,’ said Jorgen.
‘In Hitra, we like to think that we are open-minded and good at taking care of each other and of new residents. We have 55 nationalities here now.’
Matters arising from the industry have been dominating the local news agenda in recent months, too.
‘Right now, it’s about the government raising the taxes for the fish farming industry – that’s by far the most discussed case. It has already impacted the industry with a very negative consequences,’ said Jorgen.
Hitra also has a busy tourist industry, with 2,000 holiday houses and cabins able to accommodate visitors from Norway and further afield.
These tourists are able to reach Hitra very easily via a 5.6km undersea tunnel, with a further 5.3km tunnel linking Hitra to the island of Froya – an Island Games competitor – a little further north.
In fact, with Hitrans able to commute between the island and the mainland in minutes, it could be argued that Hitra is among the least insular of all the islands at Guernsey 2023.
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Jorgen himself will arrive in Guernsey hoping to continue an extraordinary run of success as a competitor.
He has taken part in the pistol shooting at every opportunity since 2009 and has never failed to come away with a medal.
However, three of the most popular sports are not available to Hitran men at these games.
Football and handball are the most dominant sports, Jorgen said, with most children participating, but handball is not an Island Games sport and Hitra, like Alderney, fell foul of the draw that reduced the 19 entrants into the men’s football competition to a more manageable 16.
‘This has almost halved our number of competitors at Guernsey 2023,’ he said.
A women’s team will compete, but it faces a tough draw, being placed in Group A alongside Jersey, Bermuda and Aland.
‘Weightlifting is also a very popular sport in Hitra and we have one of the best clubs in Norway, with several national champions, but unfortunately, it’s not on the Island Games programme,’ Jorgen said.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the lifestyle, shooting is the sport in which Hitra has had most success, but Jorgen also expects the island to compete well in athletics.
As for sporting rivalries, there is only one and – from what Jorgen told us – it lies semi-dormant.
‘We’ve always been rivals with Froya, of course – we are neighbour islands – in sport as in anything else,’ he said, ‘but maybe not so much in the Island Games because I don’t think we’ve ever met.
'We kind of have different sports.’
ABOUT HITRA
Area: 756sq. km (292sq. miles)
Population: 5,156 (2022 estimate)
Population density: 7.2 per sq. km
Time zone: One hour ahead of Guernsey
Distance from Guernsey: 1,703km (1,058m)
Total IG medals won: 22 (4 G, 9 S, 10 B)
Medals won in 2003: 0
Competitors coming to Guernsey: 22
Route: Drive to Trondheim, flight to Gatwick, flight to Guernsey (except shooters, who will drive 1,000km to Aland to join their direct flight which avoids UK gun laws)
Sports in which competing: Golf, football, shooting
Biggest sports star: Knut Boro (Olympic long-distance runner)
National delicacy: Venison steak
Parliamentary representation: Part of the Sor-Trondelag constituency of Norway’s 169-seat Storting but also has its own 25-seat council
