The story of Borg began on a September day in 1981. Farmer Frik Harald Bjerkli had gotten himself a new plough and started ploughing his fields. The plough cut five centimetres deeper than before – and this resulted in dark, almost black soil coming into view. To the farmer, this did not seem strange.
But coincidence would change everything. At the same time as the ploughing was in progress, the amateur archaeologist Kåre Ringstad was on his way home from an inspection. He had previously investigated the area with archaeologist Olav Sverre Johansen from Tromsø Museum, and knew that there were burial mounds here. When he heard about the ploughing, he immediately contacted Tromsø – and received a clear message: Stop the farmer immediately!
Ringstad visited Bjerkli and explained what was hidden in the soil. For Bjerkli, who was interested in history, this was the start of a fascinating journey. He learned to recognize traces of the past, and the black earth took on new meaning.
As early as 1982, the first archaeological investigations were initiated, and the finds proved to be of great national importance. Between 1983 and 1984, test excavations were carried out, followed by a major excavation project from 1984 to 1989. Extensive excavations were carried out, and here they found the remains of the longest known longhouse from the Viking Age – a full 83 meters long.
Kåre Ringstad became a key driving force in the process that followed. According to Minister of Culture Åse Kleveland (1995), his efforts were crucial to the establishment of the Lofotr Viking Museum. Only six years after the excavations were completed, the reconstructed longhouse was completed at Borg.
Ringstad himself summed up how fateful the moment in 1981 had been:
If we had driven past Kirkeveien two minutes earlier, I would not have seen Frik-Harald with the plough. Then no one would have reacted to the black soil on the plateau. The chieftain’s seat at Borg would today just be a pretty green meadow.
(Written with the help of AI)