Løkken

Løkken is the first real town by the sea in the Municipality of Hjørring. Ever since the first houses were constructed at Furreby Løkke in 1678 and up until today, the sea has played a crucial role for the town – for sea trading, coastal fishing and tourism.

Since ancient times trading links have existed between southern Norway and Vendsyssel and Thy, as the easiest and fastest way of transporting goods was across the Skagerrak.

The 1600-1900 period was a heyday for shipping goods by sea. At one time there were sixteen ships registered in Løkken Customs District, which stretched from Løkken to Limfjorden. During this period, Denmark exported corn, meat and butter to Norway, while Norway exported timber and ironware to Denmark. In the early days of this sea trade, Løkken was simply a loading jetty where the farmers sold their goods. Later the trade was taken over by merchants who lived near the quay and invested in commercial premises and ships. There were also quays in Blokhus and Lønstrup, but Løkken was the biggest. The merchants built large houses for themselves and storehouses with several storeys.

They bought up produce from the surrounding farms and transported it by horse-drawn wagons to the quay. The sailing vessels were not able to moor alongside the quays, but had to anchor beyond the sandbars. The goods therefore had to be unloaded from the horse-drawn wagons onto flat-bottomed boats and rowed out to the cargo ships. The exercise then had to be repeated when the sailing vessels returned with timber from Norway. However, in Norway the ships could sail right up to the quays.

In the second half of the 19th century, the importance of the sea trade began to decline, and around 1900 the quayside facilities started being used for other purposes. Løkken now became a fishing village based on coastal fishing, and this constituted the town’s main activity until after the Second World War.

In 1950, 25 fishing boats and countless smaller vessels were registered in Løkken. The number of boats then fell dramatically until the fishing had all but ceased in the mid-1970s. Around 1900, the fishing in Løkken was varied, both in terms of fishing methods and the species caught. The fish were stored in ice houses. However, it was a problem for Løkken that the fish had to be transported by horse to the nearest railway station, one which was not solved until the railway came to Løkken in 1913. In about 1900, the small open fishing boats were replaced by powered deck boats.

The boats grew in size, but they were not designed to remain at sea for several days. They had to be hauled up onto the beach every night and pushed out every morning, and until about 1960 this was done entirely by hand. In 1915 the first fish exporter arrived, and in 1941 a fish auction was established at the harbour. Following the war, coastal fishing continued to provide a profitable livelihood in Løkken, and during the 1950s and 1960s the fishermen’s association worked hard to have a harbour built. However, the fishermen were forced to give up this idea, and coastal fishing subsequently began to decline.

By the 1920s, Løkken offered a range of services comparable to other towns of its size, and it could almost call itself a small market town. The town had its fishing, it was a service town for a large agricultural catchment area, and finally there was the tourism in summer and the big invasion of day visitors on summer Sundays. The first visitors stayed either at the hotels and guesthouses or privately, but gradually more and more holiday homes were built near the town. The tourist association was founded in 1927, and from that point marketing Løkken really gathered pace. Bathing huts had become popular by the early 1930s, and represented a new beach culture. Firstly, they belonged to the local citizens, and secondly they served as a base for families visiting the beach. By the mid-1930s it became necessary to lay down rules for the bathing huts: Overnight stays were forbidden, the huts had to be painted white and they had to stand in rows. The same rules apply today to Løkken’s “white village”.

Ordinary wage earners were slowly beginning to go on holiday and buy cars, and as early as the 1930s Løkken had its own youth hostel and places where campers could pitch their tents. In the mid-1940s the first campsite opened, and the number of campsites then grew throughout the 1950s and 60s. Today, however, many of them have closed, and instead owner-occupied homes or holiday homes linked to a number of communal facilities are being built, which is extending the tourist season.

Today, Løkken offers a wide range of facilities, many financed by income from the tourist trade. The town has a variety of shops and a lively nightlife, which benefits Løkken’s many restaurants, cafés, bars, discotheques, microbrewery etc. Løkken has a school, kindergarten, library, museums, a nursing home, a large sports hall and swimming pool, a stadium and sporting facilities, for example the tennis courts, bowling alleys and go-kart course at Løkken Action House. All in all, you could say that Løkken has all the facilities which its residents might reasonably expect, and it is therefore a popular place to settle for people commuting to and from Aalborg and Hjørring who are prepared to pay a little extra to have the North Sea and the beach on their doorstep.