Bugøynes was settled by Norwegians in the 1700´s – but was later deserted. It was still serving as a fishing base, but it was repopulated with regular year-round settlement by people from Finland escaping poverty and famine, which occurred in Finland in the 1800´s. The Finns scattered to many villages along the Norwegian coastline, but in Bugøynes the whole population was Finnish. There was a new wave of Finnish settlement in the 1970s when the fishing factories were thriving. New young Finnish immigrants came to work at the factories and stayed. This is the reason why the village is also called Pikku-Suomi (Little Finland), and many use it by its Finnish name, Pykeija. Old Finnish language is still spoken among some of the older villagers, and the population is mainly formed of Finnish descendants.
Bugøynes is in many ways unique. It is not only a Finnish village in Norway, but it was also one of the very few places that was not burnt and destroyed during World War II by the Germans. This is why some older wooden houses dating back to the 1800s are still standing. In addition, the scenic windy road leading to Bugøynes was finished only in 1962. Before this the main link between the village and the rest of the world was by sea.
The village endured much hardship in the late 1980s, when the fisheries moved their operations elsewhere and the villagers became unemployed. The villagers came up with an idea to put an ad in the paper where they applied for a job together as a village. The newspaper misunderstood and the advertisement came out that the village of Bugøynes was put up for sale! This accidental publicity stunt brought a lot of attention internationally and caused a tourism flow which helped the villagers to gain some income. This story also tells a lot of the persistence and determination of the villagers. Finally, it was the arrival of King Crab that actually revived the village, and the King crab is a very important part of livelihood still today.
