The island where sick children were sent to get well

From 1885 to 1926 a sanatorium on Bleikøya treated children with glandular tuberculosis. The author Oskar Braaten was among the patients. When it closed, the cabin people took over, under rules just as strict today.

Bleikøya measures about 125 decares, and for forty years it was where the city sent its sick children. From 1885 to 1926 a sanatorium here treated children with scrofula, a form of tuberculosis that attacks the lymph nodes. The treatment was of its time: fresh sea air, out in the fjord, away from the crowded city.

The institution began in director Gjerdrum's villa from 1864 and came to house around 35 patients. Among the children treated here was the author Oskar Braaten, who later wrote about the stay in the story «Overgivelse».

When the sanatorium closed, the authorities opened the island for cabins. The Ministry of Agriculture gave permission in 1926, and the roughly 90 small cabins were built through the 1920s and 30s. The rules are strict to this day: 32 square metres at most, ridge height 4.8 metres. That is why the settlement has stayed low and plain for a hundred years.

One place on the island is older than both the sanatorium and the cabins. The crofter's holding Bleikøyplassen is said to have housed the same family since the 1700s, through the sanatorium years, the cabin building and everything since.

Access, protection and live departures stand on the island page: Bleikøya.

Sources

• Bleikøya — Wikipedia (bokmål)

Every fact in this piece is drawn from the island dossier behind the island page, and these are its sources.