Who are the Kven people?
Last updated: 8 October 2026
Short answer
The Kven people are descendants of people who emigrated from northern Finland and northern Sweden to northern Norway, especially in the 1700s and 1800s. Kven and Norwegian-Finnish people are a national minority in Norway, with their own language, Kven. They are a people of their own — not the same as the Sámi. See Vadsø museum – Ruija kvenmuseum.
In more detail
Two of the farms on the town walk show where the immigrants came from. Tuomainengården was built in 1851 by Johan Petter Vinikka, who emigrated from the Torne Valley in Sweden in 1845. The first residents of Bietilægården came from Kemi in Finland.
The museum’s main exhibition, “Meeting the Arctic Ocean”, is about this immigration, especially in the 1700s and 1800s, and about meeting a life that had to be lived by the Arctic Ocean.