Mørsvikbotn

or is a small village located in the north part of Sørfold Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The village sits at the end of the Mørsvikfjorden arm of the Nordfolda fjord. The European route E6 highway passes through the village. The lakes Mørsvikvatnet and Sildhopvatnet are located northeast of the village. Mørsvikbotn has a school, a grocery shop called NærButiken managed by Eva Borgan also has a wee coffee shop where you can read a good book that they keep at this coffee shop inside the store. A nice place to wind down for a cuppa coffee/tea, Mørsvikbotn Chapel, an aquaculture co-op, and a few camping sites. The village is centered around the farm Mørsvik at the end of the fjord, known as Mørsvikbotn, so the larger village area is also known as Mørsvikbotn. The local name in the Lule Sami language is Murgos for the farm and Murgosvuodna is the name for the end of the fjord and the greater village area. About north of Mørsvikbotn, near the lake Mørsvikvatnet at "Mørsry", the German Army had a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. The German Army soldiers serving here were from Austria, housing mostly Russian POWs. They were building a railway, which was intended to be a link between Fauske and Narvik. This was to be the so-called "Polarbanen" (Arctic railway). Some ruins of the camp, the foundations of the causeway for the railway, a tunnel, and roads can still be observed in the area. A small cemetery for fallen Russian soldiers is located close to the camp. The Camp Commander was considered by the locals to be quite "humane". Only a very few Russian POWs were shot or died of exhaustion during the five years of the war. The small camp cemetery was emptied of corpses shortly after the war. Their remains now rest with about 8,000 other POWs at the large war cemetery at Tjøtta, south of Sandnessjøen. Some escapes are known by the Norwegian population living close to the camp. The first escape was from the small subsidiary camp at Sildhopen. The local German guard trusted the Red Army POWs.