Every design for Kopervik

On the high ground above the harbour, the oldest part of Kopervik still goes by the name Treborg – 'wooden castle' – after a fortress that, according to legend, King Sverre ordered built on the headland at the harbour mouth. No trace of it has ever been found, but the name has outlived every doubt.

What makes Kopervik different is its pilots. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the pilot station here was for a time the largest in Scandinavia, guiding ships along the coast and into harbour, and it is still working today, one of the few left in Norway. The town received its trading rights as a ladested and split off from Avaldsnes to become a small urban municipality of its own, then lost its town status in the great mergers that created Karmøy Municipality, before winning it back. It was also home to Tormod Torfæus, royal historian to the Danish king. Even the name is tied to the sea, linked to a tiny nearby skerry once named after seals.

Today Parken i Kopervik is the town's own park, a green pause in a town that has always faced the sea. Put it on a shirt with the harbour and Treborg around it, and you have the whole of Kopervik in one picture.