Hattfjelldal

Hattfjelldal is an inland valley in Nordland. Its name comes from the old Hattfjelldalen farm, recorded as Hatfieldalen in 1723. The farm in turn took its name from Hattfjellet, the distinctive mountain whose name means “hat mountain”. The place-name preserves the relationship between a particular farm, the surrounding valley and a conspicuous landmark. An early chapel was built here in the 1720s. In 1788 it was replaced by a larger chapel, the building that served the settlement through the closing decades of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. The succession of chapels gives Hattfjelldal a concrete local chronology within the wider religious history of inland Helgeland.