Today I started out with a trip to the Polar Bear Center/Hammerfest Visitor Center (http://www.visithammerfest.no/en/). I met a very interesting person there named Helena (from Denmark) who was extremely helpful and knowledgable about Hammerfest and Finnmark. I bought a great map of Finnmark which will be great to be able to mark out Thor's hiking trip route. She and another employee helped me fashion a mailing tube out of multiple random tubes which I promptly mailed home to myself. I then made my way 300 meters away to the The Museum of Reconstruction (http://www.visithammerfest.no/en/facts/231-the-museum-of-reconstruction-for-finnmark-and-northern-troms) where I asked for Doris (Helena recommended I talk to her), and luckily she was there and had time to talk and even helped me with some research. The only building left standing after the war was the church and the church offices are located above the museum. We asked one of the pastors there for the records for 1941 but he told us they were sent to Tromsø, which I where I am headed next. Some records have been scanned but they have only scanned up to 1939.

Wall display of Hammerfest before WWII, in 1945, and after the war

Thinking that perhaps there might be some newspaper records from that year, I made my way to the Finnmark Dagladet office (also next door to the hotel) and an employee there found the newspapers from 1941. We searched for a while through the papers but found they did not print death notices at that time. I was able to photograph the paper from the day Thor died however - October 6, 1941. You can see who made the headlines that day.