Måsøy, Finnmark, Norway
OK, so both the hammer and sickle were already taken, so the residents of the Måsøy commune of northernmost Norway chose another brutal looking tool as the symbol of their region. The gaff, also known as the hakapik. It’s an ingenious creation meant to bring total destruction to the wicked baby seal at the business end. As both a bludgenoning tool to smash the seal’s sull and and hacking tool, to drag away the freshly killed cottony soft carcass, you kill two birds (or one innocent infant seal) with one blow.
Now I know the Aurora Borealis is a little difficult to replicate on a flag – especially in two colors. But the next time the residents of Måsøy gather to create a new flag, I strongly suggest something less medieval weaopnish and controversial.
2 responses so far ↓
Jose Manuel // November 29, 2008 at 12:14 pm |
Maybe the red background stand for the blood of baby seals.
Benct Philip Jonsson // October 19, 2009 at 10:55 am |
Since “mås” probably means ’seagull’ in Norwegian just as in Swedish the obvious non-revolting design would have been a white seagull silhouette on a blue field
Not that seagulls can’t be revolting — I still remember witnessing an act of seagull cannibalism at age seven — people usually don’t think about them that way.