Even today, Hammerfest in Norway is not a big town.... or is a huge one, depending on how you mean it. Its current population is little more than 11,000 spread out over a thousand square miles. Its location in Finnmark, at about latitude 70 degrees north, makes it pretty cold in the winter.
This panorama shot's age explains why it looks tiny, perhaps a hundred wooden buildings on an island. Despite the fact that people had been doing panorama shots for five years at this point, the camera moves jerkily. Its aerial location might explain that. It looks like it was taken from a hill, and perhaps in finding a bit of level ground to stand on, they were wound up a bit cramped.