NORWAY STORIES -- INTRO-
DUCTION
Thirty years ago I slung manure, buried bloated sheep, pull apple tree roots on a 45 degree hillside, gained twenty pound and woke up every morning to the most incredible scenery framed by my cold bedroom's window.
I picked fruit, bailed hay, and cut grass to make the winter's silage; built roads and ate lovingly prepared food.
I hike up a steep trail to the tundra every weekend and gillnetted trout on an alpine lake in a locally built wooden skiff with the farmer's daughter. We ate them pan-fried with a little butter in an ancient wooden hut above the tree line.
I drank export beer in cold wet bottles cooled by a glacial stream with other young vagabonds from England, Ireland, Holland and the U.S., and out of desperation I read the complete works of Shakespeare.
I climbed and almost topped the local mountain called Vasfjoro. This I did against the wishes of my hosts, who in retrospect were well founded in their concerns for my safety.
I smoked the meat of calves and sheep slaughtered in the barn and almost succumbed to the sweet smoke of the apple roots I had ripped from the hillside.
I guided, though maybe was lead by, the dairy cows coming down from their summer pasture to begin their long winter internment in the warm red barn.
I stood in trees picking fruit as large snowflakes blew off the mountain, melting in the warm autumn sun before ever touching the ground. I harvested potatoes with a plow meant for draft horses and now pulled by diesel.
I worked hard and enjoyed the simple honesty of the farmer and his wife. And I left with much more than I came.
I left with an appreciation for natural beauty. I left with calluses on my hands and a sense of the unforgiving sanctity of tradition.
I left understanding the fragility of life on the edge of a fjord and of the abundance of food that backbreaking work and fifteen acres can provide.
I left understanding the consequences of war and the German occupation. I left with my heart in my hands and all the produce that could be stuff into a 1960 blue VW beetle.
And now I am returning, thirty years hence. Spending as much in a day as I spent in a year. I am returning sleeping on 400 thread count sheets, and not old feed sacks and rocks.
I am returning with my wife Charlotte and not my traveling companion in 1973, Curt. He has disappeared into the Everglades to spend a life riding out hurricanes.
As we drop into Oslo I wonder if Norway can live up to my expectations: it seems hardly possible. Is it Thomas Wolfe that said you cannot go home again, but then home is the only place they have to take you in, so we will see.
WATERFALLS…
Global warming makes a lot of sense to me, heaven knows Chicago has gotten warmer. As a kid I spent the entire winter outside. Winter lasted from November to April, and I was able to sled, skate and freeze for the majority of that time. Quite a bit older now and on a flight from Kirkenes, Norway to Oslo, back-tracking the entire six day trip up the coast on the Kong Harold, one of the coastal steamers of the Hurtigurten line, I finally have the time to contemplate this trip.
Norway is spectacular – sounds trite I know – but around every bend I am forced to take three or four more picture and the road is very curvy. At one point I swore not to take any more photos of fjords, but this proves impossible. Now with five gigabytes of images stored on my hard drive I am wondering if they will all look the same when I finally get to review them.
On my first visit to Norway water was everywhere. It was overhead and underfoot. Rain gear, complete with rubber boots, was a necessity. I do not mean any of that namby-pamby Gore-Tex stuff. I mean real rubber coated cloth guaranteed to bake you alive if the temperature rises above fifty degrees.
Rushing streams of water were everywhere. I walked through them, drove through them, drank from them and never bored of watching the torrents fall from the sky over dauntingly high cliffs to be absorbed without a hint into the deep blue-black briny water of the fjords. Every crack in the rock was another excuse for a waterfall. Another excuse to revel in the majesty of it all. To contemplate the forces necessary and the time, time, time to wear the rock into submission. For it is not the rock that rules in Norway, it is the water.
At first glance Norway is nothing but rock, but on closer inspection it is the water that moves the people and freight, that provides the cod and the herring, that the oil platforms are built on, that makes the moss for the reindeer to eat and the sweet hay for the cows and sheep. It is the water that the Vikings sailed on and it is the water that inspired the people of Norway to build the wooden craft they take to sea in, once to conquer and now to fish and recreate.
There is a flat out cropping of rock that I have been privileged to trod upon thirty times in the last thirty years. It is half way up to Jonstal, the summer cabins of the farmers of Lekve. It is an open area to gaze on the farms and the fjord of Ulvik, the town that Lekve is part of. It is also the spot to refresh on the steep trek up or down the mountain.
Off to the side of the cairn, inconspicuously trickling, is a rock and moss laden stream with clear, cold, dark glacial water that flows out of the rock. Water so sweet I gorge myself on it; making my head swim and my insides ache. This water is the true soul of Norway. Ask any farmer or fisherman, they will agree with me.
And this brings me back to waterfalls or more precisely the lack of waterfalls. I remember them every where, gloriously streaming, careening down the side of massive cliffs or bubbling over moss covered rock, no more. There seems to be a deficit of water these days: less snow in the mountains and less rain in the valleys.
Tore the farmer is busily irrigating his hay fields and fruit trees. Tour guides are busily chasing retreating glaciers. And all this leaves me pondering, not so busily, green house gases and global climate change.
LIGHT…
In 1973 I arrived in Norway during the summer brightness and left in the gloom of an early winter. Never fully experiencing the zenith or the nadir of the sun’s passage across the Northern sky, but none-the-less getting a sense of the immensity of the procession. This short trip is meant to exploit the midnight sun, being more interested in light rather than darkness at this point of my life.
I get a sense of the light in Oslo. It is 10:00, 10:30, even 11:00 PM before the light begins to fade. Every one is out parading around the town and you have to convince yourself to get ready for bed. I watch from our vantage point at the Grand Hotel as brightly painted 1950 vintage American cars drive past to stop and party at The American Club just down the street; their beautiful paint gleaming in the late evening sun.
The first mistake southerners make is not drawing the curtains in the hotel room to get some sleep. The light makes you feel invincible, like being eighteen again. This behavior has dire consequences days into the trip. I am sure Rick Steves mentioned this in his travel guide to Norway, but I was too preoccupied to pay it any heed.
From Oslo we travel north to the farm country and it only gets worse, well brighter actually. Ulvik is our destination. It is a dead-end branch of the Hardanger Fjord. This area is the orchard of Norway. All the brochures show spring’s blossoming fruit trees intermixed with tidy red farmhouses and barns. The fjord is always in the background, more often than not pictured with a cruise ship hovering in the bay in a misguided attempt to give the scene more cachet.
As if it needed it. Ulvik is the equivalent of New England, the Rocky Mountains and the Northwest coast of Canada wrapped up in one small hamlet. In Ulvik we sit in our own little garden provided by Sjur and Helen, the farmer and his urban wife, who run Uppphein Farm B&B where we are staying. The farm is located one shy of the highest tier of farms as they snake their way up the mountainside from the fjord below.
When we should be having our after dinner nap, we are deciding where to eat. And when we should be dressing for bed, we are sitting in the garden looking out at the fjord below. Farmers are tractoring by, sheep are bleating and I need to force myself to get under the covers and dream about sleep. At 3AM I awake to see the light glimmering on the water hundreds of feet below and wait for breakfast.
I will not bore you with the splendor of our boat ride up the coast. I do not possess the literary skill to do the description justice and after all I am writing about the light. We venture north on the mail ship Kong Harold at a touch below fifteen knots till the light becomes more pervasive and finally never disappears beneath the horizon.
I stand bundled in my new sweater and stare, as the sun never drops below 15 degrees. At first it seems to be darkening, then an instant pass midnight it begins to rise and morning begins, warmth reappears and a certain mania takes over. The ‘night’ this first occurs the boat is infused with energy. The entire compliment of passengers and crew are up and celebrating.
The second night, after a cold day of wind and rain, the clouds clear just prior to midnight and the few souls that are up feel the heat of the rising sun as it reflects off the surface of the Barents Sea. I resist pointing my camera at the hovering sun and try to not to stare, but cannot help myself. Little red orbs cloud my vision as the sun’s photons change the chemistry in my rods and cones.
On the last day of our journey the light has a smoky, fluorescence quality to it. It streams sideways like a million arc lamps lighting up the southern face of Europe’s northern most cliffs. As we stream along a succession of glacial valleys, mountains and villages are bathed in it. Finally I draw the curtains to put the North behind me.
Now as I write this we are chasing the sun back across the North Atlantic. I expect Chicago to be dark and although jealous of the midnight sun I leave behind, I take comfort in the familiar glow of mercury vapor that perpetually baths the city in light.
