59 degrees North Latitude

After 5 days considerably farther north than I have ever been before, I'm back in the Netherlands. Norway was fabulous. I flew in Thursday noon-ish and met with Heidi, an old friend from high school who I haven't seen since grade 11 - 8 years ago. She and her boyfriend Torkjel (pronounced something like tore-shell, I think...), put me up and guided me around very patiently for 5 days. They were excellent hosts and I am very grateful for their hospitality.

Like the true Canadian I am, I'll start with the weather: it was perfect. Perfect for January, that is. It snowed about an inch just before I arrived and then promptly cleared up so that we had about 4 days of gorgeous, sunny blue skies and maybe -5C temperatures. Cool for outdoor sight-seeing, but not cold enough to make you need to hibernate. We spent most of the weekend wandering around outside for 3-5 hours a day and I even seem to have acquired a bit of a sunburn on my face. It could be windburn, I suppose, but I'm sticking with sunburn - it sounds better!

Norway really is a beautiful country and I wish I could go back and see more of the northern parts of the region. Alas, Heidi tells me it's pretty expensive so it may not happen. Things we did see:

-3 kms or so of the cross country ski trails we walked down to get to the Holmenkollen ski jump. So pretty it almost made me want to take up x-country skiing. Almost. If it were all downhill, I might go for it! But I still think ski-jumpers are out of their minds. How do you get into this sport??

-the city center, including the central train station, national theatre, law school, university, cathedral, city hall, and a whole lot of yellow buildings. They use a lot of yellow and it struck me as strange because it's pretty rare at home - particularly on things like Parliament buildings.


In the city center we saw the changing of the guards at the palace. This is a much smaller affair than you might expect having heard of the spectacle at Buckingham Palace - about 20 or 30 soldiers marched out of the guard house and stood at attention for awhile, swinging their guns around on command and trying to look dignified. Another 20-30 soldies marched in from the other side of the palace, lined up and swung their guns around for awhile too, to indecipherable commands from their CO. The best part was when one guy dropped the bayonet knife he was supposed to snappily attach to his gun and had to try to still look dignified and unconcerned while the small crowd of tourists made comments about his error - mostly sympathetic "Oh shit! Poor guy!" sorts of things. After they finished switching places and the old crew trooped off, one of the lowest soldiers was sent out of the guard house to march over and snappily pick up the knife, all the while steadfastly ignoring the tourist who was busily photographing the knife on the ground!

-the Akershus fortress. Built in 1300 and situated on the fjord, the fort is still used as an active military installation and was even instrumental in sinking some German submarines in WWII - with rusty WWI canons.

-the Oslo harbour: full of both huge ferries and small sail-powered fishing boats, the harbour looks out over the fjord to peninsulas and islands. In January, since the sun never gets very high in the sky, it looked like the sun was always rising or setting - glorious skies.

-the Folk Museum. Same idea as Fort Edmonton or the Ukrainian Heritage Park in Vegreville, this would undoubtedly be better in summer, but was still edifying in the winter. Lots of old Norwegian farm buildings were built up on stilts about 3 feet off the ground, both to keep out vermin and because of the large amount of winter snowfall.

-The Kon-tiki Museum: I'd heard of Thor Heyerdahl before this trip but didn't really have a clue as to why. Turns out he was quite the anthropoligist: among other things, he built three (well, 4, but one sunk) pre-historic replica ships to prove that various peoples could have been in contact via the sea. In 1947 he sailed the balsa raft Kon-tiki between South America and Polynesia, in 1970 he sailed the reed boat Ra II from Morocco to Barbados, and in 1978 he sailed another reed boat, the Tigris, across the Indian Ocean from Asia to Africa.

-The FRAM museum: this museum was devoted to the Norwegian polar explorers, particularly Roald Amundsen, Fritjof Nansen and Otto Sverdrup. It included the actual Fram ship: the one used by the three explorers mentioned on their expeditions to the North and South poles. This was a fascinating museum but was unfortunately freezing inside: perhaps the museum staff were going for realism. This museum, in addition to the Kon-tiki and the Holmenkollen, firmly convinced me that Norwegians are either very very brave or very very crazy. Maybe both.


-Vigeland Park: Full of around 200 sculptures by Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland, this park is a testament to the support of a country to one of its own artists. Unfortunately, as a result, Vigeland is not well known elsewhere - largely because most of his decades of work is in Oslo. This park was full even in Janaury.


All in all, I loved Norway, at least partially because it reminded me of Canada. The terrain was something like a combination of the Okanagan and Jasper. I didn't realize how much I missed both snow and hills until I got there. I know this post is not doing my trip justice, but trust me: this is a place you should definately visit.