Sunlit Norway: Nature's Wonderland
A Norwegian immigrant to the United States looks back on his home country.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From When I Was a Boy in Norway, by John Oscar Hall, 1921.
I am thankful that I had the opportunity of being ''A Boy in Norway,” but I am also grateful to “Uncle Sam” for adopting me as an American citizen.
Hence, Norway is my mother, who gave me my gentle training for twenty years, and "Uncle Sam" is my father, who has given me great opportunities for education and travel, and has enabled me to meet with the people in the different States and learn a great deal of the past and present of this glorious country.
In this book I am obliged to speak of my "mother" only, and of such a good and beautiful mother I must of necessity say nice things.
Therefore, if you find me calling her pet names, you must never think that I have lost my affection for my "father''; but as a loyal, devoted child I can love them both.
The Irishman said, "Every one ought to be patriotic about his native country, — whether he was born there or not."
As one among many thousands, I can testify to the fact that it is possible to be patriotic — in the best sense of the word — both toward one's native and one's adoptive country.
And who could help being patriotic for Norway, Nature's Wonderland, the Land of the Vikings, of Saga and Song, of Fjords and Falls, of Mountains and Ice-fields, with a variety of climate, from the mildest tracts in the south to the Arctic winters in the north, and the lure of the Midnight Sun and the Northern Lights?
Surely we can say with the beloved Norse poet, Bjornson:
“This North Land is our own,
And we love each rock and stone,
From the rugged old snow mountains
To the cabins by the main;
And our love shall be the seed
To bear the fruit we need.”
We could write a big volume on the grand and picturesque scenery of Norway; but there are many excellent books on this subject. You, of course, will be interested in the phenomena and wonders of the land of the Norsemen, and in order to show you the magnificent scenery we shall take you along on delightful holiday tours and rambles in this "New Switzerland." But more interesting than his country is the Norseman himself. We shall, therefore, spend ample time in studying the people, their habits, customs, traditions, folk-lore, and fairy-tales.
We shall study the interesting characteristics of the descendants of those brave and valiant Vikings, who in the days of old, when Europe was degraded by the chains of slavery, governed themselves by their own laws and planted that spirit of self-ruling and freedom, which she proudly possesses to-day, and which entitles her country to be called the "Freest of the Free."
What Does this Fairy-land Look Like?
In order to answer this, let us take a bird's-eye view of this country. How can we do it? Just step with me into an airplane. We have an expert pilot, and he will show us the general outline of the land. Afterwards we will take our time and see and learn more at each of the most interesting points.
Supposing our pilot could take us so high that with our excellent instruments we could view the whole country at once. What does it look like? It looks like a giant Greenland whale — about 1,200 miles long. Toward the south is the big head, 250 miles wide, and toward the north is the tail — terminating in North Cape.
Portions of this fish suggest that it has been underfed, as the northern half is only about sixty miles wide.
This giant whale is washed by three oceans. The wintry Arctic in the north, the Atlantic — tempered by the mild Gulf Stream — in the west, and the gentle gales of the Skagerak and Kattegat in the south. On the east side it is safely moored to Sweden for a distance of 950 miles, and in the northern part to Finland for 450 miles, and to Russia for 100 miles.
You will observe that this giant whale is not only dead, but petrified. We can therefore examine it without being disturbed.
Its mighty backbone is the first portion to invite our attention. This is divided into three parts. Langfjeldene (Long-mountains) is the name of the backbone from the head up to the big crossbone, which is called Dovrefjeld (Dovre-mountains) . Then the backbone from there to the tail is called Kjolen (The Keel).
This mighty bone sticks up 6,151 feet above the sea, and the large part within the Arctic Circle is covered with immense snow-fields and glaciers. Let us now take a look at the crossbone, the Dovre-fjeld, with the highest peaks in Scandinavia — the Glittertind (8,385 feet) and Galdhopiggen (8,400 feet).
These mighty peaks are the fathers of the mountains. They have thousands of children, and some of these are about as big as their fathers. Each member of the family covers himself with a heavy veil of snow and ice. This veil is also stretched out between them, and thus it covers over five thousand square miles. The veil drops as low as 5,580 feet. This is called the snow-line.
See how these glaciers glitter in the sunlight like an ocean of brilliant diamonds, and from this ocean of perpetual ice we see pale-green streams issue and form magnificently vaulted deep blue caverns.
As our pilot points out and explains this panoramic view, valley after valley and mountain after mountain open their charms to our wondering gaze. Is it real, or is it a fairy-tale in which a wall of rock opens and displays an entrance to the most mysterious and enchanting scenes? It is real, and we stand speechless.
A wondrous sense of sublime ecstasy steals over us — "something sinks into our souls that nothing will ever efface."
According to Norse folk-lore, these vast mountain districts are supposed to be inhabited by many kinds of unnatural folk, who live underground and in the mountains. Some of these are great giants like trolls, and some are small dwarfs, gnomes, and witches. Our pilot is one of the few who can both see and converse with such people. Can you hear him ask one of the witches that is flying around us, "How old are these mountains, and how were they made?"
She answers, “They were made during the ice age, when the ice sheet six to seven thousand feet thick moved all over the country and performed the mighty work of erosion, transportation, and deposition of rock and earthy material. Thus the hills and dales, the mountains and the deep valleys, were made. You also ask how long it is since this happened. That you can figure out yourself by following these rules of my mother. She said that if a cat had ten lives, and he could live fifty years for each of his lives, and his offspring through every generation could live just as long as the first cat, then you would find that exactly one thousand generations of cats have died since these mountains were made."
Having said this, she flies away laughing, as if she thought that we should find it difficult to solve this simple problem.
Now, we observed that these great snow-fields and glaciers are also the parents of innumerable beautiful cascades, and even though it is midsummer, we notice that the snow hangs like a fringe on every ledge and curtains every slope.
From our airplane we can see something like long, winding, blue ribbons extending from the ocean far into the country all over the western coast of Norway. They are called fjords. The western coast-line is broken up by deep incisions of the sea into the rocky cliffs, — just as if the meat between the ribs of our giant whale had been removed, and the clear green water from the North Sea had filled the openings.
These fjords and the mainland are always protected against the roaring billows without, by a perfect belt of islands, which to the number of 150,000 gird the coast (with but few entirely open stretches), and form the most perfect breakwater from the southeastern frontier right up to the North Cape.
These islands vary in size; but altogether they contain one-fourteenth of the land surface of Norway and one-eighth of the population.
We shall stop just long enough at the Lofoten chain of isles to listen to the beautiful description of them by a Norse rhapsodist. He says:
"Like needles their snow-capped peaks pierce the sky. During the greater part of the year snow fills the ravines far down the mountain sides, clasping their frosty arms around the valleys, and sending down like streams of tears along the weather-beaten cheeks of these northern Alps innumerable foaming waterfalls and roaring cascades, falling in an endless variety of graceful shapes into the profound fjords below.
"With their lofty jagged pinnacles, fantastic chasms, and rugged precipices, they present a picture of unutterable grandeur."
We shall visit the coast of the Lofoten islands again, because here are the chief cod and herring fishing-grounds of Norway. The pilot told us that during the fishing season forty thousand fishermen gather here, and the annual yield of fish exceeds two million dollars.
Near the south end of these islands it looked as though the whole ocean were boiling. This is the famous whirlpool known as the Maelstrom.
We cannot relate in this chapter all that we have seen from our airplane. In other chapters we shall describe Norway's beautiful spring, her rich autumn colors, the Midnight Sun, when it robes the sea, land, and sky in the wondrous grandeur of an endless summer day, and the matchless beauty and pristine purity of her snowy winters with skiing, skating, and tobogganing.
Hall, John Oscar. When I was a Boy in Norway. Lee & Shepard Co., 1921.
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