Norway #3: A Polar Perspective

While we might have hoped for a nice sunny day to explore Trondheim, we counted our blessings that, grey as it was, the rain mostly held off for our walk around town on Sunday, September 3. Our hotel was in the port neighborhood, which put us within a 15-minute walk of the city center, and an additional 10–15-minute walk got us to the charming former working-class neighborhood of Bakklandet as well as the late 17th century Kristiansted Fortress.

Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway, with a population of just over 200,000. It's a technology center for the country, and is also a renowned center of Scandinavian gastronomy. Apparently, the Norse of centuries past couldn't make up their minds where they wanted their national capitol to be, because Trondheim served as such for about two centuries, from shortly after its founding by the Viking King Olav Tryggvason in 997 until 1217, when Bergen took over the honors (and after Bergen came Oslo, and then Copenhagen, and then finally Oslo again). And, like seemingly every other city in Norway, destructive city fires have had a huge impact on the current appearance and layout of Trondheim. 

As it was a Sunday morning, and the famous Nidaros Cathedral would not be open to visitors until the afternoon, we decided to start our tour by heading to the furthest of the locations we wanted to visit, the Kristiansten festning (fortress). 

Our route took us by this Sunday morning market adjacent to the
Nidelva River and its colorful wooden warehouses.

The Old Town Bridge, an 1861 reconstruction of a bridge first
built in 1681. It crosses the Nidelva River to connect central
Trondheim with the Bakklandet neighborhood.

The historic wharf buildings lining the Nidelva, as viewed from the Old 
Town Bridge. The Bakklandet neighborhood is on the right side
 of the photo. The oldest of the wharf buildings dates to the 18th century.

Perhaps the grey skies and the fact that it wasn't yet noon
kept the cobbled streets of Bakklandet so quiet during our 
initial passage.

The defensive tower of Kristiansten Fortress, located on top of
a hill east of central Trondheim. Built in the 1680's to protect the
city after the city fire of 1681. The fortress was the official place
of execution of condemned traitors and war criminals following
the legal proceedings in Norway after WWII. We wanted to visit
the museum here, but alas, it was closed for the season.

It was quite a hike up the hill to get to the fortress. Scooters are very popular in Norway, but
 apparently the hill to the fortress is where scooter (batteries) go to die.

We made our way back down the hill to Bakklandet, then waited out a brief rain shower with lunch in the quaint wine bar NB6. Other tourists and the citizens of Trondheim had woken up by that time, because the streets were noticeably busier as we made our way to the Nidaros Cathedral.

The Nidaros Cathedral is likely the most visited tourist attraction in Trondheim. It is an active Church of Norway cathedral built over the burial site of Viking King Olav II, who became the patron saint of Norway. Construction started in 1030 and continued until about 1300, although there have been subsequent periods when additions and renovations were made. It is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, and has traditionally been used for the coronation (these days, consecration) of Norse royalty. The basic entry fee for the cathedral was about 12 dollars U.S., so given the number of visitors it's not surprising that there is enough money coming in to fund the work that keeps obvious deterioration at bay. It is quite unlike so many of the incredible churches we've seen in France that struggle to keep ahead of damp and decay, but then, most of them don't charge admission fees.

Approaching the Nidaros Cathedral. 

To the right, a portion of the west facade of the cathedral. To
the left, the modern tourist center for the cathedral that sells
the tickets and souvenirs that help to keep the cathedral funded.

The west facade of the cathedral. As far as I could tell,
there's not a single head missing from the statuary. To be fair,
the sculptures are restorations from 1905-1983, and although
somewhat based on historical records and a 17th century print,
one source states that there is an element of "guesswork
and/or fantasy," including the Archangel Michael with the
face of Bob Dylan.

The rose window above the west entrance to the cathedral.

A tour guide with a captive audience in the nave
of the cathedral. What the guide is wearing looks like
every choir robe I've ever seen in a Lutheran church.

The smaller, but definitely more ornate, of the cathedral's two
organs. The main organ was commissioned in 1930 and has
thousands of pipes. This baroque organ was built in the late 1730's.

Because we rarely meet a church tower we didn't
want to climb, we funded the cathedral a bit more
by paying to climb one of the towers. This was our view
just before entering the spiral staircase of the tower
for the 2nd leg of the climb.

The 200+ steps up an incredibly narrow winding staircase 
(that nearly gave me an anxiety attack from claustrophobia)
 gave us this view of the Archbishop's Palace (at left).  The
 palace is one of the largest medieval stone structures in
 Scandinavia, and its oldest walls date back to the 1300s.

The quickest way to a city overview is a church tower climb. Looking east, we can see the fortress tower we saw earlier in the day (the white building at the center top of the photo).

Looking north toward the city center and beyond to the harbor and Trondheim Fjord.

Not everything interesting is up high. The cathedral crypt houses
the largest collection of medieval gravestones in Norway.

After the cathedral visit we were definitely in "it's been a long day and it's time to head back to the hotel to rest up before our early morning train to Mo i Rana" territory.

A wet walk through central Trondheim on the way back to the hotel.

An easy 10-minute walk on Monday morning, September 4, took us from our hotel to the Trondheim train station for our 398 km/239 mile/6 hr 39 min trip to the town of Mo i Rana, which is about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Because the train trip was so long, we opted for the "premium" 
experience: more leg room, fewer fellow passengers, unlimited
water-coffee-tea-hot chocolate, and an interesting couple
of open-face sandwiches for "breakfast".

The scenery was again a beautiful combination of mountains, water, and farms and villages here and there. We were, of course, moved to take another several hundred photos during the trip, but as it all looked very similar to our previous photos, there's no need to post them here. It was a mostly overcast day, but the rain held off until were very nearly at Mo i Rana, so at least we weren't looking at scenery through rain-streaked windows the whole day. We wished the rain had held off a bit longer, because our walk from train station to hotel, although short, was a wet one--and the windy conditions made it impractical to use our umbrella. 

Mo i Rana translates as "Mo in Rana", and the town was named after the old church (from 1724) parish, which in turn took its name from the old "Mo" farm on which the Mo church was built. "Rana" is the name of the municipality and comes from an Old Norse term for the "quick" or "fast" water of the nearby Ranfjord. Current day "Mo" is not a town that a tourist would typically visit if they didn't have former family connections to the area. It was a small village in the 1700's, started to gain some trading prominence in the 1860's when wholesale merchant L.A. Meyer opened a trade center in Mo, but really changed with the advent of large-scale iron mining in the early 1900's and steel production in the 1950's. An industrial city was born. 

From the local history museum come these photos
of old Mo. The top photo shows the farm and what
existed of homes at the waterfront/port. The bottom
shows the old Mo church.

The Mo Church, circled in blue, and its current surroundings
(photo from the Rana Museum).

The view from our hotel room shows a sprawling Mo, with ski jumps
on the mountainside and with blocky and utilitarian modern
 construction--and a bit of rainbow beauty over the adjacent fjord.

Bottom line, my Norwegian relatives who left this area in the 1880's knew a very different Mo. Then again, they didn't actually live in Mo itself, but on a farm called Auster Almlia that was located in the Dunderland Valley along the Ranelva River, nearly 25 miles to the northeast of Mo. This particular branch of the family tree is that of one of my great-grandmothers, my mom's grandmother (on her mother's side) Malene Nelson. Malene's great-grandfather Ola Nissa was the first recorded family member to lease the Almlia farm; his lease began in 1782. His son Per Andreas Olsa leased the farm starting in 1808; Per's son--Malene's father--Haagen Pedersen (Haka Persa) leased the farm from 1851 until he left for the U.S. in 1888. Malene had emigrated to the U.S. earlier, although the dates in various documents that I've seen don't agree as to whether it was 1881, 1882, or 1888. Malene was one of ten children. All ultimately emigrated to the U.S. at varying times in the 1880's, as did her parents; one brother later moved to Canada in 1918.

We picked up our rental car on Tuesday, September 5, in order to drive out to the location of the old farm. I knew that the farm still existed and was now owned by an artisan-silversmith called Øyvind Stjernen. 

The road out to Almlia was upgraded about 10 years ago and driving was a breeze. The river
kept coming in and out of view and mountains were all around. Beautiful--and
scarcely populated.

The entry to the farm. At top, from the highway approach Mr. Stjernen had
noted that his business was "open" from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. At bottom, 
the driveway leading into the property.

We parked by the log building with the sod roof. It turned out
to be a combination workshop-sales floor-cafe for "Stjernen
Art and Silver." Although the building looked old, Mr. Stjernen
told us that he had constructed the building; it was not
original to the farm.

Lon ended up knocking on the door of the house on the property in order to find the owner/proprietor. What followed was a wonderful hour or so of fascinating conversation.

Øyvind invited us into his home, which is the only original remaining
building of the farm and dates back to the 1700's. He bought the property
in 1977 and raised a family there, earning his living with his art (and
with which he is still active).

In renovating the property, he stripped off the outer finish layers
in the living room, bringing it back to the original wood planks.
This uncovered "1888" painted on the wall and he kept it
as a piece of history. Whether it was painted by one of my relatives
 before they emigrated that year we'll never know,
 but it was fascinating to consider. 

The exterior of the farmhouse. The small room at the far left was
added by Øyvind; the rest of the house's "footprint" is as it was when my
great-grandmother would have lived there.

Some of Øyvind's handiwork on display and for sale in the 
upper level of the log building.

Lon gives attention to the very appreciative resident dog.

The cat also loved attention.

Øyvind was quite a collector of antiques pertinent
to life in former times, and was happy to talk about
some of it with Lon and me.

An interesting photo from Øyvind's collection of curiosities. It was
taken by a man of some fame in Norway, Ole Tobias
 Olsen, a teacher and minister in the area, who became known
 as the "father" of the railway between the towns of
 Trondheim and Bodo (north of the Arctic Circle). Dated 1865-1875, 
it shows Almlia--circled in blue. It would be fascinating to know
who the men in the photo were--relatives of mine, perhaps? 

Øyvind talked about having been visited by another relative of the family many years ago; an elderly man who spoke in old-fashioned Norwegian, but he didn't have a name to give us.  Another topic was the WWII era, when the Germans established several concentration camps in the Dunderland Valley, filled mainly with Polish and Russian POWs who were forced to provide slave labor for building the Nordland railway line from Trondheim. Conditions were brutal and many perished. Several monuments have been installed in various locations in the region to commemorate these dead.

All good things must come to an end, and we left Øyvind in late morning so that he could get back to his work. It was a very rewarding stop for me, and we were so grateful to him for his gracious welcome. As it was still early in the day, we decided to head for the Arctic Circle Center. We had already planned to cross the Arctic Circle by train on September 6 to finish our Norway trip in the town of Bodø, from where we would fly back to France. After all, we couldn't get this close and not cross the Arctic Circle. But the Center was only another 30 minutes drive from the farm, so why not?

The Arctic Circle Center is in the mountains above the
tree line.

When the Arctic Circle Center was built in 1990 it was believed to lie directly on the Arctic Circle, the latitude above which the sun never sets at the Summer Solstice and the sun never rises above the horizon at the Winter Solstice. However, while the latitude line marked "Arctic Circle" on a map doesn't change, the magnetic north pole is always changing, which in turn affects the actual location of the Arctic Circle. The "Circle" is, in fact, moving north by about 14 meters every year, so even though our visit to the Center didn't actually get us to the "true" Arctic Circle, we pretended it did for the sake of the day. Besides, we knew that our train trip the following day would get us another 90 km north, well beyond what was needed for an authentic Arctic Circle crossing.

It was cold at that altitude, but the "I crossed the Arctic
Circle" t-shirts in the gift shop made it all worthwhile.

There were hundreds of "stacked stones" in the vicinity of the
Center. I haven't found a good explanation for why--maybe
crossing the Arctic Circle is a spiritual experience for many
 who stop here.

On the return to Mo it was nice to get to a lower altitude.

What I love about seeing foreign languages through "English"
eyes--I have to trust that the sign is referring to a place and
not a person.

Our train was scheduled to leave Mo i Rana around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, September 6. A 3-hour ride would get us to Bodø and leave us the afternoon to get a flavor of the city before flying out the next morning. At least that was the "plan" before "the perfect storm" came into play. Combine (1) a train not parked by the train station waiting area, (2) a second train arriving on the same track just a few minutes before our departure time and marked "Bodø" rather than with its true destination, and (3) the lack of useful and understandable announcements in English, and what did we end up with? A train that left for Bodø without us. To say we were not happy campers would be an understatement. We were just lucky that we didn't end up going to Trondheim on the 2nd train. The rail company was not forthcoming with a refund, so we had to purchase new tickets for the 2:30 p.m. train to Bodø. Cue Plan B: Rather than having time to explore Bodø, we reconfigured our day around Mo i Rana. We returned to our hotel, and they had no problem with us storing our luggage and using them as a base, both to wait for the rain to pass and for a walk around town. 

The old Mo church, getting a facelift for its 300th anniversary
in 2024.

The Russian Memorial at Mo Church. This
section of the graveyard also contains the graves
of 8 Commonwealth soldiers from the Scots 
Guards, who died during the German invasion
of Norway in Spring 1940.

We met "Stig" when we were trying to find a way into the 
church. He was a local photographer who had been hired to 
take some interior shots. He couldn't get the entry system to
work, but we did spend some minutes having a nice conversation
with him about Mo and seeking family history in Norway.

Freezing on the waterfront.

View toward the Molhomen neighborhood, where Mo
originally centered. We spent some time at the Rana Museum there.

Old, but restored, houses in Molhomen.

We caught the 2:30 p.m. train without problems, officially crossed the Arctic Circle--and beyond--and enjoyed the always-beautiful mountain and water scenery before pulling into Bodø a little before 6 p.m. Our impression of the town as we walked to the hotel was one of modernity. It has been named as one of three European Capitals of Culture for 2024 and the opening ceremony in February will be held outdoors--I think we'll have to pass on attending that. We were sorry that we didn't get a chance to explore even a little bit of the town, but such is life. The next morning we were on an early flight from Bodø to Bergen and from there to Paris. With smooth train connections we were back on the boat by 7 p.m., where the congenial New Zealanders (and one American) in the boat rafted to C.A.R.I.B. took pity on us and invited us to share dinner with them that evening. Several very hot days later it is finally cooling down and feeling more like fall. 

Norway impressed us--with its beautiful landscapes, interesting towns, friendly people with an excellent command of English, and the most amazing breakfast buffets we have ever seen. The highlight, though, was the visit to the Almlia farm. We've always found something special in making those family connections. The Floridian in us thinks it's best not to talk about the weather.

Now, though, it's time to shift gears for our final three weeks in France. We're already working on some small boat projects, and this weekend Auxerre will be a lively place to be, as the European Heritage Days overlap with the 800th commemoration of the "emancipation" of the city to a more representative government. Cue the medieval festival!