Bergen Archives - Nine Years in Norway

behind Bryggen: a different perspective

October 4, 2015 by Cindi 19 Comments

Just about everyone recognizes the familiar silhouettes of Bryggen. They’re seen on posters and prints sold around the world — and I’ve certainly shared those silhouettes, buildings, and history often!

During a visit to Bergen yesterday to pick up a few gifts for upcoming celebrations, Jan and I headed to the shops in Bryggen … and then decided to walk behind Bryggen, taking a different route back to the car. In my almost nine years here as an expat in Norway, I’ve certainly been there before. But this time I decided to stop and capture the interesting angles, different views, and traditional colors of this famous part of the world.

No matter the angle, I can feel the history surrounding me!

Celebrating

September 20, 2015 by Cindi 21 Comments

A week ago Saturday there were hints of the sun appearing from behind the clouds. I had a birthday also making an appearance soon, and Jan and I grabbed the opportunity to head into Bergen for a couple hours of celebrating and hanging out in Bryggen, followed by a fantastic meal at one of our favorite traditional Norwegian restaurants, Bryggeloftet & Stuene, that “…has an extensive and varied menu offering a wide choice of fish and game dishes based on Norwegian traditions.”

September 12, 2015 - celebrating!

Our conversation while surrounded by the history of Bryggen, and then the perfect meal, was the best way to celebrate the beginning of a new year. And what a year it’s going to be: One of change with two weddings, three new grandbabies … and a move!

Where will we be moving? Stay tuned….

the interplay of clouds and sun: a perspective

April 26, 2015 by Cindi 31 Comments

While sitting together over coffee this morning, we watched the interplay of sun, clouds, and rain across the fjord over Fanafjellet. I didn’t get up to get my camera; I just sat and absorbed the subtly changing scenery.

These photos aren’t from today, but they have cloud, sun, and rain patterns similar to what I saw.

January 12, 2015 - interplay of sun and clouds

January 10, 2015 - interplay of sun and clouds

February 16, 2015 - interplay of sun and clouds

February 20, 2015 - interplay of sun and clouds

We’ve lived in this little piece of paradise for almost two years now. Our views here are a different perspective compared to those we saw when we lived at a higher elevation on Løvstakken overlooking the southern Bergen valley.

December 21, 2010 - interplay of sun and clouds

May 14, 2008 - interplay of sun and clouds

September 20, 2012 - interplay of sun and clouds

October 26, 2011 - interplay of sun and clouds

The intermittent rain stopped a couple hours ago, and the sun and clouds have been playing hide and seek. It’s a little nippy to sit outside and enjoy it, but I did go out for a bit … just in time to catch this.

A magical moment.

And then, just as I was about to hit the “publish” button, my husband called me out to see this.

That sun and cloud glow: two magic moments in one hour. Thank you, Norway!

innovation and adaptation

April 19, 2015 by Cindi 18 Comments

As many years as I’ve lived in this mountainous area, I’m still amazed at how people can move mountains to carve out a place for themselves. Whether from my “used to flat land before moving to the West Coast of Norway” perspective, or the reality of “how humans are able to literally carve a place for themselves out of a more inhospitable geographic area” perspective, it’s an important example of adapting to life in this country.

Need to get to the other side of a mountain? Small paths and narrow, winding roads were the norm for centuries. Whether a big or small car, truck, or train transport in our modern day, it’s not a problem; Norway has perfected the reality of tunneling *through* it.

Those small roads? Examples of them are still quite abundant! Narrow and winding, in many places they’re only wide enough for one car to pass at a time. Sometimes they’re closed because of an avalanche … which requires more innovation to clear the rocks and boulders safely.

November 2007 - innovation and adaptation

February 2014 - innovation and adaptation

November 2014 - innovation and adaptation

Building a home? Dynamite a place out of the mountain rock for the foundation! Need a cement mixer to pour that foundation, but it’s too big and bulky to get close enough to the construction? Innovate with an extension!

October 2014 - innovation and adaptation, find a way to pour that cement!

No room for a building for construction and storage, with an adequate parking lot for big trucks to maneuver? Not a problem — blast away the rock.

October 2013 - innovation and adaptation

And when the rock is removed, the streets and walkways set, the buildings constructed, and the people are settled … take any extra space available and plant beautiful flowers or tasty vegetables.

May 2008 - innovation and adaptation, beautiful landscaping

September 2014 - innovation and adaptation, a vegetable garden!

Nature does a good job of …

… innovating and adapting to a carved-out mountain, too, don’t you think?!

Emigration from Norway to the USA

April 12, 2015 by Cindi 34 Comments

Two weeks ago I shared photos and observations of a short trip to Fusa, and mentioned my husband’s recent discovery of ancestors who come from this area.

Jan’s explorations into his family’s history have been fascinating for me, especially when he discovered family in the States and I thought about that reality from the perspective of *my* ancestors that emigrated to America from Scotland and Germany. So I asked him to share a little of his family’s story with you, set against the backdrop of Norwegian history.

Take it away, Jan!

EMIGRATION FROM NORWAY TO USA … AND MY FAMILY
by Jan Eek

In the span of less than a hundred years, from around 1825, almost 900,000 Norwegians emigrated to USA. To put it in perspective, the population in Norway in 1860 was 1,595,000. That means that around 10 to 12 million Americans are of Norwegian ancestry.

These are just numbers, so what do we know about the people, the human side of this emigration?

Norwegian settlers in 1898 North Dakota
in front of their homestead, a sod hut
Source

I can only relate to my own family, and as it turned out, I was in for several surprises.

The first one came as we moved from Bergen to a smaller place, Os, an hour’s drive from Bergen. So, what did I find out? Well, I have always known the name of my grandmother and connected it to Bergen, and the first thing I found was that my grandmother’s father was born on a farm very close to where we now live and that he belonged to a prominent family in this area. So, I was back at the cradle of my family!

Further inquiry led me to the most interesting person, my great-great grandfather, Wilhelm. He was a wild one in his youth. He became a father for the first time at the age of 16 and his first son is my direct ancestor. He then roamed Norway, Sweden and Denmark and fathered several children. His family, including a priest and a fairly rich farmer/shopkeeper, of course was embarrassed and tired of this unruly young man, so he was married to a sturdy woman, Thora, and promptly sent to America.

That was the second surprise for me. I had no idea! I have family in the US …

Here is a picture of Wilhelm and Thora in America.

1896

Wilhelm and Thora had eight children and the first years in the US they lived in a cave in Minnesota. Then they managed to get some land and slowly they developed it into a proper farm and later on established an hotel in the nearest town.

So, I have family here where I live and a large number of cousins in America. I have been in contact with my local family and also connected with one of my American cousins. She came to visit me and I showed her the area and the old farm house which is the origin for both of us AND it is still owned by my family, which was another surprise.

For a while I was hung up in tracing my family, but I stopped when I got to the 16th century. I turned the focus, thinking of the next generations, so I am now writing everything I know and can find out about people in my family. I want my grandchildren and their children to be able to connect with the history of our family.

Norwegian culture: vacations and hytte

April 5, 2015 by Cindi 17 Comments

It’s Easter Sunday. Norway slows down the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Monday. Shops close. Businesses close. Many Norwegians take a trip to the mountains for days of winter skiing. Or they are on the coast, enjoying the hint and promise of spring. And many of them are at their hytte.

What the heck is a “hytte”? And what does it have to do with Norway, vacations, and especially culture?

Hytte is a difficult word to translate. From my American perspective it means vacation cabin. But it’s not just a physical building. The word represents generations of outdoor exploration and living, and the family hytte is at the center: it’s the place to return to after a day’s activities, and represents all that is cozy, warm, and relaxing with family. The more remote hyttes don’t have electricity or running water, require hours of hiking to reach, and then (in the winter) more hours of shoveling to get to the front door. There are also many hyttes closer to civilization; an hour or two of driving, and a family can have a relaxing weekend together.

At this stage of life, escaping to the mountains for days on end of hiking or skiing is something that is physically beyond my abilities. But I’m fascinated by this aspect of the culture, and enjoy listening to my husband’s stories of his experiences when he was a young boy and teenager, and father to young boys and teenagers. Experiencing “outside” was the backdrop for all their family activities, which is opposite mine as a girl, teenager, and Mom raising daughters.

In June of 2007, the first year I lived in Norway, a friend invited me out to her family’s hytte on the coast for an afternoon’s worth of girl time. Sotra, an island easily accessible from Bergen that has made several appearances in my blog before, is rocky and typical of the southern Norwegian coast. It reminds me of my trips to Monhegan Island, Maine.

My friend had fixed a lunch that we enjoyed on the deck overlooking the small harbor area looking out towards the Norwegian Sea. The sky was washed out and bright, and the landscape showed the effects of the strong winds that blow in off the ocean.

After lunch we took our dessert — a thermos of coffee and tin of sweet rolls — and went out in their small row boat, planning to get to one of the small outcroppings visible in those images above. My friend was rowing the boat, and I was supposed to offer steering guidance from my place at the bow. I was clueless; I’m sure it was a comical site, with strong winds pushing us in various directions and me offering useless suggestions. My friend wisely decided it wasn’t the safest activity! We returned to the dock and took our dessert to an area overlooking the ocean. Once there, we realized we’d forgotten coffee mugs … so used the aluminum containers that had held the sweets. More laughter for the two of us! The early June sun, approaching the longest day of the year, was glaring and hot. It was a peaceful time, all centered on my friend sharing her family hytte with me.

I asked my husband to share his experience both as a boy/teenager, and in the family hytte in northern Norway as his boys were growing up. It’s the typical Norwegian experience of his generation.

My whole life I have been roaming the mountains. Skiing in the winter and hiking the rest of the year. Every week-end, no matter what weather it was, we packed our rucksacks and went skiing or hiking. We never thought about the WHY; it was part of our culture.

As I grew older, we started getting bolder, walking and tenting in the mountains (the real high and dangerous ones) for days and even crossing glaciers. Properly equipped, if the weather got really bad, we dug ourselves a snow hole and waited for the weather to get better.

When my boys grew up, we had a hytte way up in the high mountains of the north. Summertime it was fairly easy living, despite no electricity, no tap water and no toilets. It was marvelous! Walking to the creek to get water, fire up the fireplace and fry dried reindeer meat, light the kerosene lamps, watching the field mice and squirrels hopping around in the fire wood. And long hikes in the deserted mountains, coffee making on a fire beside a lake or a creek, watching the reindeer, the occasional wolverine or even a brown bear and numerous birds. The boys learned very early to walk in the mountains, that is, keep a steady pace and get into a rhythm and make enough noise to alert any predators. It was a wonderful time…

Winter is very different. First of all, we had to get there. In foul weather, the road was closed. If we got there it was very cold, down to around minus 30 degrees centigrade ( and fantastic polar light!), a lot of snow, 5 to 7 yards, and we had to get to the hytte. It was quite a stretch to either ski or trample in the snow and the last hill was very steep, so I had to carry food and sometimes kids up a little at a time…

Once we were there, we could only see the top of the pipe of the hytte, so I actually had to dig a tunnel into the door, and once inside, fire up the stove and the fireplace and get some food and drink into our bodies. It took two days for the hytte to thaw, and in the meantime we had to stay winter clothed at all times, even when we slept.

If this sounds exhausting, we actually never thought about it. It was as it should be…

No photos to show of the family hytte, but his description does it justice, doesn’t it? Here’s one found online that’s in the same area … but missing the final steep hill to get there!

Click the photo to see others similar to it, as well as photos of families enjoying summer and winter activities during their time at their hytte.

How about one more photo? This one from the 1960’s is my husband, 17 years old, out for a hike in Sogndal with his friends (referenced in his second paragraph up there). I say “hike” — but this trek was part of a fourteen hour day: hours up a steep ascent from a hytte to get there, hours exploring the area, hours back down. The glacier is one we took my oldest daughter to see when we visited Sogndal in 2010 … although we didn’t get as close as Jan is in this photo, and — to make it easier for this American — our “hytte” was a comfortable hotel . 😉

Bergen Maritime Museum: Oselvar

March 15, 2015 by Cindi 16 Comments

Last summer we visited The Bergen Maritime Museum. As you can tell from those linked posts, I was intrigued by the seafaring history of Norway in general and my specific area of this country particularly. For several reasons, I found the Oselvar exhibit especially fascinating.

A little background about this type of boat, courtesy of my husband’s Internet sleuthing skills and his discovery of information from the Oselvarklubben/Oselvar Club:

“The Oselvar is a clinker built wooden boat from Hordaland with traditions dating back several thousand years. Archeological findings show large similarity to the Oselvar of today … The term term Oselvar was introduced around 1750 and points to the place were two boatbuilders had their work shop at the mouth of the Os river, entering the Bjørnefjorden …”

In other words, a few minutes from where I live now. 🙂 Continuing:

“From those two boatbuilders we can reconstruct and to a large degree document how the boatbuilders knowledge and skills was passed on from father to son during the following 250 years.”

Please do visit the webpage to read the complete information from the Oselvarklubben/Oselvar Club in English. It is a fascinating history, the details of making an Oselvar are given, and there are additional photos from perspectives I could never capture.

At the end of that page, there’s information about the Oselvarverkstaden, a workshop that opened at the mouth of the river in Osøryo to pass the historical knowledge of building these boats:

I occasionally see these boats sailing the fjord:

My “paintings and photographs: Mother and Child by the Sea” post shows this type of boat.

And, the Bergen Maritime Museum has an entire display, including models, drawings, sketches … and two actual boats from the 1800’s:

We were in Osøryo three weeks after visiting this display in July. I walked next to the river towards the Bjornafjorden to capture my seagulls photo. I was a short distance from Oselvarverkstaden/Oselva Workshop, pictured in the first gallery above. I felt as if I was walking through history. If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you know how I feel about that!

Statsraad Lehmkuhl: boats met on an August journey

January 17, 2015 by Cindi 20 Comments

Blah. That’s the only way to describe the weather these past few days. Dreary and rainy, it’s boring to be inside but miserable to be out during the short daylight hours.

To lift my spirits, I was looking through photos of more exhilarating times and found these, the last to be shared of our four-hour sailing adventure last August on the Statsraad Lehmkuhl. As we journeyed, other boats met and joined us. It reminded me a bit of the Pied Piper.

Remembering the way the wind, clouds, sun, rain, rainbow, waves, seas, and emotions mixed is uplifting now!

A few images and short video of that part of the adventure:

August 20, 2014 - boats met on the journey

How about one from Christmas, when we glimpsed the Statsraad Lehmkuhl’s holiday spirit through the car window as we drove to Sandviken to spend time with our grandson?

December 26, 2014 - Statsraad Lehmkuhl and Christmas

There. That helps to lift the dreary-day spirits. Now, to continue that, I think I’ll go over to get a sneak peek of the songs submitted for Michelle’s dance party. Come and join the fun! Which one makes you move?