Norway In a Nutshell

August 25, 2006-Eidfjord
(photos:Laplander home,
Troll pal,
Eidfjord)

I knew this would be a hairy ride when Yves asked us to fasten our seatbelts. We were heading up the mountains, across a plateau, and down the other side. Our destination was Eidfjord, our entry point to fjordland. It would be a six-hour ride up and a thirty-five minute descent. That piqued my curiosity.

To fill the time Yves gave us a talk on Norway in a Nutshell. We couldn’t sleep because we were going around hairpin curves and were trying to stay in our seats. Nothing heavier than a jacket could be put in overhead storage.

I’ll put his “nutshell” in a nutshell for you. After becoming a free country in 1865 Norway was mostly rural and uneducated. Every time they had a chance to get on their feet a war or depression came along. After WWII they took advantage of the Marshall Plan and created a socialist government where all people were equal. Pay scales for teachers and doctors were the same. In the spirit of Norway everyone had to chip in. Today some are more equal but all are entitled to the same free services: education through university, health, pension. Even the state religion is paid for by the state. Theoretically there’s no feeling of superiority. The country was poor since the 1300’s. They don’t want anyone here to be poor and pay they taxes to make that so. By the 1960’s parents wanted their children to take advantage of free university education. Technical school was free as well, but being a professional was the ideal. It takes three years to be trained as a waiter or hairdresser, so why not go longer and be a doctor? The reason became apparent. Skilled workers died out. A plan was hatched to hire Pakistanis to fill the labor gap. As with Old Norwegians these New Norwegians had all the advantages of the native born after working here three months. This was no longer a blond heterogeneous society. Some people still remember the first time they saw an African or Pakistani. Young girls loved the exotic looking men and many marriages took place. Norwegians thought it was wonderful at first.

Slowly the cultural divide emerged. Norwegians live behind closed doors while Pakistanis literally leave theirs open. The cooking aromas were the first things to cause tension. Norwegians realized they could live with everyone being equal if everyone looked and acted alike. Eventually a mixed race boy was shot. They never thought something like that would happen here. It happened in other countries. Parents began pulling their children out of schools that were heavily integrated and new ways had to be found to blend the New and Old Norwegians. There’s still a long way to go. Third generation Pakistanis are heavily into owning convenience stores. Vietnamese are focused on educating their children. Now the New Norwegians are Swedes. Salaries are higher here and they get a tax break the first three years.

Oil was found in the 1970’s. They had a woman prime minister who drove a hard bargain. She insisted that Norway gets to keep 75% of the profits. Norway is flush with money now and has funds in its state pension plan for generations to come. They have not reduced taxes for fear of creating inflation. They’ve paid back all foreign debt.

Most Norwegians don’t save. Everything is taken care of. If they lose their job or are injured they’ll be retrained. Even families of prisoners are paid $19,000 a year for the labor the prisoners do. When Norwegians retire they may take out what we call a reverse mortgage on their house to augment the pension, which is 70% of their last salary. They most likely use the money to travel.

They’ve found a way to economize on medical care. They don’t have hospitals specializing in everything. They’ll pay to send citizens abroad accompanied by a family member for treatment. Bergen has one of the best burn treatments centers in Europe and people travel there for care.

Yves said that people on our tour asked him about WWII. He said that his 94-year-old mother has never spoken about it to her seven children. It’s something that belongs in the past. There were so many losses that no one really won that war. His father was in the family business in France when he took his wife and children to S. Africa. The extended family thought he was overreacting but they were all killed at Auschwitz. When the Nazis invaded Cape Town his parents hid in Dutch wine cellars. When his parents returned to France they found that the Nazis had sold the family company and properties. His mother spent years in court trying to get it back. She only retrieved 33% of it.

There are jokes back and forth between Norwegians and Swedes but there’s an underlying tone of bitterness on the part of Norwegians. When the Nazis invaded and the royal family of Norway needed to leave, Sweden refused to let them use their airfields. Swedes tried to remain neutral but they let the Nazis use Sweden as a corridor to Norway.

There are now seven million Norwegians in the U.S. and 4.2 million in Norway. Norwegians have 1.5 children. Muslims have 5.5. In twenty-five years Islam will be the majority religion in Oslo. Back To Nature We wove up mountains, back and forth over lakes, and around islands to reach the top of Norway. We were above the tree line. Graceful birch and variegated green gave way to granite and stumpy bushes. It’s the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. Because it’s touched by the Gulf Stream it’s habitable. Tall poles marked the edge-lines of the roads since snow can be as high as thirty feet in winter. When we got off the bus to drink “Skoll Norway” with aquavit, a potato liquor, the wind was whipping and rain falling. I thought we could drink as well inside the bus. Most tossed it down but I only dipped my tongue in. We might as well have been drinking Purell.

Norwegians, like Minnesotans, like their summer homes. In this area summer cottages and some all season homes have sod roofs. Grass and some trees grow from them and give the landscape a fairy tale quality. I’s not hard to imagine trolls living inside. We stopped at a cluster of Laplander houses. Laps are to Norway as our Native Americans are to us. They are 6,000 strong and still live in wood huts with sod roofs. They herd reindeer but now some rent out the huts to tourists. We were on the lookout for fjords and were told that the water is as deep as the mountain looming over it is high. A fjord is an inlet from the ocean. Green water is from fresh melt and silver means algae. Hydroelectric plants and fisheries are common now. Seals and even dolphin live in their waters. Twenty years ago Greenpeace convinced Norway to stop hunting the seals in the fjords. It resulted in a seal plague. Norway resumed hunting seals and all is back to normal.

Tunnels were everywhere and have made travel through the rugged terrain easier. The walls are left natural and the lighting was basically the headlights of our bus. We even traveled in one that made a 360 turn. It was eerie. There’s one tunnel, which we will not pass through, that’s eight miles long.

We arrived at Hotel Voringfoss, a Quality Hotel and were pleased to see how lovely it is. We thought it would be basic. We’re at the bottom of a fjord looking up. Our room overlooks the water and it’s serene. Clouds climbing up the mountains look like angel hair on a Christmas tree.

Eagle’s Eye Views

We ate a snack of waffle with sour cream and berry jam, dropped our bags in our room, and re-boarded the bus. We had to be punctual since the very narrow road we had to climb carried traffic uphill only on the hour and downhill only on the half-hour. We drove on switchback roads and through a long tunnel to emerge into clouds. We walked down a dirt path to the 500-year-old isolated homestead called Kjeaasen. An 80-something retired midwife from Oslo lives there alone year round. She still considers it a working farm and raises sheep. The house is right on the precipice overlooking the fjord and is surrounded by flowers in various cast-off containers and backed by a vegetable garden. Great stones suspended on wires transverse the roof and hold it in place against winter storms. It is at about 1600 feet elevation.

Our orientation was by way of a narrative tape played from a boom box sitting on a windowsill above us as we gazed at the mesmerizing scene below. The hillside and valley was inhabited since the 1300’s. In 1349 the black plague swept the area and left no survivors. It took 100 years for people to move back. As we listened we watched clouds rise obscuring the valley and mountain then drift off to reveal what they’d just hidden.

Riding back through the tunnel was a hoot. We tried to scare each other with imagined troll sightings. I began a story about an ax murderer who lived in the tunnel and Yves made spooky sounds into the mike. At one point someone hit the “stop” button at his seat. The only way the driver could make it go out was to stop and open the back door. Some would swear that’s where the troll got on the bus. After the tunnel the jokes flew about how many busses went over the edge. We began looking for shiny new portions of the guardrail. At least there were guardrails here.

We overheard Yves making a phone call to his son Krit in Bangkok. He was wishing him happy birthday. It seems that Yves is going home by way of Cuba and Brazil. What a life!

Tomorrow we travel on many vehicles and go through forty-three tunnels. That’s really seeing Norway from the inside.

Toby