Helsinki

Lutheran Cathedral

We're staying in the midst of the harbor at the Scandia Grand Marina. We toured the city by bus in the morning. The usual set of museums, train station government buildings and churches. We saw the interior of the Lutheran Cathedral and heard the organist playing. We stopped at the Sibelius monument, their favorite composer. Colors would bring different notes to his head, his favorite color was green. The monument is made of 600 steel pipes meant to resemble birch trees, but also looking like organ pipes.

Monument to Sibelius

A new tourist attraction is the Rock Church, officially Temppeliaukio Church. We enjoyed a performance by their youth choir.

In the afternoon we walked through the fish market. We remember visiting 20 years ago passing the fish stalls and being overwhelmed by the smell of … strawberries. The market now has more tourist stalls and less fish, but we were disappointed because the overwhelming smell of strawberries was missing. We did, however, enjoy a lunch of crepes and gelato. Later I explored further, looking for the quaint “Colorado Bar” with its steer skulls that we had found last time we were here. Now there is a modern bar with a neon sign “Colorado on the Rocks”, but they didn't even sell Coors. Final stop was the Uspenski Eastern Orthodox Cathedral on the hill near the harbor.

Usbenski Cathedral

A video of this trip is available on youtube. 

One of the interesting things about traveling is the surprises that you encounter. What were our surprises? People diving into the harbor because of the hot weather in Oslo and the Vigelund Sculpture Garden, the sound of the fiddle in the Hanseatic assembly rooms, the small passages that our ship could maneuver, the highlights of the cruise being after 10 PM in the midnight sun, the World War II museum with Nazi Christmas ornaments, and the story of the Sami people in Lapland. Finally, it was really great to have everyone understand our American English!

Sami and Gold Panning

We started our day with a lecture by Father Rauno, a Eastern Orthodox priest to the Sami. His parish consists of the 500 Skolt Sami that live in Finland's Lapland. Because they are an indigenous people they have been given special privledges to maintain their culture like gathering wood on state land and using nets to fish. An interesting aspect of Finnish law is that they collect a church tax of 1% if you are a member of a church.

Sami Church

Our fearless leader Eero had a challenge: the one flight a day to Helsinki had been moved from an early afternoon flight to 6:30 PM. How was he going to occupy our day? So we went to the Tankavaana gold district. We started with a great lunch in the restaurant (only one there). The gold rush era here was in 1870. There was some 300 gram nuggets taken from here. Today you can’t get wealthy from the gold, but they still get a thousand gold panners who spend the summer here. The Finnish gold panners competition is held here each year. They have a bucket of sand for each competitor and mix in the same number of gold flakes in each bucket. The winner is the one who finds the correct number of flakes in the shortest time. The world record is 12 flakes found in 58 seconds.Most of us gave panning a try: we started with a scoop full of sand and reduced the sand to mostly red sand with no pebbles and they completed the panning for us. Almost everyone found at least one flake.

Gold Pans

We still had time so we stopped at a husky dog farm. They have a hundred dogs here, and the young ones were excited to see us. The dogs have a mix of brown and blue eyes. Their on summer vacation since it is to warm to pull sleds.We arrived at the airport as it opened for it’s one flight.

Huskies

Finnish History

The Sami settled here about 1000 BC. This area was once part of the Viking held lands. Then in 1279, the pope declared the Northern Crusades with the objective to settle Scandinavia and turn the people Christian. From then on Finland has been controlled by Russia or Sweden for most of their history until 1917. They couldn’t get a King to come from Germany so they became a presidential republic. The Russians invaded Finland during the 1939 Winter War. After Germany declared war against the Russians, the Finns joined the Germans because they were worried that the Soviet Union would never let Finland be free again. In 1944 the Finnish turned on the Germans and fought against them in the Lapland War with the aid of Russia. They signed a treaty with Russia in 1948 to regain their independence, but ceded 10% of their territory to Russia including an area rich in nickle. 400,000 people moved back to Finland. Finland’s economy was brought back from the war using their forest resources.

Lapland

Painting of Sami Culture

Our primary visit today was the SIIDA Sami Museum in Inari. The starting point was a picture of a 1723 which represented Sami culture: skiing, herding and milking reindeer. Today there are about 100,000 Sami who speak nine different languages. The language and culture had been suppressed in modern times, but all three Finnish versions of the language (Inarii, Northern and Skolt) are now taught in the schools along with Finnish, Swedish and English.

Bear Trap

I found the outdoor even more fascinating with their cabins, portable tents and storage huts to keep the stores from animals as well as a variety of traps: wolf, wolverine, bear, and fox, which captured their feet as they stretched for the bait. I also got to practice lassoing a reindeer with soupinkik, their version of a lasso.

Sami with Soupinkik

Then we visited the Inari reindeer farm. Here we had the chance to feed the reindeer. About 10% of reindeer are albino. Both male and female have antlers, but the female lose them sooner, right after giving birth. Most reindeer meat comes from calves, slaughtered in the winter, largely to control the population, but the locals told us they prefer the taste of adults. Reindeer can be trained to pull sleighs, but it takes about 5 years. (So it's sleigh or be slain.) The farmers clip the ears of their reindeer to recognize their herd members. We were lucky because it has been a cold spring. The mosquitoes aren't here, the reindeer will move to higher ground with more wind until the mosquitoes die off in late August.

Albino Reindeer

Kirkenes

Eero, our guide at the Russian Border

The ship reached Kirkenes on the Church Peninsula, about 9:30. From here, Oslo is half the distance to Rome, we are at the same longitude as Istanbul or Cairo and the same latitude as Point Barrow, Alaska. We headed off in the bus to the Norwegian-Russian border, only about a 15 minute drive away.

Kirkenes before World War II

We returned to town to see the World War II bomb shelter, built in the Rock below the town. The Germans occupied the town with over 100,000 troops in preparation for occupying Russia. It also had an iron mine. The town suffered through 330 air bombings, the second most in Europe. For air shelter, the families went into the dark, 42 degree F. Caverns, huddled close together on the floor. The lucky had food. By the end of the war only 14 houses remained standing. Russian troops drove the Germans out. Relations between Russia, Norway and Finland remain close in this isolated Lapland region. People have become skilled at smuggling between the countries because prices can be significantly different across the borders. For example, Russian vodka or gas is much cheaper than Norway while Norway has a larger variety of goods, many of them, especially diapers are better and cheaper. Trading between Norway and Russia has a long history: Pomor trade started as barter trade by sea from 1740, usually fish for grain.

After the bombings

After leaving town we crossed the Finnish border in less than an hour. Finland is a country about the size of Montana. Almost the entire country is covered with forest as well as 187,000 lakes.

We stopped for lunch by a campground and restaurant run by a Sami family. The Sami are the indigenous people of Lapland, this region shared by Norway, Finland, and Russia. On our way to Insola, we also stopped at a Folk Art Club, which meets every Wednesday afternoon. Students from other areas learning Sami art.

North Cape

North Cape

From the village of Honningsvåo, we took a bus north to North Cape, the Northern most point of Europe that can be reached by car at over 71 degrees of Latitude. This land is all rock and tundra. The temperature is 36 degrees Fahrenheit. We asked the water temperature and our guide said 21 degrees Celsius, 7 in the morning, 7 in the afternoon, and 7 at night. In the winter they receive 5 meters of snow. It is dark here from November 20^th to January 20^th.

John and Mary at North Cape

The island is used by the Sami as their summer pasture for reindeer. They take them over from the mainline in boats or trucks, but in the fall 5000-6000 reindeer swim the strait. As we left the cape, it began to snow.

Sami and his reindeer

We also learned more about the Scandinavian people and culture. These countries are quite socialist, and the people are also among the happiest in the world. Scandinavian society is based on trust, welfare is used as last resort and crime is very low. In the opinion of our guide, welfare would not work, if everyone took advantage of it, especially when the oil money declines. Unions are very strong protecting jobs and salary, but they also have mandatory retirement ages so that younger workers can be employed. We also learned about theEverymans' right, which is based on trust. You can walk, ski, camp, pick berries, etc on any land (unless it is house's yard or is cultivated) as long as it causes only minor damage unless there is a government restriction and you respect the owner (for example, no littering or making loud noises). 

Tromsø

Tromsø  is the starting point for both polar expeditions and the hunt for polar animals. We visited the Polar museum to learn about both. Whaling changed significantly with the invention of the harpoon cannon in 1863. The tip was loaded with a grenade causing immediate death and hooks sprung out to drag in the whale.Between 1887 and 1904 18000 whales were caught by Norwegian whalers, then whale hunting was banned in Norwegian waters.

Whaling Harpoon

Seal hunting has been practiced for over 6000 years. It peaked in 1919 when 200 ships with 2000 men hunted 370,000 seals. The harp seal with its white pup coat is the most valuable fur, but a 3 weeks old it turns yellow and then a mottled brown at 2 months. In the same area, they would shoot polar bears and round up young cubs which eventually ended up in zoos.

Mottled fur at 2 months old

Arctic fox were also hunted using a simple trap with rocks on top that would crush the skull when the fish pulled on the bait. Tromsø itself has about 76,000 people and 10,000 students. There is evidence that it has been occupied for over 10,000 years.

Box contains a rifle triggered by bait

Western Norwegian Coast

We spent most of the day cruising the western coast of Norway. We stopped in Bodø at noon and walked the town. Being a Sunday it was quiet except for cafes. The adventurous took a speed boat up the river to a maelstrom caused by the tides.

Nazi Christmas Ornaments

About 9 PM we stopped in Svolvær and visited the Lofoten War Museum guided by the collector. His grandfather was a Norwegian resistance radio operator. On March 4^th, 1941 the English staged a raid in this town, captured 200 Germans and 300 Norwegians escaped with the Brits. The SS returned the next day. The travel channel was here last week filming his collection. Among his possessions is a painting signed by A Hitler, when he removed it from its frame, he found 4 painted Disney figures. Hitler was a big Disney fan. There is also an enigma machine and we were fascinated by Nazi Christmas ornaments.

Night Cruising

About 10:30 we entered a  26 km long strait, the clouds and sun created interesting sights among the peaks. The highlight was a trip into the Trollfjord about 11:30. The ship did a shape turn to port to squeeze into the 100 meter wide gap between the mountains. I got fooled into thinking we had another sharp turn to make to exit this narrow channel, but instead the captain made a 180 degree turn to return the way we came.

Trondheim

Trondheim from the Loving Bridge

Trondheim is the religious center for the country with the Coronation Cathedral. It was the capital in Viking times. Founded in 997, it has a population of over 150 thousand people including 40,000 students and faculty at the university here, making it the third largest city in the country. This is an agricultural center as well as a major fishing port. It also has a major pass through the mountains here to Sweden about an hours drive away where many Norwegians buy their groceries because of the cheaper prices.

Nidaros Cathedral

We kissed on the old city bridges built in 1682 so our love will last forever before visiting Nidaros Cathedral. The name comes from the name of the town in Viking times. Originally built between 1070 and 1290, it was preceded by a stone church to St. Olaf. Olaf was a Viking king, who plundered France and England, but also was baptized as a Catholic in 1014. He claimed kingship in 1024 and forced Christianity upon the population. He was declared a saint shortly after his death because of several miracles in his name and the claim that his body was still supple after they dug him up. The church is a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic styles with a wooden roof. The church burned in 1531 and the reformation occurred 6 years later leading to the abandonment of the church for 400 years. Reconstruction began shortly after Norway's independence in 1814 to restore the Coronation church. Inside the church is a beautiful Wagner organ, one of 5 remaining in the world. The rose window has brilliant reds in it, but a few years ago it broke when kids put a soccer ball through it. Underneath the window is a second organ with over 10,000 pipes.

As we left the town we passed the island of Munkholmen which has served as a prison.

As we continued to sail north we passed through the Stokksund Strait , only 42 meters wide. The ship sounded its horn before taking a sharp left through the strait to warn other ships that we were coming through.

The weather remained calm, so the ship was able to sail near the Hole in the Rock. We reached there about midnight and sure enough there was an island with a crevice in it and when we had the right angle, you could see a hole in the Rock. The hole is 120 meters long, 26 meters wide, and 36 meters high, formed by wave action.  During the night we crossed the Arctic Circle.

Hole in the Rock at midnight

Geiranger Fjord

Geirganger Fjord

We spent almost the entire day Today sailing through Geiranger Fjord, all the way in and then back out. The final 8 km. are said to be the most beautiful fjord in Norway. Here are multiple waterfalls. The two most famous are the Seven Sisters Falls, and on the opposite side The Suitor Falls.

Seven Sisters Falls

Rising from the village is a highway winding up the mountain with multiple hairpin turns. The day was warm and sunny, a perfect day for cruising the fjord. Some of the passengers took the tour of the Trollstigen Mountain Road and reported that it was a spectacular tour. 

Trollstigen Mountain Road

Musical Norway

Haakon's Hall

I started the day by walking the Bergen Fortress. The tower was under reconstruction and there were workman about preparing for some event. Later that day we heard the music of ‘Pomp and Circumstance". The highlight of the walk was the 13^th century Haakon's Hall.

Troldhaugen

Our bus drove past some of the artistic sights: the theater, the concert hall and statues of artists before heading into the hills to Troldhaugen, the home of Edward Grieg. This was primarily his summer home, he only spent one winter here. On the water, was his composing room and on the cliff below the house was his and his wife's grave. We were treated to a brief concert of Grieg's work by the pianist of the Bergen symphony. He played both familiar works like March of the Trolls and a Mother's grief and selections from his other works. Next week marks Greg’s 175^th birthday and Norway will be broadcasting 30 hours of his music including from his piano at the house.

Then we headed back into town to have lunch in one of the Hanseatic assembly rooms. Here we were treated to folk music played on a Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian instrument with 9 strings, played two at a time providing a unique sound, a normal fiddle, and a Longelite from Medieval times.

We boarded our Hurtigruten ship, the Midnatsul, in time for dinner and sailed off about 8 PM. We were impressed with the ship, built in 2003, it has typical cabins, and lots of areas to view the scenery. The line started in 1893 providing a connection for the villages and towns along the coast. Today they have 11 ships, and tourism has supplanted cargo as their major source of revenue.

Leaving Bergen

Bergen

We started our day at the Fish Museum. Here we discussed fishing, whaling, seal hunting and fish farming. The waters of Norway are filled with fish, some twenty species because the gulf stream brings in a lot of ‘red bait’ plankton and warms the water about 6 degrees. Norway exports 95% of the fish it catches, mostly cod. Like other countries they have quotas to maintain the fish stock.

Cod drying in 1800s

Whaling used to be a huge industry here, especially for blue whale because it was so valuable for its oil. In 1930 over 30,000 were killed but by the 1960's only about 200 had survived.  Whaling was banned and now there are about 30,000. Norway, Iceland, and Japan still hunt whales, but today  Norway only hunts Minke whale for food. This year's quota is 1278 out of an estimated population of 90,000. Synthetic oils have reduced the demand for whale oil and thus the need for whale hunting.

Seal hunting took off after 1945, largely because seal fur was used for fashion. The processing of seal fur became a major industry. Of course, the clubbing of baby seals led to the protests by Green Peace and the protests reached worldwide proportions. The Norwegian industry shutdown in 1983.

Demand for salmon has led to salmon farming along the coast of Norway. Farmed salmon has just outstripped wild salmon in volume. 

Ships in harbor from Hanseatic League

A number of us went to the Hanseatic Museum in a building made in 1704 just after the fire of 1701. The Hanseatic League was a city within a city with its own laws. Cod from the North was brought here and sold. Then it was dried into stock fish and packed for shipping to Germany. No fires were allowed in these buildings so the men slept in a cupboard in the center of the building. Cooking was done in separate buildings, the assembly rooms. In later years the kitchen fires fed stoves in the rooms with heat.

Cupboard Bed

That night we went up in the funicular to get a view of the city of Bergen

Goat's Eye view of Bergen

Flåm to Bergen

The train ride up from the Flåm valley is quite scenic with water falls and views deep into the valley. The railway line has numerous tunnels, one includes a 180 degree turn to work up the valley. There was only one stop, a picture stop for the Kjosfassen waterfall. We changed trains at Mydahl to the state railroad. The first hour of this trip crosses the mountains through several tunnels and then we descend along a riverbank until we reach another fjord that eventually leads to Bergen. The city was founded in 1070 and became a fish trading center. The most famous buildings here are the wooden buildings of the Bryggen district. Here German merchants, member of the Hanseactic League traded fish which were shipped to Germany for European goods, especially grain. The Norwegian king did not want these foreigners here, but the black plague at decimated the population, leading to their acceptance. 

Bryggen District

We walked the harbor area viewing the medieval church of St. Mary’s, the Bryggen district, the fish market, and two of the central squares.

View from Bergen

Road to Flam

Hemsedal

This was our big road day from Oslo in the East to Flåm in the West. The city soon turned to forest and farmland, then we rode through forest with mountains, and after more miles we climbed the mountains and were in tundra as we crossed the water divide. As we traveled we learned how Norwegians have an outdoor orientation, people can camp most anywhere, in the winter most people ski on lighted trails and in the summer they visit their summer cottages. We had lunch in Hemsedal, a ski town. 

Borgund Stave Church

Our primary stop for the day was the Borgund Stave Church built in 1180 with 80% still the original wood. Morgan, our guide, provided a lot of history (and also said there was nothing to do in this town.) A stave church has wooden columns  (the staves) built on stone foundations. The intent was to eventually replace the wood staves with stone, but after the plague came through, those plans were abandoned. This church has dragons from the Norse religion as well as crosses from Christianity. The columns appear to have Norse gods at the top. These people were taking no chances between the old and new religions. The bell tower is a separate building. Inside the church was quite dark, it’s hard to imagine people listening to mass in Latin in the dark. 

Morgan explaining inside

On the way to Flan we went through a 21km tunnel cutting the travel time by 1\2 hours from going around the fjord. The town of Flåm is only 300 people at the end of a fjord with a tourist train that scales the valley walls. We stayed at the Frethelm Hotel Flåm. 

Flåm

Oslo City Tour

Oslo City Hall

Our tour started at the City Hall which is open to the public on Sundays. As we approached the 49 bell clarion was playing a song for the hour. In the court yard are artworks depicting Oak and Elmbla the Norse version of Adam and Eve as well as pictures of Thor and Odin. The Great Hall is where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. Henrik Sorensen's painting “Work, Administration, and Celebration” is on the back wall. “The Occupation Frieze” on the side wall depicts the Nazi occupation. The north wall depicts Norwegian occupations. Then on the west wall is St. Hallverd, Oslo's patron saint.

Vigelund Fountain

We bused past most of the sites we had walked on Friday, ending at the Vigelund Sculpture Garden. The garden is dedicated to the human life cycle with 212 statues in four major works: the bridge, the fountain, the monolith, and the tree of life. The fountain and monolith are surrounded with statues that go from youth to old age. The granite monolith dominates the garden, 17 meters high covered with 121 figures it took three men 13 years to complete the sculptures.

Vigelund Monolith

Our last stop was the Viking Ship Museum. The Viking era was from 750 to the 1050 AD. The Vikings needed more farm land and took their ships both West and East exploring the oceans and rivers for new land. The three ships in the museum were burial ships. They had been used on the seas but then were buried in clay with the corpses and the goods they would need in the afterlife including a intricately carved wagon.The Oseberg ship from 800 AD is the oldest was buried with two women. It required 30 oarsmen and woolen sails. On the ship were many artifacts, including a large wooden cart. The Gakstad ship is the largest , a replica of this ship sailed the Atlantic from Norway to America in 1893 to be exhibited in Chicago.

Gakstad Ship

The last museum was the Fram Museum dedicated to the explorers of the Polar regions. Ronald Amundsen stands out as a polar explorer: the first to navigate the Northwest passage, reach the South Pole, and fly to the North pole. Amundsen's team took 40 months in 1903 to traverse the Northwest passage. They were helped by the Intuit to make igloos, use sled dogs, ice the runners on their sledges, use native fur clothing for warmth and learn the foods to eat to survive in the cold. This was primarily a science expedition, they took measurements of the magnetic fields discovering that the magnetic poles move. The Gjøa is the ship they used for the passage and it is preserved in this museum. They used a petrol engine to supplement their sails, but had to be careful that the fuel not evaporate away from their tanks.

The Fram was used for his trip to the South Pole, leaving in 1910. Amundsen used all he had learned from the Intuits to be successful on this trip. He was very exacting on the preparation for this trip including 111 dogs to pull the sleds. He beat Scott to the pole by several weeks, but more importantly everyone survived. Scott tried to use mechanical vehicles, horses, dogs, and manpower to move his sleds, many of his team died on the journey. The Fram was very interesting. He had a wind mill to generate electricity for lights and a piano for entertainment. We could explore most of the ship. 

Norsk Folkemuseum

Old Stave Church

We made use of our second day in Oslo by going to the NorskFolkemuseum. Here they have collected over 150 buildings from the various regions and times of Norway. Most plentiful were farm buildings from 1300 up to 1959. It was interesting to see how the heating and cooking sources changed through the years: fire pits with a smoke hole in the roof to fire places to fire stoves. Many of these buildings including the storage sheds had intricate carvings on their exterior beams. A highlight was the Old Stave Church built in 1300 with artwork from 1652.

17th Century Interior

Another part of the museum was dedicated to urban and suburban living from 1700 til now. They had interesting exhibits on how cigarette smoking was considered good for your health until the 1950s. Oh, and beer used to be a way to connect to the gods. The highlight here was an apartment building where each apartment was furnished like it would be from the 1800s until the 1970s. What intrigued me was some cribs or youth beds that had a slider to make them longer as the child grew. There were also indoor exhibits on the decorative arts, but we just gave them a quick look over since we had spent over four hours walking in the heat.

Expandable Crib

Tonight we met up with our guide and tour group and had a fine dinner on the harbor.

Oslo Harbor

Oslo

If you prefer to view a video of this trip it is available on youtube.
We flew yesterday from the 40 degree weather of Iceland to 80 degrees in Oslo. They have had a hot May and have had three weeks without rain.

We arrived at our hotel about 2:30 in the afternoon. The Scandia Victoria is about three blocks from the harbor. That evening we walked the Aker Brygge area of the harbor. It was a warm evening, everyone was out walking or enjoying the patio restaurants. We had pasta and a beer.

Oslo Harbor

We started our day today by walking to a laundry about half a mile from our hotel. Washing and drying two loads of laundry was going to cost about $45. But they offered to do it for us and deliver it to the Hotel for $70. We took the deal! Yes, laundry is expensive here! (The hotel would charge $6 for a pair of socks.)

Today we took a walk around this part of the city. Akershus was the fortress for the harbor. Built in 1300, it was used primarily against the Swedes in the numerous wars over the centuries. It also served as a prison from the 1800s until 1945. Today, it still serves as military offices.

Akershus

We had a delicious lunch at one of the local cafes before continuing on to Oslo’s modern opera house. It has a sloping roof line and people are invited to walk the roof. The old train station has become a hotel and shops with a new station next door. We then walked the pedestrian street from the train station, past the Cathedral and parliament ending at the royal palace. We walked about 5 miles by the time we returned to our hotel.

Norway's Parliament Building