Norge
Norway is stacked with superlatives—it’s the most mountainous, most scenic, and most prosperous of all the Scandinavian countries. Perhaps above all, Norway is a land of intense natural beauty, its famously steep mountains and deep fjords carved out and shaped by an ancient ice age.
Norway is also a land of rich harvests—timber, oil, and fish. In fact, its wealth of resources is a major reason why Norwegians have voted “nei” to membership in the European Union. They don’t want to be forced to share fishing rights with EU countries.
The country’s relatively recent independence (in 1905, from Sweden) makes Norwegians notably patriotic and proud of their traditions and history.
Norway’s Viking past (c. A.D. 800-1050) can still be seen today in the country’s 28 remaining stave churches—with their decorative nods to Viking ship prows—and the artifacts housed in Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum.
The Vikings, who also lived in present-day Denmark and Sweden, were great traders, shipbuilders, and explorers. However, they are probably best known for their infamous invasions, which terrorized much of Europe. The sight of their dragon-prowed ships on the horizon struck fear into the hearts of people from Ireland to the Black Sea.
Named for the Norse word vik, which means fjord or inlet, the Vikings sailed their sleek, seaworthy ships on extensive voyages, laden with amber and furs for trading—and weapons for fighting. They traveled up the Seine and deep into Russia, through the Mediterranean east to Constantinople, and across the Atlantic to Greenland and even “Vinland” (Canada). In fact, they touched the soil of the Americas centuries before Columbus, causing proud “ya sure ya betcha” Scandinavian immigrants in the US to display bumper stickers that boast, “Columbus used a Viking map!”
Both history and Hollywood have painted a picture of the Vikings as fierce barbarians, an image reinforced by the colorful names of leaders like Sven Forkbeard, Erik Bloodaxe, and Harald Bluetooth. Unless you’re handy with an axe, these don’t sound like the kind of men you want to hoist a tankard of mead with. They kept slaves and were all-around cruel (though there is no evidence that they forced their subjects to eat lutefisk). But the Vikings also had a gentle side. Many were farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen who created delicate works with wood and metal. Faced with a growing population constrained by a lack of arable land, they traveled south not just to rape, pillage, and plunder, but in search of greener pastures. Sometimes they stayed and colonized, as in northeast England, which was called the “Danelaw,” or in northwest France, which became known as Normandy (“Land of the North-men”).
The Vikings worshipped many gods and had a rich tradition of mythology. Epic sagas were verbally passed down through generations or written in angular runic writing. The sagas told the heroic tales of the gods, who lived in Valhalla, the Viking heaven, presided over by Odin, the god of both wisdom and war. Like the Egyptians, the Vikings believed in life after death, and chieftains were often buried in their ships within burial mounds, along with prized possessions such as jewelry, cooking pots, food, and Hagar the Horrible cartoons.
Official Name: Kongeriket Norge—“The Kingdom of Norway”—or simply Norge (Norway).
Population: Norway’s 4.7 million people (about 39 per square mile) are mainly of Nordic and Germanic heritage, with a small population of indigenous Sami people in the north. The rapidly growing immigrant population is primarily from Pakistan, Sweden, Denmark, Iraq, Vietnam, and Somalia. Most Norwegians speak one of two official forms of Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), and the majority speak English as a second language. While church attendance is way down, the vast majority of Norwegian Christians consider themselves Lutheran.
Latitude and Longitude: 62°N and 10°E, similar latitude to Canada’s Northwest Territories.
Area: 148,900 square miles, slightly larger than Montana.
Geography: Sharing the Scandinavian Peninsula with Sweden, Norway also has short northern borders with Finland and Russia. Its 51,575-mile coastline extends from the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean to the Norwegian Sea and North Sea in the North Atlantic. Shaped by glaciers, Norway has a rugged landscape of mountains, plateaus, and deep fjords. In the part of Norway that extends north of the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets at the height of summer, and never comes up in the deep of winter.
Biggest Cities: Norway’s capital city, Oslo, has a population of 575,000; more than a million live in its metropolitan area.
Economy: The Norwegian economy grows around 4 percent each year, contributing to a healthy $269 billion Gross Domestic Product and a per capita GDP of $54,200. Its primary export is oil—Norway ranks behind only Saudi Arabia and Russia in the amount of oil exported, making it one of the world’s richest countries. Thanks to this oil wealth, and the country’s generally prudent approach to debt, the recent economic crisis has been relatively easy on Norway.
Currency: 6 Norwegian kroner (kr, officially NOK) = about $1.
Government: As the leader of Norway’s constitutional monarchy, King Harald V has largely ceremonial powers. Since October 2005 the government has been led by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who narrowly won re-election in 2009. The legislative body is the Stortinget, with 169 members elected for four-year terms. The Labor Party currently holds 64 seats, followed by the Progress Party with 41, the Conservative Party with 30, and the Socialist Left Party with 11. The remaining seats are divided among smaller political parties.
Flag: The Norwegian flag is red with a blue Scandinavian cross outlined in white.
The Average Norwegian: He or she is 40 years old, has 1.77 children, and will live to be 80. One in three Norwegians is employed in the service sector, one in four in industry, and only 3 percent in agriculture.
Like the Greeks and Etruscans before them, the Vikings never organized on a large national scale and eventually faded away due to bigger, better-organized enemies and the powerful influence of Christianity. By 1150, the Vikings had become Christianized and assimilated into European society. But their memory lives on in Norway.
Beginning in the 14th century, Norway came under Danish rule for more than 400 years, until the Danes took the wrong side in the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaty of Kiel forced Denmark to cede Norway to Sweden in 1814. Sweden’s rule of Norway lasted until 1905, when Norway voted to dissolve the union. Like many European countries, Norway was taken over by Germany during World War II. April 1940 marked the start of five years of Nazi occupation, during which a strong resistance movement developed, hindering some of the Nazi war efforts.
Each year on May 17, Norwegians celebrate their ill-fated but idealistic 1814 constitution with fervor and plenty of flag-waving. Men and women wear folk costumes (bunads), each specific to a region of Norway. Parades are held throughout the country. The parade in Oslo marches past the Royal Palace, where the royal family waves to the populace from their balcony. While the king holds almost zero political power (Norway has a parliament chaired by a prime minister), the royal family is still highly revered and respected.
Several holidays in spring and early summer disrupt transportation schedules: the aforementioned Constitution Day (May 17), Ascension Day (May 9 in 2013, May 29 in 2014), and Whitsunday and Whitmonday (a.k.a. Pentecost and the following day, May 19-20 in 2013, June 8-9 in 2014).
High taxes contribute to Norway’s high standard of living. Norwegians receive cradle-to-grave social care: university education, health care, nearly yearlong paternity leave, and an annual six weeks of vacation. Norwegians feel there is no better place than home. Norway regularly shows up in first place on the annual UN Human Development Index.
Visitors enjoy the agreeable demeanor of the Norwegian people—friendly but not overbearing, organized but not uptight, and with a lust for adventure befitting their gorgeous landscape. Known for their ability to suffer any misfortune with an accepting (if a bit pessimistic) attitude, Norwegians are easy to get along with.
Despite being looked down upon as less sophisticated by their Scandinavian neighbors, Norwegians are proud of their rich folk traditions—from handmade sweaters and folk costumes to the small farms that produce a sweet cheese called geitost. Less than 7 percent of the country’s land is arable, resulting in numerous small farms. The government recognizes the value of farming, especially in the remote reaches of the country, and provides rich subsidies to keep this tradition alive. These subsidies would not be allowed if Norway joined the European Union—yet another reason the country remains an EU holdout.
Appropriate for a land with countless fjords and waterfalls, Norway is known for its pristine water. Norwegian-bottled artisanal water has an international reputation for its crisp, clean taste. Although the designer Voss water—the H2O of choice for Hollywood celebrities—comes with a high price tag, the blue-collar Olden is just as good. (The tap water is actually wonderful, too—and much cheaper.)
While the Norwegian people speak a collection of mutually understandable dialects, the Norwegian language has two official forms: bokmål (book language) and nynorsk (New Norse). During the centuries of Danish rule, people in Norway’s cities and upper classes adopted a Danish-influenced style of speech and writing (called Dano-Norwegian), while rural language remained closer to the Old Norse. After independence, Dano-Norwegian was renamed bokmål, and the rural dialects were formalized as nynorsk, as part of a nationalistic drive for a more purely Norwegian language. Despite later efforts to combine the two forms, bokmål remains the most commonly used, especially in urban areas, books, newspapers, and government agencies. Students learn both.
The majority of the population under 70 years of age also speaks English, but a few words in Norwegian will serve you well. If you visit a Norwegian home, be sure to leave your shoes at the door; indoors is usually meant for stocking-feet only. At the end of a meal, it’s polite to say “Thanks for the food”—“Takk for maten” (tahk for MAH-ten). Norwegians rarely feel their guests have eaten enough food, so be prepared to say “Nei, takk” (nigh tahk; “No, thanks”). You can always try “Jeg er met” (yigh ehr met; “I am full”), but be careful not to say “Jeg er full”—“I am drunk.”
Norway’s most distinctive architecture is the stave church. These medieval houses of worship—tall, skinny, wooden pagodas with dragon’s-head gargoyles—are distinctly Norwegian and palpably historic, transporting you right back to the Viking days. On your visit, make it a point to visit at least one stave church.
Stave churches are the finest architecture to come out of medieval Norway. Wood was plentiful and cheap, and locals had an expertise with woodworking (from all that boat-building). In 1300, there were as many as 1,000 stave churches in Norway. After a 14th-century plague, Norway’s population dropped, and many churches fell into disuse or burned down. By the 19th century, only a few dozen stave churches survived. Fortunately, they became recognized as part of the national heritage and were protected. Virtually all of Norway’s surviving stave churches have been rebuilt or renovated, with painstaking attention to the original details.
A distinguishing feature of the “stave” design is its frame of tall, stout vertical staves (Norwegian stav, or “staff”). The churches typically sit on stone foundations, to keep the wooden structure away from the damp ground (otherwise it would rot). Most stave churches were made of specially grown pine, carefully prepared before being felled for construction. As the trees grew, the tips and most of the branches were cut off, leaving the trunks just barely alive to stand in the woods for about a decade. This allowed the sap to penetrate the wood and lock in the resin, strengthening the wood while keeping it elastic. Once built, a stave church was slathered with black tar to protect it from the elements.
Stave churches are notable for their resilience and flexibility. Just as old houses creak and settle over the years, wooden stave churches can flex to withstand fierce winds and the march of time. When the wind shifts with the seasons, stave churches groan and moan for a couple of weeks...until they’ve adjusted to the new influences, and settle in.
Even after the Vikings stopped raiding, they ornamented the exteriors of their churches with warlike, evil spirit-fighting dragons reminiscent of their ships. Inside, a stave church’s structure makes you feel like you’re huddled under an overturned ship. The churches are dark, with almost no windows (aside from a few small “portholes” high up). Typical decorations include carved, X-shaped crossbeams; these symbolize the cross of St. Andrew (who was crucified on such a cross). Round, Romanesque arches near the tops of the staves were made from the “knees” of a tree, where the roots bend to meet the trunk (typically the hardest wood in a tree). Overall, these churches are extremely vertical: the beams inside and the roofline outside both lead the eye up, up, up to the heavens.
Most surviving stave churches were renovated during the Reformation (16th and 17th centuries), when they acquired more horizontal elements such as pews, balconies, pulpits, altars, and other decorations to draw attention to the front of the church. In some (such as the churches in Lom and Urnes), the additions make the church feel almost cluttered. But the most authentic (including Hopperstad near Vik) feel truly medieval. These time-machine churches take visitors back to early Christian days: no pews (worshippers stood through the service), no pulpit, and a barrier between the congregation and the priest, to symbolically separate the physical world from the spiritual one. Incense filled the church, and the priest and congregation chanted the service back and forth to each other, creating an otherworldly atmosphere that likely made worshippers feel close to God. (If you’ve traveled in Greece, Russia, or the Balkans, Norway’s stave churches might remind you of Orthodox churches, which reflect the way all Christians once worshipped.)
When traveling through Norway, you’ll be encouraged to see stave church after stave church. Sure, they’re interesting, but there’s no point in spending time seeing more than a few of them. Of Norway’s 28 remaining stave churches, seven are described in this book. The easiest to see are the ones that have been moved to open-air museums in Oslo and Lillehammer. But I prefer to appreciate a stave church in its original fjords-and-rolling-hills setting. My two favorites are both near Sognefjord: Borgund and Hopperstad. They are each delightfully situated, uncluttered by more recent additions, and evocative as can be. Borgund is in a pristine wooded valley, while Hopperstad is situated on a fjord. Borgund comes with the only good adjacent stave church museum. (Most stave churches on the Sognefjord are operated by the same preservation society; for more details, see www.stavechurch.com.)
Other noteworthy stave churches include the one in Lom, near the Jotunheimen Mountains, which is one of Norway’s biggest, and is indeed quite impressive. The Urnes church, across from Solvorn, is technically the oldest of them all—but it’s been thoroughly renovated in later ages (it is still worth considering, however, if only for its exquisite carvings and the fun excursion to get to it). The Fantoft church, just outside Bergen, burned down in 1992, and the replica built to replace it has none of the original’s magic. The stave church in Undredal advertises itself as the smallest. I think it’s also the dullest.