Life in Mo i Rana

June 5, 2010
The sun is shining in Mo i Rana today and the view out of Arna and Vigleik’s living room is spectacular. Their house is located about 6 km outside of the town center and faces a fjord and the surrounding snow-capped mountains. The summer months, which run from June 23 to mid-August, are relatively warm around 20˚ Celsius, although this year has been unseasonably cold to date. During our stay, it has been about 8˚ Celsius. In fact, it is so cold here that Ana escapes for six or twelve weeks to Majorca, Spain. Unfortunately, Vigleik still works full-time so he can only join her for a week each winter.

Today is our first of two “off” day which means we have no programs but are spending the weekend with our host family, doing what they would typically do. Since Vigleik is the town kultursjef, he actually has some work events to host and so we will be spending the day meeting the people of Mo i Rana. Our first stop is the unveiling of a bust. Per Magnus Karstensen is 95 years old and somewhat of a local hero. He was the municipalities’ first mayor when it joined into Mo i Rana and the head of the local school. He has done a lot of work for the township and was honored with the bust that will stand in the middle of the downtown square, outside the city council building. It is unusual, even for Norway, to honor somebody with a bust while they are still living. His family including his children and grandchildren all flew in from Oslo for the ceremony, which was held outdoors (in the cold!).

Our next stop on our working Saturday was to the bibliotek (library) to present Ellen Einan a literary award honoring her work as a poet. Every year, the municipality selects one Norwegian author to win and this year’s honoree is a long-time poet who was born and continues to live in Lofoten. Ellen was in the audience to receive the award but chose not to speak. We were told later that she is suffering from the first stages of dementia. As part of the celebration, a famed lyrical Norwegian poet Jan Erik Vold was asked to recite several of Ellen’s poems.

Between this event and our next stop, we had a quick lunch at Babettes. Babettes is the town’s main restaurant, pub and nightlife venue and is a small eatery run by a Turkish family. It was an exciting lunch though since we were the guests of the town mayor, Geir Waage. Waage said he was very excited about having a busy Saturday because it means that the town is doing a lot of good and getting the people involved in projects and activities, which at the end of the day, is his goal.

Immediately after lunch, we were off to our last working visit of the day at the Rana Musuem. Here the Rana Culture School was presenting scholarships to eleven students. This scholarship started several years ago with a family living in Mo i Rana. The parents had one son, who loved music but decided to follow a career in law. He died from alcoholism at an early age. To honor their son and to right his memory, the parents decided to write a will donating all their money to create a music scholarship in their son’s name. Each year, the interest of the donation offers several scholarships of about 5,000 NOK to students in the area. Each student who performed for the mayor and the guests certainly earned the prestigious award!

Our last stop for the evening before heading home for dinner was a visit to the local church. The church was built in 1723 and the exterior was remodeled in 1830. All further renovations and upgrades have maintained the original structure, paint and architecture of the 1800s. The church continues to be the meeting place for most of the Mo i Rana residents and is the only church in the downtown area. The cemetery standing beside the church housed the remains of several Soviet Union members who were imprisoned by the Nazi Germans and sentenced to hard slave labor. The residents of Mo i Rana erected a memorial and placed all the remains in the cemetery. However, during this time, the Nazi Germans wanted to remove all the bones and pile them up to move in a large dumpsite grave on the island of tjøtta. The residents of Mo i Rana would not let this happen and anytime the troops came to town, they would circle the grave and defend the Soviets. Outside the memorial are eight headstones for the Norwegians who lost their life defending the graves on May 17,1940. Today’s program at the church featured a performance by a visiting children’s choir from Trondheim.

And this, Vagleik explained, is a typical Saturday for the city’s cultural chair.