June 6, 2010
After a much needed late morning, Arna and Vigleik suggested a trip to Sweden for our Sunday afternoon. We packed up the car and started on the two hour journey from Mo i Rana to Hemavan Tärnaby. The border between Norway and Sweden is very laid back, there are no customs or policing and in fact, many Norwegians used to travel to Sweden frequently to pick up cheaper groceries, particularly tobacco and pork. Tärnaby is a ski resort and busy in the winter months where visitors can rent cabins and stay overnight. It is a really small town, home to only one restaurant, one grocery store, a tourist center and a Sami shop. Since we drove in on a Sunday, everything was closed and not a car was in sight. Vigleik and Arna, who hadn’t visited Tärnaby in a couple years, seemed surprised by the lack of activity. They said the last time they came there were more shops open and at least a few stores and restaurants were open on Sunday. The financial crisis seems to have hit Sweden as well. Instead of having lunch in town, we decided to visit the local grocery store to pick up some supplies for a trip up to the mountains to Arna and Vigleik’s cabin. On the drive back to Norway, we drove through several snow storms and to our delight, ran into some reindeer. We were surprised to see reindeer this time of year since typically the reindeer travel north into the mountains during the summer to find pockets of snow to get away from insects. The unseasonable cold this year has likely made the reindeer stay in the area, so for once, we were not complaining about the weather! Our introduction to reindeers included clarifying a well-known myth… Rudolph is actually a girl! Reindeer lose their antlers once a year; the male reindeers lose their reindeer in the winter and spring while the female reindeers lose their antlers in the summer and autumn. Therefore, Rudolph couldn’t have had antlers in December unless he was a young reindeer and had yet to grow his antlers and only had stubs. One of the most amazing sights was seeing a newborn reindeer. The female reindeers, after spending the winter pregnant after mating season in the autumn, give birth in May. We saw some newborns, perhaps only a couple weeks old, which looked like baby lamb with white skin and pink eyes. All the reindeer in the area does belong to somebody. There is a reindeer farm in the area that has marked the reindeer but lets them roam freely in the area, only feeding them if it the weather is too harsh for the reindeer to find their own food. When the reindeer are older, they are slaughtered for reindeer meat. Reindeer meat is a popular delicacy in the area, but it is rather expensive since there are limited number of reindeer killed each year. The Sami people have long eaten reindeer and are the herders in the area. It wasn’t until recently that they were able to organize themselves better and now have started offering more reindeer meat to the local stores. Vigleik explained that when referring to the Sami people who herd reindeer is okay to call them Laps. However, the politically correct term for the others is Sami people.
Another popular myth that Vigleik and Arna clarified was the history of the Viking helmets. No remains ever found in Norway indicate that the Vikings had horns on their helmet. That was an exaggeration by the history books!
About 25 kilometers from Mo i Rana, we arrived to Arna and Vigleik’s cabin at Rauvatnet. The name means “on/at the River Rauvatnet.” Arna and Vigleik bought this hytte (cabin) in January 1987 when their twin boys were only 11 years old. The cabin is a 15 minute uphill trek from the car and far enough into the mountain that you can’t see any other cabins. There is no electricity minus a couple small solar panels on the roof and there is no running water, although there is a creek that runs by the side of the house. There is an outhouse bathroom, which is essentially a toilet with a hole in the ground which is cleaned every couple years. The Hagas don’t use the cabin too often during the winter, but do celebrate every Easter up here. The cabin is tiny, you walk in and on the left is a living room with a small couch, chair, furnace, kitchen and bunk beds built into the wall. On the right is a small room with another set of bunk beds. The outhouse is attached to the side of the house but can only be accessed by leaving the main door. Vigleik and Arna said they prefer the primitive cabin and enjoy this place as their retreat from the busy everyday life at home. As soon as we entered the cabin, Arna started the furnace by throwing in a couple logs while Vigleik started boiling a pot of water for coffee and setting out some whiskey to warm us up. He then cooked up some sausages and soy sausages for us as we enjoyed a late afternoon lunch.
After spending several hours in the cabin, we made our way back to Mo i Rana. A quick stop at the grocery store turned out to be quiet an experience. Local law dictates that a full grocery store cannot be open on Sundays but a store that is less than 100 meters in size can stay open. Therefore, the ICA grocery we visited had a small section in the corner of the main floor that housed all the necessities including eggs, bread, milk and frozen pizza for the customers. This small store was packed the entire time we were there! Arna said that while it is perhaps not allowed, if you need something that is not available in the Sunday store, the cashier will run into the main store and pick it up for you when it gets slow in the store. Both Arna and Vigleik agree that the Sunday store rule is one of Norway’s silliest!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
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.
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.
Baptism at the Arctic Circle
June 4, 2010
We started off our last day in Fauske with a lavish breakfast set out by our host, Rolf. I wanted to write about breakfasts in Norway since they are so different than what we are used to at home. Every morning at both of my host families to date, we’ve had a breakfast tray set out on the table. This tray includes the staples of at least two varieties of fresh bread, wasa crackers, butter, homemade jam (this morning we had three varieties including cloudberry and mixed berries), brown butter, brown butter jelly, cheese, salami, shrimp salad, mayonnaise, caviar, salmon, liver pate, beet whipped spread, milk, homemade honey, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, instant coffee and sugar. Most of this stays on a tray that is just left in the fridge as is, to make it easy for the next breakfast meal. Most Norwegians do start their day with a hearty breakfast that starts with the bread on the bottom and then different toppings are added. Rolf said that if he has to take lunch with him on the go, he’d make a brown cheese and bread sandwich for later in the day. What is brown cheese? Well, brunost as it is called is a whey cheese native to Norway first made in the Gudbrandsdalsost Valley. Traditionally, the cheese is made from goat’s milk but has been known to be a combination of both goat and cow’s milk, depending on the brand. It is a strong, sweet yet sharp flavor somewhat like caramel and goat’s milk. Brunost is made by boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugar into caramel which gives the cheese its characteristic taste. It is ready for consumption as soon as it is packed in suitable sized blocks.
After breakfast, we packed our bags and said goodbye to Fauske as we headed out into the mountains toward Rognan. Our first visit today was to a cable company called Nexans and our tour guide this morning was Ronny Pettersen. Nexans is a Paris-headquartered French company with over 120 plants and 125,000 employees worldwide. In Norway, there are five branches, with the Norwegian headquarters being in Oslo. In Rognan, which is the northern cable factory in the world, the company focuses on producing telecom cables. Established in 1952, the company has 175 employees and is the largest industrial company in the Saltdal community. Amazingly, the company boasts more than 80 percent of their employees as certified skilled workers and is home to 20 engineers. The three main production lines include telecommunication cables, special telecom (STC) cables mainly for submarines and remotely operated vehicles (ROV) cables. In 2008, Nexans Rognan had revenue of 750 million NOK and the goal is to increase that revenue to 1 billion NOK in the next five years. Today, all the production is custom ordered. During our tour of the facility, we saw clear fiber optic cables bought primarily from East Asia and then dyed or striped depending on the use and the recipient. The cables are then wrapped with rubber, steel and other materials to form cables via a series of heavy machinery and eventually, the end product is wrapped around wheels. Nexans Rognan has manufactured a pulley system to allow the sometimes 150 tonnes of cable to travel alongside the trackline for 500 meters to then wrap directly on the ship for transportation.
From Rognan, we continued driving south to the Nordland Nasjonalparksenter (National Park Centre) in Storjord in Saltdal. Saltdal is located in the heart of Nordland County along the E6, which is the highway that connects all of Norway. The Nasjonalparksenter features an exhibition introducing visitors to the wildlife and history of the surrounding park lands. Along our hour long trek, we took in waterfalls, the majestic mountains and the rich plantlife on this protected land. Interestingly, archeologists have found permanent settlements dating back from 3000 BC to 200 AD, or the Stone Ages. Some of the finds include charred remains, stone objects, animal traps from as early as 2400 BC and several examples of shelter from the 1800s. We saw two replications of houses of the Sami people over the years and the knowledge and forethought was so impressive. For example, in one of the huts, there was a fire pit in the middle of the hut with a raised roof in the center to allow the smoke to escape and a bar hanging across the hut to tie up the meat or anything else that needed to be slow cooked over the fire.
Next stop: Polarsirkelsenteret! The drive from Storjord to Saltfjellet was about 20 minutes but difference in scenery and landscape was night and day. We left behind the green forests and lush waterways behind in favor of barren trees, overcast weather, lingering snow piles and huge forbearing mountains. There was no greenery in sight and as we drove closer to the Arctic Circle Center, the weather dropped from 7˚Celsius (44.6˚ Fahrenheit) to 3˚ Celsius (37.4˚ Fahrenheit). The center is really one small building with a gift shop, but the Arctic Circle is said to run through the building. The center opened on July 13, 1990 and is approximately 680 meters above sea level. The Arctic Circle is the southernmost point where you can see the Midnight Sun and here, in Salfjellet, the Midnight Sun is visible for about a month while the sun is visible for at least six months a year. Although it is the wrong time of the year for us, it is also an amazing place to see the Northern Lights! The Arctic Circle is located at 66˚ 33˚ north. Outside of the center building, there are Russian and Yugoslavian war memorials from World War II. These were prisoners of the German Nazis that were held captive in the area and forced to hard labor and made to pave the way from the Ragnon to Saltjellet.
After playing tourist at the Arctic Circle, we said goodbye to our Fauske hosts and switched cars to head about 80 km south to Mo i Rana. The scenery once again became lush and full of green spruce trees as soon as we moved a little way outside of the Arctic Circle boundary line and after passing several mountains and fjords, we met our new hosts – Vigleik and Arna (pronounced Ana) Haga. Vigleik is the city’s kultursjef (civil culture officer) while Arna is a pensioner (retired teacher). Over a delicious homemade meal, Vigleik and Arna introduced us to their part of Norway. Arna is a Sami from an island in Finnmark while Vigleik came from a city in the south. They met in Oslo while Arna was studying at the University and Vigleik was working in the dorm cafeteria and now 40 years later, they are married with twin boys (one married with two children in Trondheim and one single in Oslo). Arna also has an older daughter, who is married and lives with her three children outside of Oslo. It was interesting talking to Vigleik and Arna about their differing views on the United States (Vigleik fears we are losing the freedom the Constitution was founded upon, while Arna fears the United States being a world power that doesn’t necessary think of other countries while making decisions) and their opinions about Norway today. One of the most interesting stories of the night was Arna sharing her own history as one of the Sami people living in Northern Norway before the Nazis entered the country.
Arna was a two year old living on the coast of a fjord in Finnmark when her family heard news of the German Nazis crossing through Russia and Finland to enter the northernmost region in Norway. At the time, she was the only child so her parents packed up their necessities and decided to leave their village and cross the fjord to wait out the German invasion. They assumed this would take at most three weeks. This was October 1944 and the beginning of the winter months. Three weeks came and went and there was no sight of the German invasion or of the horror stories they had heard of the Germans coming into town and burning down villages, livestock and people. A majority of the other families that had fleed the hometown with Ana’s family decided to go back to their houses, believing the stories were exaggerated or perhaps the Germans had decided to skip the island. Only three families including Arna’s decided to wait longer even though the hours of light were rapidly decreasing and the brutal winter winds were about to start blowing. In January 1945, the Germans did make their way to Arna’s town and her family, still across the fjord in safety, could see the entire village burning and the people being taken into captivity. Arna turned to her mother and said, “Mom, now we have no house.” They feared their own safety but more importantly how they could survive a winter without the proper necessities. As Arna says, it was likely the Sami blood and the Sami ways that kept them alive. It also helped that the winter was particularly kinder than many others of the past. Almost five months after they first left their house, the Norwegian troops found Arna and the three surviving families. The Norwegian army , during those five months, had been setting up a base in Verde, Finnmark and were engaging the Nazis to push them out of the area. While Arna had been evacuated by boat around the tip of Norway to Verde, the troops did see that nearly 500 other Sami people had been hiding in the caves and mountains of her home island and needed rescuing. However, taking those people by the small boat they had was not practical so the Norwegian troops created a convoy and within two hours of reaching the island, had managed to rescue and evacuate all 500 remaining people. A couple months later, Arna’s father had managed to find a boat in Verde which he used to sail back to their home island and with the aid of the government, the islands of Finnmark were repopulated and rejuvenated.
I asked Arna why there seems to be such a division between the Sami people and the Norwegians. Unlike the Native Americans in the United States, the Sami people and the Norwegians all came to the area around the same time and co-existed for many years. When the glaciers started moving, the Noregians followed the reindeer and the fish further south while the Sami people decided to stay up north. However, it wasn’t until the Europeans decided to draw boundary lines between Finland, Norway and Sweden that problems between the two groups started developing. The Norwegians wanted to create pride in Norway and wanted the Sami people of Norway to give up their language and allegiance to Sami culture and adopt Norwegian customs. The Sami people refused and in fact, the Sami people of Finnmark now speak a language that is closer to Finnish than Norwegian because of how close they are to the border. Both Arna and Vigleik remember growing up hearing negative things about their respective cultures but when they met each other and introduced each other to their families, there was no anxiety about their intercultural relationship.
We started off our last day in Fauske with a lavish breakfast set out by our host, Rolf. I wanted to write about breakfasts in Norway since they are so different than what we are used to at home. Every morning at both of my host families to date, we’ve had a breakfast tray set out on the table. This tray includes the staples of at least two varieties of fresh bread, wasa crackers, butter, homemade jam (this morning we had three varieties including cloudberry and mixed berries), brown butter, brown butter jelly, cheese, salami, shrimp salad, mayonnaise, caviar, salmon, liver pate, beet whipped spread, milk, homemade honey, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, instant coffee and sugar. Most of this stays on a tray that is just left in the fridge as is, to make it easy for the next breakfast meal. Most Norwegians do start their day with a hearty breakfast that starts with the bread on the bottom and then different toppings are added. Rolf said that if he has to take lunch with him on the go, he’d make a brown cheese and bread sandwich for later in the day. What is brown cheese? Well, brunost as it is called is a whey cheese native to Norway first made in the Gudbrandsdalsost Valley. Traditionally, the cheese is made from goat’s milk but has been known to be a combination of both goat and cow’s milk, depending on the brand. It is a strong, sweet yet sharp flavor somewhat like caramel and goat’s milk. Brunost is made by boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugar into caramel which gives the cheese its characteristic taste. It is ready for consumption as soon as it is packed in suitable sized blocks.
After breakfast, we packed our bags and said goodbye to Fauske as we headed out into the mountains toward Rognan. Our first visit today was to a cable company called Nexans and our tour guide this morning was Ronny Pettersen. Nexans is a Paris-headquartered French company with over 120 plants and 125,000 employees worldwide. In Norway, there are five branches, with the Norwegian headquarters being in Oslo. In Rognan, which is the northern cable factory in the world, the company focuses on producing telecom cables. Established in 1952, the company has 175 employees and is the largest industrial company in the Saltdal community. Amazingly, the company boasts more than 80 percent of their employees as certified skilled workers and is home to 20 engineers. The three main production lines include telecommunication cables, special telecom (STC) cables mainly for submarines and remotely operated vehicles (ROV) cables. In 2008, Nexans Rognan had revenue of 750 million NOK and the goal is to increase that revenue to 1 billion NOK in the next five years. Today, all the production is custom ordered. During our tour of the facility, we saw clear fiber optic cables bought primarily from East Asia and then dyed or striped depending on the use and the recipient. The cables are then wrapped with rubber, steel and other materials to form cables via a series of heavy machinery and eventually, the end product is wrapped around wheels. Nexans Rognan has manufactured a pulley system to allow the sometimes 150 tonnes of cable to travel alongside the trackline for 500 meters to then wrap directly on the ship for transportation.
From Rognan, we continued driving south to the Nordland Nasjonalparksenter (National Park Centre) in Storjord in Saltdal. Saltdal is located in the heart of Nordland County along the E6, which is the highway that connects all of Norway. The Nasjonalparksenter features an exhibition introducing visitors to the wildlife and history of the surrounding park lands. Along our hour long trek, we took in waterfalls, the majestic mountains and the rich plantlife on this protected land. Interestingly, archeologists have found permanent settlements dating back from 3000 BC to 200 AD, or the Stone Ages. Some of the finds include charred remains, stone objects, animal traps from as early as 2400 BC and several examples of shelter from the 1800s. We saw two replications of houses of the Sami people over the years and the knowledge and forethought was so impressive. For example, in one of the huts, there was a fire pit in the middle of the hut with a raised roof in the center to allow the smoke to escape and a bar hanging across the hut to tie up the meat or anything else that needed to be slow cooked over the fire.
Next stop: Polarsirkelsenteret! The drive from Storjord to Saltfjellet was about 20 minutes but difference in scenery and landscape was night and day. We left behind the green forests and lush waterways behind in favor of barren trees, overcast weather, lingering snow piles and huge forbearing mountains. There was no greenery in sight and as we drove closer to the Arctic Circle Center, the weather dropped from 7˚Celsius (44.6˚ Fahrenheit) to 3˚ Celsius (37.4˚ Fahrenheit). The center is really one small building with a gift shop, but the Arctic Circle is said to run through the building. The center opened on July 13, 1990 and is approximately 680 meters above sea level. The Arctic Circle is the southernmost point where you can see the Midnight Sun and here, in Salfjellet, the Midnight Sun is visible for about a month while the sun is visible for at least six months a year. Although it is the wrong time of the year for us, it is also an amazing place to see the Northern Lights! The Arctic Circle is located at 66˚ 33˚ north. Outside of the center building, there are Russian and Yugoslavian war memorials from World War II. These were prisoners of the German Nazis that were held captive in the area and forced to hard labor and made to pave the way from the Ragnon to Saltjellet.
After playing tourist at the Arctic Circle, we said goodbye to our Fauske hosts and switched cars to head about 80 km south to Mo i Rana. The scenery once again became lush and full of green spruce trees as soon as we moved a little way outside of the Arctic Circle boundary line and after passing several mountains and fjords, we met our new hosts – Vigleik and Arna (pronounced Ana) Haga. Vigleik is the city’s kultursjef (civil culture officer) while Arna is a pensioner (retired teacher). Over a delicious homemade meal, Vigleik and Arna introduced us to their part of Norway. Arna is a Sami from an island in Finnmark while Vigleik came from a city in the south. They met in Oslo while Arna was studying at the University and Vigleik was working in the dorm cafeteria and now 40 years later, they are married with twin boys (one married with two children in Trondheim and one single in Oslo). Arna also has an older daughter, who is married and lives with her three children outside of Oslo. It was interesting talking to Vigleik and Arna about their differing views on the United States (Vigleik fears we are losing the freedom the Constitution was founded upon, while Arna fears the United States being a world power that doesn’t necessary think of other countries while making decisions) and their opinions about Norway today. One of the most interesting stories of the night was Arna sharing her own history as one of the Sami people living in Northern Norway before the Nazis entered the country.
Arna was a two year old living on the coast of a fjord in Finnmark when her family heard news of the German Nazis crossing through Russia and Finland to enter the northernmost region in Norway. At the time, she was the only child so her parents packed up their necessities and decided to leave their village and cross the fjord to wait out the German invasion. They assumed this would take at most three weeks. This was October 1944 and the beginning of the winter months. Three weeks came and went and there was no sight of the German invasion or of the horror stories they had heard of the Germans coming into town and burning down villages, livestock and people. A majority of the other families that had fleed the hometown with Ana’s family decided to go back to their houses, believing the stories were exaggerated or perhaps the Germans had decided to skip the island. Only three families including Arna’s decided to wait longer even though the hours of light were rapidly decreasing and the brutal winter winds were about to start blowing. In January 1945, the Germans did make their way to Arna’s town and her family, still across the fjord in safety, could see the entire village burning and the people being taken into captivity. Arna turned to her mother and said, “Mom, now we have no house.” They feared their own safety but more importantly how they could survive a winter without the proper necessities. As Arna says, it was likely the Sami blood and the Sami ways that kept them alive. It also helped that the winter was particularly kinder than many others of the past. Almost five months after they first left their house, the Norwegian troops found Arna and the three surviving families. The Norwegian army , during those five months, had been setting up a base in Verde, Finnmark and were engaging the Nazis to push them out of the area. While Arna had been evacuated by boat around the tip of Norway to Verde, the troops did see that nearly 500 other Sami people had been hiding in the caves and mountains of her home island and needed rescuing. However, taking those people by the small boat they had was not practical so the Norwegian troops created a convoy and within two hours of reaching the island, had managed to rescue and evacuate all 500 remaining people. A couple months later, Arna’s father had managed to find a boat in Verde which he used to sail back to their home island and with the aid of the government, the islands of Finnmark were repopulated and rejuvenated.
I asked Arna why there seems to be such a division between the Sami people and the Norwegians. Unlike the Native Americans in the United States, the Sami people and the Norwegians all came to the area around the same time and co-existed for many years. When the glaciers started moving, the Noregians followed the reindeer and the fish further south while the Sami people decided to stay up north. However, it wasn’t until the Europeans decided to draw boundary lines between Finland, Norway and Sweden that problems between the two groups started developing. The Norwegians wanted to create pride in Norway and wanted the Sami people of Norway to give up their language and allegiance to Sami culture and adopt Norwegian customs. The Sami people refused and in fact, the Sami people of Finnmark now speak a language that is closer to Finnish than Norwegian because of how close they are to the border. Both Arna and Vigleik remember growing up hearing negative things about their respective cultures but when they met each other and introduced each other to their families, there was no anxiety about their intercultural relationship.
Hydroelectric power is the future!
June 3, 2010
Good morning Fauske! Today was our first day in Fauske and this town is so beautiful. Situated in the mountains and beside a fjord, the view from our host, Rolf Ericksen’s, house is amazing. Rolf designed this house in 1977 and then, with the help of some carpenters, helped build the house and moved into it in 1978. The inside of the house is very homey with a country décor and the walls are covered with memorabilia from his childhood town of Værøy in Lofoten. Rolf has recently started renovating his childhood home that he now co-owns with his sister and in fact, just came home to Fauske with us after being away for a month in Lofoten. He just installed a sauna in the basement and started re-paneling the outside walls of his house. Rolf showed us some photos of his home in Lofoten, which is located right on the water and has a magnificent mountain as a backdrop. Rolf, an avid mountaineer, goes hiking and trekking through the mountains whenever he has a chance and showed Mason and I, his guests, photos of several mountain tops including an 11-hour trip hiking five mountains in Værøy. Next weekend Rolf is planning to hike seven mountains in Bodø! In addition to his passion for mountaineering, Rolf takes pride in staying active and in shape. Every year, for the past 40 years, he has participated in a training circuit to test strength, agility and speed through a series of exercises and activities. The goal is to complete the circuit and prove that you are still in good health. Around his house, Rolf has several statues of a man throwing a javelin, a symbol of his continued completion of the program through the years.
Our first trip for the day is to the Siønstå Hydro Power Plant buried deep into the mountain. One of our hosts, Sigmund Normann, used to work at the facility and was able to arrange for our visit. Our guide for the day was Rober Normann, unrelated to Sigmund, who explained that this facility has a production capacity of 300 million kilowatt hours and a maximum production capacity of 60-65,000 kilowatts. The maximum flow can be 60 m3/seconds and the inflow is 1 billion m3/year. The pressure is a net head of 120 m. A similar coal plant used about 150,000 tons of caol per year with 30,000 tons of CO2 emission. In the Sulitjelma Valley, there are four power plants with a total production capacity of 11 billion kilwatt hours (1.1TWh/median year). Interestingly, this whole facility is monitored from a remote location at the headquarters in Fauske and is only has twice a week visits by an employee to check for any leaks or damages. The power plant draws from two reservoirs to run four stations.
Natural resources in Norway are owned by the government. Norway believes that the natural resources belong to the people, not to the company and therefore the heavy taxes go toward the pension fund. For this particular plant, 33 percent of the production belongs to Bodø, 11 percent to Fauske and 20 percent to the Danish. The Danish are looking to sell their percentage to attempt to rely on wind power. In Norway, 98 percent of the energy comes from hydro electric plants and this particular plant produces 0.8 percent of Norway’s hydro power. The reason hydro electric plants are favored over wind in Norway is because the only location where windmills would be effective would be along the coastline. However, wind power cannot easily be harnessed and transferred to homes inland. Instead, hydro electric power works more effectively due to the large number of fjords in Norway and in fact, Norway sells its surplus power to Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Although the hydro electric plants are in their backyard, even the residents of Fauske and Bodø must pay a premium for their energy. The cost of the energy is determined by the outside purchasers from Denmark, Sweden and Netherlands. Norwegians pay the same rate.
How does a hydro electric plant work? There are two large reservoirs at the Siønstå Hydro Power Plant. One reservoir is 700 meters above sea level and drops 600 meters before it is converted into energy by the station. The larger the drop, the less electricity the plant needs to convert energy. As a side note, the power plant pays the government the same rate for energy consumption as the other consumers even though it is the place where this energy is created and harnessed. Norway does have the greatest consumption of energy per person at about 25,000 kw/per person. This is largely due to the miners and the smelters of aluminum and copper. The cost to run the Siønstå Hydro Power Plant is very minimal. The reservoir, dam and tunnels last forever and the generators and other heavy machinery have a lifetime of 25-30 years. Whenever an upgrade is made, the cost is generally made back within two years. There are currently 400-500 hydro electric power plants across Norway. The production cost of hydro electric energy is currently about 1.5 cents per kw/h, but the consumption cost is 10 cents per kw/h.
After a delicious lunch at the Sulitjelma Hotel, we headed over to the Salten Mining Museum, which opened in 1977 as a collection tools and equipment related to power plant and the mining caves. The most interesting display was a 3d replica of a mine from the outside and with a slice of the mountain to see the interior workings including the labyrinth of passageways and the locations of machinery throughout the tunnel and cave system.
Heading back to Fauske after the visit, the scenery was so majestic and impressive. The wind had died down so the fjords were still and reflecting the mountains surrounding the waterway. The roads were relatively new and free from potholes but extremely narrow and difficult to navigate when cars pass in both directions. One of the tunnels we passed through is famously known to be haunted by the ghost of a man who used to live in an isolated house in the mountains. Now he appears before cars periodically and often times drivers are worried they hit somebody before turning around and realizing that nobody was in the tunnel. Sadly, we did not see this ghost!
Good morning Fauske! Today was our first day in Fauske and this town is so beautiful. Situated in the mountains and beside a fjord, the view from our host, Rolf Ericksen’s, house is amazing. Rolf designed this house in 1977 and then, with the help of some carpenters, helped build the house and moved into it in 1978. The inside of the house is very homey with a country décor and the walls are covered with memorabilia from his childhood town of Værøy in Lofoten. Rolf has recently started renovating his childhood home that he now co-owns with his sister and in fact, just came home to Fauske with us after being away for a month in Lofoten. He just installed a sauna in the basement and started re-paneling the outside walls of his house. Rolf showed us some photos of his home in Lofoten, which is located right on the water and has a magnificent mountain as a backdrop. Rolf, an avid mountaineer, goes hiking and trekking through the mountains whenever he has a chance and showed Mason and I, his guests, photos of several mountain tops including an 11-hour trip hiking five mountains in Værøy. Next weekend Rolf is planning to hike seven mountains in Bodø! In addition to his passion for mountaineering, Rolf takes pride in staying active and in shape. Every year, for the past 40 years, he has participated in a training circuit to test strength, agility and speed through a series of exercises and activities. The goal is to complete the circuit and prove that you are still in good health. Around his house, Rolf has several statues of a man throwing a javelin, a symbol of his continued completion of the program through the years.
Our first trip for the day is to the Siønstå Hydro Power Plant buried deep into the mountain. One of our hosts, Sigmund Normann, used to work at the facility and was able to arrange for our visit. Our guide for the day was Rober Normann, unrelated to Sigmund, who explained that this facility has a production capacity of 300 million kilowatt hours and a maximum production capacity of 60-65,000 kilowatts. The maximum flow can be 60 m3/seconds and the inflow is 1 billion m3/year. The pressure is a net head of 120 m. A similar coal plant used about 150,000 tons of caol per year with 30,000 tons of CO2 emission. In the Sulitjelma Valley, there are four power plants with a total production capacity of 11 billion kilwatt hours (1.1TWh/median year). Interestingly, this whole facility is monitored from a remote location at the headquarters in Fauske and is only has twice a week visits by an employee to check for any leaks or damages. The power plant draws from two reservoirs to run four stations.
Natural resources in Norway are owned by the government. Norway believes that the natural resources belong to the people, not to the company and therefore the heavy taxes go toward the pension fund. For this particular plant, 33 percent of the production belongs to Bodø, 11 percent to Fauske and 20 percent to the Danish. The Danish are looking to sell their percentage to attempt to rely on wind power. In Norway, 98 percent of the energy comes from hydro electric plants and this particular plant produces 0.8 percent of Norway’s hydro power. The reason hydro electric plants are favored over wind in Norway is because the only location where windmills would be effective would be along the coastline. However, wind power cannot easily be harnessed and transferred to homes inland. Instead, hydro electric power works more effectively due to the large number of fjords in Norway and in fact, Norway sells its surplus power to Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Although the hydro electric plants are in their backyard, even the residents of Fauske and Bodø must pay a premium for their energy. The cost of the energy is determined by the outside purchasers from Denmark, Sweden and Netherlands. Norwegians pay the same rate.
How does a hydro electric plant work? There are two large reservoirs at the Siønstå Hydro Power Plant. One reservoir is 700 meters above sea level and drops 600 meters before it is converted into energy by the station. The larger the drop, the less electricity the plant needs to convert energy. As a side note, the power plant pays the government the same rate for energy consumption as the other consumers even though it is the place where this energy is created and harnessed. Norway does have the greatest consumption of energy per person at about 25,000 kw/per person. This is largely due to the miners and the smelters of aluminum and copper. The cost to run the Siønstå Hydro Power Plant is very minimal. The reservoir, dam and tunnels last forever and the generators and other heavy machinery have a lifetime of 25-30 years. Whenever an upgrade is made, the cost is generally made back within two years. There are currently 400-500 hydro electric power plants across Norway. The production cost of hydro electric energy is currently about 1.5 cents per kw/h, but the consumption cost is 10 cents per kw/h.
After a delicious lunch at the Sulitjelma Hotel, we headed over to the Salten Mining Museum, which opened in 1977 as a collection tools and equipment related to power plant and the mining caves. The most interesting display was a 3d replica of a mine from the outside and with a slice of the mountain to see the interior workings including the labyrinth of passageways and the locations of machinery throughout the tunnel and cave system.
Heading back to Fauske after the visit, the scenery was so majestic and impressive. The wind had died down so the fjords were still and reflecting the mountains surrounding the waterway. The roads were relatively new and free from potholes but extremely narrow and difficult to navigate when cars pass in both directions. One of the tunnels we passed through is famously known to be haunted by the ghost of a man who used to live in an isolated house in the mountains. Now he appears before cars periodically and often times drivers are worried they hit somebody before turning around and realizing that nobody was in the tunnel. Sadly, we did not see this ghost!
Sailing through the fjords
June 2, 2010
Our last morning in Bodø led us to the local college, Høgsloken i Bodø/ Bodø University. Home to 5,500 students, this local college is known for its business school, nursing program and adjacent police academy. Our host for the morning is Peter Glanfield, the Internasjonal rådgiver and Internasjonalt kontor (International Affairs Ambassador). His job is to work with the international students visiting Bodø University, market and brand the program to attract new students and for the past 12 years, help the accreditation process so the college can became a full-fledged university. This dream is in fact ready to be a reality as Bodø University is scheduled to receive accreditations later this year and will then be renamed Universitet i Nordland. The accreditation process is particularly important to allow the University to make independent decisions. Prior to becoming a University, the college can only offer the programs and classes that the state government allows. As a University, they can expand their programming and offer a variety of tracks from Bachelor to PhD options and thus attract a greater number of students to the area.
During our tour of the campus, Peter explained that the schooling here in Norway is a typical European format of three years of college for your Bachelor degree, followed by 2-3 years of additional studies depending on your specialization. Bodø University has four main departments: business, health, social studies and fishery. However, Bodø continues to face the challenge of depopulation with family sizes going down to an average of 1.8 these days and that number continues to drop. The students that are going to college have their pick from other Norwegian Universities including Tromsø and Oslo. Therefore, the challenge for Bodø University is to find a way to continue growing and since they cannot keep their local students here, they have decided to focus on the international aspect instead. Both local and international students do not have to pay a tuition to go to the University. International students must show a balance of 89,000 NOK (about $15,000) in their bank account with their application in order to be accepted to the University and cleared for their visa. This is to guarantee that they have the funds for housing during the school year. Most of the international students currently at Bodø University are from Russia, some of Scandinavia and just recently, some East Asian students have been finding their way to Bodø.
One interesting department at the University is the professional research lab. Faculty can transfer into this department when they want to take a break from teaching and focus solely on their research. They can then switch back to their respective departments and continue teaching when they are ready. As in the United States, government funding for the University is dependent on the amount of published work by graduate students and faculty members. However, individual faculty members cannot receive or apply for grant money on their own. While there is no tenure here in Norway, there is an implied tenure since faculty cannot be terminated unless there is valid cause and for the most part, once you work at the University, you stay there until you want to leave.
In the afternoon, we packed our bags and had some downtime with our host families before getting ready to board the evening ship, Gamle Salten, for a cruise down the fjord. Several of our host families and the incoming Fauske Rotary Club members joined us for this trip. The Gamle Salten has been sailing for 50 years, originally along the coast line linking people and industry together. It is still one of the few ships maintained in its original condition. As soon as you step inside the boat, the first thing you notice is the mahogany wood, leather and brass. The ship is separated into two compartments, first and second class. There is a top deck to take in the sights and cabins below for those interested in staying advantage of the overnight accommodations. One of the crew members took us through the ship, showing us the different rooms, dining halls and the engine. For most of the night, however, we enjoyed our hosts’ company and the live music band. After pulling back into the dock at 10 pm, we said our goodbyes to Bodø and headed to Fauske, which is about an hour south.
Our last morning in Bodø led us to the local college, Høgsloken i Bodø/ Bodø University. Home to 5,500 students, this local college is known for its business school, nursing program and adjacent police academy. Our host for the morning is Peter Glanfield, the Internasjonal rådgiver and Internasjonalt kontor (International Affairs Ambassador). His job is to work with the international students visiting Bodø University, market and brand the program to attract new students and for the past 12 years, help the accreditation process so the college can became a full-fledged university. This dream is in fact ready to be a reality as Bodø University is scheduled to receive accreditations later this year and will then be renamed Universitet i Nordland. The accreditation process is particularly important to allow the University to make independent decisions. Prior to becoming a University, the college can only offer the programs and classes that the state government allows. As a University, they can expand their programming and offer a variety of tracks from Bachelor to PhD options and thus attract a greater number of students to the area.
During our tour of the campus, Peter explained that the schooling here in Norway is a typical European format of three years of college for your Bachelor degree, followed by 2-3 years of additional studies depending on your specialization. Bodø University has four main departments: business, health, social studies and fishery. However, Bodø continues to face the challenge of depopulation with family sizes going down to an average of 1.8 these days and that number continues to drop. The students that are going to college have their pick from other Norwegian Universities including Tromsø and Oslo. Therefore, the challenge for Bodø University is to find a way to continue growing and since they cannot keep their local students here, they have decided to focus on the international aspect instead. Both local and international students do not have to pay a tuition to go to the University. International students must show a balance of 89,000 NOK (about $15,000) in their bank account with their application in order to be accepted to the University and cleared for their visa. This is to guarantee that they have the funds for housing during the school year. Most of the international students currently at Bodø University are from Russia, some of Scandinavia and just recently, some East Asian students have been finding their way to Bodø.
One interesting department at the University is the professional research lab. Faculty can transfer into this department when they want to take a break from teaching and focus solely on their research. They can then switch back to their respective departments and continue teaching when they are ready. As in the United States, government funding for the University is dependent on the amount of published work by graduate students and faculty members. However, individual faculty members cannot receive or apply for grant money on their own. While there is no tenure here in Norway, there is an implied tenure since faculty cannot be terminated unless there is valid cause and for the most part, once you work at the University, you stay there until you want to leave.
In the afternoon, we packed our bags and had some downtime with our host families before getting ready to board the evening ship, Gamle Salten, for a cruise down the fjord. Several of our host families and the incoming Fauske Rotary Club members joined us for this trip. The Gamle Salten has been sailing for 50 years, originally along the coast line linking people and industry together. It is still one of the few ships maintained in its original condition. As soon as you step inside the boat, the first thing you notice is the mahogany wood, leather and brass. The ship is separated into two compartments, first and second class. There is a top deck to take in the sights and cabins below for those interested in staying advantage of the overnight accommodations. One of the crew members took us through the ship, showing us the different rooms, dining halls and the engine. For most of the night, however, we enjoyed our hosts’ company and the live music band. After pulling back into the dock at 10 pm, we said our goodbyes to Bodø and headed to Fauske, which is about an hour south.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Looking for a job in Bodø?
June 1, 2010
Today was our first career day in Norway. With my work experience, I was matched with two local organizations: NRK Nordland and Avisa Nordland. I was excited about entering a newsroom in Norway and learning about the similaries and differences between media outlets in two different countries. As I expected, Norway does follow a similar format to the United Kingdom in that all residents must pay a fee to own a television. They are not licensing fees but revenue generated to help support programming and networks within the country. Norway is also a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and thus able to participate in the Eurovision competition.
NRK Nordland is a radio and television broadcasting station in the county of Nordland. There are several satellite offices but the main branch is in Bodø. I arrived at the station at 8:15 am to meet Eivind Undrum Jacobsen, the editor, and sit in on the morning meeting at 8:30 am. Although the meeting was held in Norwegian, newsrooms are the same everywhere and I could tell the editor was discussing story ideas and hearing from reporters on what their plan was for the day. The main stories for the day included a discussion about the Gulf Stream spill and its impact on Norwegians, the fact that SAS is sending its planes to Israel for maintenance and the school and transportation strikes. Immediately after the meeting, the staff dispersed throughout the building and I was introduced to Martin Steinholt, a researcher and occasional radio personality at NRK. Martin had his five year old son with him today since it was the beginning of the school strike. Since Martin is in kindergarten, he is the first one affected and on day one, the primary teachers were walking out but the teachers assistants were allowed to work and provide daycare for a few hours of the normal workday, from 11-2 pm. The teachers were striking to fight for equal pay for women. As we dropped off his son at the daycare, we found out that tomorrow the assistants will also be going on strike and the primary and secondary schools will be closed indefinitely. I learned that in Norway, there is an expected strike season that happens every two years or so. Currently, the schools, transportation and printers are all either on strike or on the verge of going on strike. Oddly, when I asked Martin if there was any coverage of the pending strike, his answer was that if there was no resolution in a couple days, they would do some interviews. In the United States, a teacher strike would be front page news days before it even happened!
When we got back to the office, Martin gave me the tour of the building including stops at the radio booths, the television control room and the newsroom. Unlike most newsrooms back home, there were no cubicles here but rather open desks and the main wall as replaced by windows providing a panoramic view of the sea and the fort. Definitely makes going to work a bit easier! It was interesting to see two media outlets, television and radio, combined under one roof. The researchers were the same and the title research essentially indicates reporter; somebody who is looking for a story and doing the background work for the piece. Television and radio segments are only 30 seconds to a minute long, so the research needs to be concise and since this is a county-wide broadcast, any story needs to be tied back to Nordland. For example, the top stories today included the spill in the Gulf Coast and the reporter was looking for a Nordland resident affected by the calamity. The newsrooms can of course get busy at various times, but for the most part, it did feel very relaxed. NRK Nordland hosts three radio broadcasts, from 6-9 am, 11-1 and 4-5:30 pm. Those hours include a live radio personality delivering news, traffic updates and weather reports between music. About 85 percent of the show is live in-studio, while the remaining is pre-taped interviews. During the afternoon show, from 4-5:30, the remaining 1.5 hour is given to dedicated to national news. In addition to those shows, a reporter gives the 2 minute news bulletin on the hour every hour between 6 am and 5 pm. Television is very similar, there are two tv broadcasts in the morning and the afternoon for about 30 minutes each. Perhaps the biggest difference here was that each staff member was expected to take on multiple tasks, whether it was researching, reporting, working the camera or editing reels for the live broadcast.
After a quick lunch at NRK, I headed toward the downtown square to the offices of AN Media. Avisa Nordland is the community newspaper for all of Nordland county. While headquartered in Bodø, AN does have several other branches including Feuske, Røst and Harstadt to name a few. In the Bodø office, there are about 30 employees. The Sjefradaktør (Editor-in-Chief) Jan-Eirik Hanssen was out of town for a conference on a new software program they introduced to their office a few weeks ago, so I met the equivalent to their Redaktør (Managing Editor) Vibeke Madsen. The office structure at AN includes one editor-in-chief, three rotating managing editors, section editors and then reporters. The three rotating managing editors take a week each of being the second in command, followed by one week off since they are expected to work 24/7 during the week and then a third week to work on other projects before taking the helm again. Vibeke explained how the managing editor is asked to carry a phone and should any problems arise in the evening or night, she is expected to solve the issue. She is responsible for assigning stories and filling space in the magazine once the sales department gives her the paid advertisements for the day. The section editors are in charge of editing the reporters’ pieces and submitting the work in time, however, she would proofread and edit the front page stories or any other controversial pieces in the newspaper. The section editors would then lay out the pages using created templates and fill in the spaces for headlines, photo, captions and text. Vibeke tries to hold several meetings during the day starting with the 9 am staff meeting for story ideas, then a series of conference calls with other branches for updates on story submissions and then a meeting in the afternoon to learn about updates on the developing stories and to pick a lead story for the front page. Her hours are generally 7 am to 4:30-5 pm, followed by another couple hours of work from home in the evening and of course, to be on-call should any printer issues arise. As managing editor, Vibeke earns about 800,000 NOK.
I then asked to talk to a reporter to learn more about the investigating process in Bodø. My host for the next couple hours was Iris Lyngmo, a ten year veteran to Avisa Nordland and a journalist with many national awards for her investigative pieces. Iris focuses on hard news stories, preferring to dig in and uncover stories. She said at any given time, she is likely working on one to two stories and is currently in a competition with a coworker to see who can earn the most covers! Since Iris was busy making travel plans for a story she plans to cover over the next couple days, we didn’t have a lot of time but Iris wanted to ask me about the gripes of journalists back home and in particular, whether there is fair compensation for the work. Iris, who represents the journalists in the office, said she just finished talking with the central office regarding the pay and after weeks of negotiations, walked away with a promised 10,000 NOK raise for her fellow writers. Her bosses at AN Bodø were unhappy with this, insisting that the newspaper needs to tighten its reigns. Iris, however, said AN has been increasing its profit every year and rather than offer the employees a better pay or work environment, the bosses continue to fire staff and make the remaining reporters work twice the hours on a salary with no overtime. Now, as she heads into negotiations with her bosses next week, Iris insists that she will ask for more than the 10,000 NOK promised increase but does not have high hopes for any change. On average, reporters at AN Bodø make about 247,000-297,000 NOK, which after you subtract 40 percent for taxes, does not amount to much. The same position in Oslo would receive 600,000 NOK or more. It is interesting that while journalism seems to be a more important profession in Norway than in the United States, the reporters face the same issues of needing to fight for more pay and feeling overworked and uncompensated, particularly compared to the editors.
To start the evening, we all met at Cafeteria for a traditional Norwegian dinner. Items on the menu include fish balls (not a big hit), stew and Norwegian hamburgers which are open-faced sandwiches. After dinner, Majvi and Per took the group on a field trip to see the world’s strongest whirlpool at Saltstraumen. Saltstraumen, approximately half an hour from Bodø, is a sound with a strong tidal current connecting the channel Saltfjord with its extension, the large Skerstadfjord. This tidal current is the strongest in the world, bringing 400 million tons of sea water through a 1.8 mile long and 500 feet wide waterway. This happens every six hours and today, the strongest whirlpool will be visible at 8:51 pm. The whirlpools or maelstroms are roughly 32 feet in diameter and 16 feet in depth. Surrounding Saltstraumen is the Børvasstindene mountains, making this area one of the most beautiful places we've seen in Norway! On this particular day, while the whirlpools were certainly impressive, they did not live up the "looking into the devil's mouth" description we had heard from the locals. Sitting by the water, watching this natural phenomenon was pretty amazing though and we have heard that the government is taking steps to protect the land. They have turned down several applications to build houses down closer to the water so as to preserve the landscape.
Today was our first career day in Norway. With my work experience, I was matched with two local organizations: NRK Nordland and Avisa Nordland. I was excited about entering a newsroom in Norway and learning about the similaries and differences between media outlets in two different countries. As I expected, Norway does follow a similar format to the United Kingdom in that all residents must pay a fee to own a television. They are not licensing fees but revenue generated to help support programming and networks within the country. Norway is also a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and thus able to participate in the Eurovision competition.
NRK Nordland is a radio and television broadcasting station in the county of Nordland. There are several satellite offices but the main branch is in Bodø. I arrived at the station at 8:15 am to meet Eivind Undrum Jacobsen, the editor, and sit in on the morning meeting at 8:30 am. Although the meeting was held in Norwegian, newsrooms are the same everywhere and I could tell the editor was discussing story ideas and hearing from reporters on what their plan was for the day. The main stories for the day included a discussion about the Gulf Stream spill and its impact on Norwegians, the fact that SAS is sending its planes to Israel for maintenance and the school and transportation strikes. Immediately after the meeting, the staff dispersed throughout the building and I was introduced to Martin Steinholt, a researcher and occasional radio personality at NRK. Martin had his five year old son with him today since it was the beginning of the school strike. Since Martin is in kindergarten, he is the first one affected and on day one, the primary teachers were walking out but the teachers assistants were allowed to work and provide daycare for a few hours of the normal workday, from 11-2 pm. The teachers were striking to fight for equal pay for women. As we dropped off his son at the daycare, we found out that tomorrow the assistants will also be going on strike and the primary and secondary schools will be closed indefinitely. I learned that in Norway, there is an expected strike season that happens every two years or so. Currently, the schools, transportation and printers are all either on strike or on the verge of going on strike. Oddly, when I asked Martin if there was any coverage of the pending strike, his answer was that if there was no resolution in a couple days, they would do some interviews. In the United States, a teacher strike would be front page news days before it even happened!
When we got back to the office, Martin gave me the tour of the building including stops at the radio booths, the television control room and the newsroom. Unlike most newsrooms back home, there were no cubicles here but rather open desks and the main wall as replaced by windows providing a panoramic view of the sea and the fort. Definitely makes going to work a bit easier! It was interesting to see two media outlets, television and radio, combined under one roof. The researchers were the same and the title research essentially indicates reporter; somebody who is looking for a story and doing the background work for the piece. Television and radio segments are only 30 seconds to a minute long, so the research needs to be concise and since this is a county-wide broadcast, any story needs to be tied back to Nordland. For example, the top stories today included the spill in the Gulf Coast and the reporter was looking for a Nordland resident affected by the calamity. The newsrooms can of course get busy at various times, but for the most part, it did feel very relaxed. NRK Nordland hosts three radio broadcasts, from 6-9 am, 11-1 and 4-5:30 pm. Those hours include a live radio personality delivering news, traffic updates and weather reports between music. About 85 percent of the show is live in-studio, while the remaining is pre-taped interviews. During the afternoon show, from 4-5:30, the remaining 1.5 hour is given to dedicated to national news. In addition to those shows, a reporter gives the 2 minute news bulletin on the hour every hour between 6 am and 5 pm. Television is very similar, there are two tv broadcasts in the morning and the afternoon for about 30 minutes each. Perhaps the biggest difference here was that each staff member was expected to take on multiple tasks, whether it was researching, reporting, working the camera or editing reels for the live broadcast.
After a quick lunch at NRK, I headed toward the downtown square to the offices of AN Media. Avisa Nordland is the community newspaper for all of Nordland county. While headquartered in Bodø, AN does have several other branches including Feuske, Røst and Harstadt to name a few. In the Bodø office, there are about 30 employees. The Sjefradaktør (Editor-in-Chief) Jan-Eirik Hanssen was out of town for a conference on a new software program they introduced to their office a few weeks ago, so I met the equivalent to their Redaktør (Managing Editor) Vibeke Madsen. The office structure at AN includes one editor-in-chief, three rotating managing editors, section editors and then reporters. The three rotating managing editors take a week each of being the second in command, followed by one week off since they are expected to work 24/7 during the week and then a third week to work on other projects before taking the helm again. Vibeke explained how the managing editor is asked to carry a phone and should any problems arise in the evening or night, she is expected to solve the issue. She is responsible for assigning stories and filling space in the magazine once the sales department gives her the paid advertisements for the day. The section editors are in charge of editing the reporters’ pieces and submitting the work in time, however, she would proofread and edit the front page stories or any other controversial pieces in the newspaper. The section editors would then lay out the pages using created templates and fill in the spaces for headlines, photo, captions and text. Vibeke tries to hold several meetings during the day starting with the 9 am staff meeting for story ideas, then a series of conference calls with other branches for updates on story submissions and then a meeting in the afternoon to learn about updates on the developing stories and to pick a lead story for the front page. Her hours are generally 7 am to 4:30-5 pm, followed by another couple hours of work from home in the evening and of course, to be on-call should any printer issues arise. As managing editor, Vibeke earns about 800,000 NOK.
I then asked to talk to a reporter to learn more about the investigating process in Bodø. My host for the next couple hours was Iris Lyngmo, a ten year veteran to Avisa Nordland and a journalist with many national awards for her investigative pieces. Iris focuses on hard news stories, preferring to dig in and uncover stories. She said at any given time, she is likely working on one to two stories and is currently in a competition with a coworker to see who can earn the most covers! Since Iris was busy making travel plans for a story she plans to cover over the next couple days, we didn’t have a lot of time but Iris wanted to ask me about the gripes of journalists back home and in particular, whether there is fair compensation for the work. Iris, who represents the journalists in the office, said she just finished talking with the central office regarding the pay and after weeks of negotiations, walked away with a promised 10,000 NOK raise for her fellow writers. Her bosses at AN Bodø were unhappy with this, insisting that the newspaper needs to tighten its reigns. Iris, however, said AN has been increasing its profit every year and rather than offer the employees a better pay or work environment, the bosses continue to fire staff and make the remaining reporters work twice the hours on a salary with no overtime. Now, as she heads into negotiations with her bosses next week, Iris insists that she will ask for more than the 10,000 NOK promised increase but does not have high hopes for any change. On average, reporters at AN Bodø make about 247,000-297,000 NOK, which after you subtract 40 percent for taxes, does not amount to much. The same position in Oslo would receive 600,000 NOK or more. It is interesting that while journalism seems to be a more important profession in Norway than in the United States, the reporters face the same issues of needing to fight for more pay and feeling overworked and uncompensated, particularly compared to the editors.
To start the evening, we all met at Cafeteria for a traditional Norwegian dinner. Items on the menu include fish balls (not a big hit), stew and Norwegian hamburgers which are open-faced sandwiches. After dinner, Majvi and Per took the group on a field trip to see the world’s strongest whirlpool at Saltstraumen. Saltstraumen, approximately half an hour from Bodø, is a sound with a strong tidal current connecting the channel Saltfjord with its extension, the large Skerstadfjord. This tidal current is the strongest in the world, bringing 400 million tons of sea water through a 1.8 mile long and 500 feet wide waterway. This happens every six hours and today, the strongest whirlpool will be visible at 8:51 pm. The whirlpools or maelstroms are roughly 32 feet in diameter and 16 feet in depth. Surrounding Saltstraumen is the Børvasstindene mountains, making this area one of the most beautiful places we've seen in Norway! On this particular day, while the whirlpools were certainly impressive, they did not live up the "looking into the devil's mouth" description we had heard from the locals. Sitting by the water, watching this natural phenomenon was pretty amazing though and we have heard that the government is taking steps to protect the land. They have turned down several applications to build houses down closer to the water so as to preserve the landscape.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Aviation and Beyond!
May 31, 2010
An early morning after a late night of fishing made for a very tired group of Americans as we met Sven Scheiderbauer, an incoming Rotarian president and our host for the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum (Norwegian Aviation Museum). Sven is the director of Norsk Luftfartsmuseum and was in fact hand-selected and courted to move from Sweden to Norway to take the helm of this national museum. As director, Sven is responsible for all the daily operations of the museum including the hiring and maintaining of the nearly 35+ staff members and for raising the 25 million NOK budget. The first 20 million NOK is relatively easy: 10 million NOK comes from the government and the other 10 million NOK comes from storage fees paid by the Norway military and other private entities that have aircrafts or archives on display on museum grounds. The remaining 5 million NOK is a challenge, largely because Norwegians do not donate in the same way Americans do at home. Instead, Sven has to be creative in bringing groups to the museum. His efforts over the past five years have been very successful, Norsk Luftfartsmusuem boasts a record of 40,000 attendees per year, which is especially impressive considering there are only 45,000 residents in Bodø.
The Norsk Luftfartsmuseum itself is shaped as a giant propeller and situated on approximately the same land as the German airfield during World War II. The aircrafts within the walls are separated into two exhibits: civil and military. The civilian hanger dates back to the early 1900s when Norway saw its first planes and record setting was a major sport. It wasn't until the 1950s when planes were used for transportation. Interesting exhibits included both the first female pilot, who never flew commercially since nobody would hire her to fly a plane and the second female pilot who was independently wealthy so bought her own plane but also retired after seven years due to lack of business. There was also an interesting display of a small plane that got caught between two electrical wires and how they saved the pilot and then shot the plane out of the sky instead of cutting down the wires and taking out the electricity of the town. On the military side, we saw several aircrafts purchased by the Americans as gifts to Norway. This turned out to be a brilliant move since the Norweigians adopted the American way of flying and today continue to buy a majority of their aircrafts from the United States. Also interesting was a nuclear bomb, the only nuclear bomb in a country that doesn't own their own nuclear weapons. This particular bomb is 500 times as powerful as the one that went off in Hiroshima! Perhaps the highlight of the visit was seeing a homemade plane... the engine was made of parts from car engines and the owner used it for about a year before the air patrol heard about the plane and grounded it.
After a lunch at the museum, we headed over to Widerøe's company headquarters here in Bodø. Widerøe is the top airline in Northern Norway, owned and operated under the Scandinavian Airline System (SAS). Interestingly, the airlines in Norway all bid once every three years to operate certain routes. Currently, Widerøe is operating 85 percent of the routes in Norway with a few international connections to Scotland and England. However, with the system designed as it is, there is no guarantee that the company will remain busy after three years so they have to continue to do the best they can to keep costs low and remain efficient and on time. The headquarters include an administrative building, followed by a series of hangers. Widerøe flight staff are expected to make several visits to the headquarters over the course of the year and the hangers hold several teaching tools including a flight simulator, a cockpit for training pilots and an airplane for practicing how to open emergency exit doors, administer first aid and any other necessities that might arise while in air. The building also includes an aviaition technical team working on fixing radios, batteries and any other wire connections; a fire set; and two hangers for planes in need of maintenance or repair. On this day, there were four planes waiting to integrate a new GPS system. An aviation transmitter team also works at the building, keeping track of all the planes scheduled to fly, their status and the crew aboard each aircraft. Watching the monitors was fascinating!
Norwegian Culture.
Living in Bodø has been an easy transition since it is such a small town. Since we have a key and know where our host family house is, we've been walking around town on our own and making it back to on our own after our commitments for the evening. I have noticed a few interesting cultural differences. First, both men and women exchange rings during an engagement but they are plain bands and are worn on the right hand. During a wedding ceremony, they will either engrave the band with the date or the woman will wear a second similar band. Another interesting experience is dining. In Norway, people do not wait for all the guests on the table to receive their meals before starting to eat. As soon as the first plate comes, the person is expected to start eating and at times, this can mean that the first meal is done before the last plate arrives on the table. There is also no keeping your elbows off the table or excusing yourself or other norms that we expect back at home. Similarly, if you accidentally bump into somebody while walking, people do not say "excuse me" or expect to hear it. In fact, if they do, they just ignore it because they do not know what to do. When you sneeze, people will generally not say "bless you" or make any comment. Tipping: there is generally no gratuity or taxes in Norway and that includes everything from taxi rides to dining out. However, everything is ridiculously expensive here so the tip is actually included in the item price.
Our evening started with our first Rotary presentation and ended with a couple bottles of wine and great conversation with our host, Majvi! Yes, it was another 2 am bedtime.
An early morning after a late night of fishing made for a very tired group of Americans as we met Sven Scheiderbauer, an incoming Rotarian president and our host for the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum (Norwegian Aviation Museum). Sven is the director of Norsk Luftfartsmuseum and was in fact hand-selected and courted to move from Sweden to Norway to take the helm of this national museum. As director, Sven is responsible for all the daily operations of the museum including the hiring and maintaining of the nearly 35+ staff members and for raising the 25 million NOK budget. The first 20 million NOK is relatively easy: 10 million NOK comes from the government and the other 10 million NOK comes from storage fees paid by the Norway military and other private entities that have aircrafts or archives on display on museum grounds. The remaining 5 million NOK is a challenge, largely because Norwegians do not donate in the same way Americans do at home. Instead, Sven has to be creative in bringing groups to the museum. His efforts over the past five years have been very successful, Norsk Luftfartsmusuem boasts a record of 40,000 attendees per year, which is especially impressive considering there are only 45,000 residents in Bodø.
The Norsk Luftfartsmuseum itself is shaped as a giant propeller and situated on approximately the same land as the German airfield during World War II. The aircrafts within the walls are separated into two exhibits: civil and military. The civilian hanger dates back to the early 1900s when Norway saw its first planes and record setting was a major sport. It wasn't until the 1950s when planes were used for transportation. Interesting exhibits included both the first female pilot, who never flew commercially since nobody would hire her to fly a plane and the second female pilot who was independently wealthy so bought her own plane but also retired after seven years due to lack of business. There was also an interesting display of a small plane that got caught between two electrical wires and how they saved the pilot and then shot the plane out of the sky instead of cutting down the wires and taking out the electricity of the town. On the military side, we saw several aircrafts purchased by the Americans as gifts to Norway. This turned out to be a brilliant move since the Norweigians adopted the American way of flying and today continue to buy a majority of their aircrafts from the United States. Also interesting was a nuclear bomb, the only nuclear bomb in a country that doesn't own their own nuclear weapons. This particular bomb is 500 times as powerful as the one that went off in Hiroshima! Perhaps the highlight of the visit was seeing a homemade plane... the engine was made of parts from car engines and the owner used it for about a year before the air patrol heard about the plane and grounded it.
After a lunch at the museum, we headed over to Widerøe's company headquarters here in Bodø. Widerøe is the top airline in Northern Norway, owned and operated under the Scandinavian Airline System (SAS). Interestingly, the airlines in Norway all bid once every three years to operate certain routes. Currently, Widerøe is operating 85 percent of the routes in Norway with a few international connections to Scotland and England. However, with the system designed as it is, there is no guarantee that the company will remain busy after three years so they have to continue to do the best they can to keep costs low and remain efficient and on time. The headquarters include an administrative building, followed by a series of hangers. Widerøe flight staff are expected to make several visits to the headquarters over the course of the year and the hangers hold several teaching tools including a flight simulator, a cockpit for training pilots and an airplane for practicing how to open emergency exit doors, administer first aid and any other necessities that might arise while in air. The building also includes an aviaition technical team working on fixing radios, batteries and any other wire connections; a fire set; and two hangers for planes in need of maintenance or repair. On this day, there were four planes waiting to integrate a new GPS system. An aviation transmitter team also works at the building, keeping track of all the planes scheduled to fly, their status and the crew aboard each aircraft. Watching the monitors was fascinating!
Norwegian Culture.
Living in Bodø has been an easy transition since it is such a small town. Since we have a key and know where our host family house is, we've been walking around town on our own and making it back to on our own after our commitments for the evening. I have noticed a few interesting cultural differences. First, both men and women exchange rings during an engagement but they are plain bands and are worn on the right hand. During a wedding ceremony, they will either engrave the band with the date or the woman will wear a second similar band. Another interesting experience is dining. In Norway, people do not wait for all the guests on the table to receive their meals before starting to eat. As soon as the first plate comes, the person is expected to start eating and at times, this can mean that the first meal is done before the last plate arrives on the table. There is also no keeping your elbows off the table or excusing yourself or other norms that we expect back at home. Similarly, if you accidentally bump into somebody while walking, people do not say "excuse me" or expect to hear it. In fact, if they do, they just ignore it because they do not know what to do. When you sneeze, people will generally not say "bless you" or make any comment. Tipping: there is generally no gratuity or taxes in Norway and that includes everything from taxi rides to dining out. However, everything is ridiculously expensive here so the tip is actually included in the item price.
Our evening started with our first Rotary presentation and ended with a couple bottles of wine and great conversation with our host, Majvi! Yes, it was another 2 am bedtime.
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