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Saxonia Issue 03 Part 034
Travel guide
By Rumrunner/VOID
l
Just as you perhaps have noticed, there are several things I enjoy more
than sitting in front of the screen all the time. Among these, my absolute
favourite is walking around in the mountains. Like most people, I have some
favourite places, although there are many I would like to visit.
For now (and most likely forever) my absolute favourite place must be the
area of Tinn/Vinje kommune in Norway. These places are rich in both nature,
history and culture.
Let's start off first by looking a little at Rjukan. This is a small (small
for many people, that is) town lying in a narrow valley. People who have had
history in school are most likely to have heard about this place. This is
where Hitler tried to make heavywater in order to build atomic bombs,
using the factories of Hydro (which at that time specialised in making
artificial fertiliser). I can tell a little about what happened here first.
Well, like said, Hitler tried to make heavywater and took over the mentioned
factories for this purpose. The allied knew that this had to be sabotaged,
this was important for the fighters of the free world, afterall, an enemy
with atomic weapons were more powerful than one without such. The first
attempt to destry the factory was bombers who were going to bomb the
factory. To put it short, they got lost in the fog and crashed in the
mountains. This is not so strange considering the narrowness of the valley.
To make this clearer, I can tell the the sun never shines in Rjukan during
wintertime. Because of this, the owners of Hydro build Norway's and Northern
Europe's first two-rope line-carts so that people could get up in the
mountains fast to see the sun. But ofcourse, the valley is not dark all the
time in the winter, the sun shines at the mountain sides and the snow makes
it even brighter. But back to the historylesson.
It came clear that the best bet of sabotaging the factories successfully was
to let people who knew the place do it. A small group, among others
consisting of a man named Claus Helberg and Anton Poulsen got a small time
training in England, before a plane dropped them on Hardangervidda, which is
the biggest plains at that height long outside Norway. Here, they lived for
several months during wintertime, hunting raindeer for food, and eating the
stomach of the animals as vegetables in order to avoid sickness. They had
to keep in touch with the rest of the allies and they ofcourse needed a
radio for that purpose. The radio needed batteries, so Claus carried them
(and rememer, at that time, these batteries resembled car-batteries) a long
way to a garage, where he put the exhausted battery for charging and brought
a fully charged one back.
When the time came, the small group walked down the mountain side, this is
today a historic trail and many people walk parts of it every summer. The
hard part was getting to the factory. It was located on the other side of
the valley, which at this place is extremely deep and narrow. The only way
of getting across was a heavily guarded bridge (which still is there, and
there is even possibilities of bungee-jumping from this bridge, people who
has jumped claim that seeing the narrow valley approaching you is a feel
outside anything else). As there was no way of using the bridge, the
saboteurs climbed down the valley and up the other side again, the soldiers
were only watching out for attacs from above, they didn't believe that
anybody could approach from underneath.
At the factory, our men knew the guard-schedule well and managed to enter
the factories unseen. They placed bombs there, and managed to blow up the
equipment for making the heavywater. The soldiers didn't understand what had
happened at first but eventually found out. Here, our men did a clever move,
instead of going away from where they knew the soldiers would go to look for
them, they walked towards them (unseen ofcourse) and passed them in this
direction. Later some of them headed back for Hardangervidda. Claus Helberg
was pursued by a soldier here at some point, but got away. There is more to
the story which I perhaps will tell another time. And in case you have seen
the film called Heroes Of Telemark starring Kirk Douglas, you should know
that this film is not historically correct (just like most other American
films), nobody was shot during the action. Later on, this sabotage action
has been called the most successful during the whole of World War 2. It
also shows that there's not necessarily military personnel who do the best
performances. The people of Norway has always been a stubborn and nature-
enjoying people and the folks were in good shape ( Claus Helberg had a lodge
high up in the mountain and they had to take a several-hours walk to get
there. It's not strange that people in these areas of Norway usually get
older than in most big cities, and stay in good health until the end).
Now, let's move about ten minutes drive to the west. We now get into the
mountains. Here a lodge called Rjukan Fjellstue is. This is where I use
to stay at my trips in these areas. The owner is a man called Tor Nicolaysen
who always has interesting stories to tell from close and distant past.
The price is not too high, and breakfast, lunch-package and dinner is
included. The dinner consists of three courses, first there's usually soup
or flatbrød (which is a special thin kind of bread) and spekemat (dried and
salted meat). Then, the maincourse is usually either raindeer-stew, trout
from the waters in the area or deer-steak. I must say that I have never got
better food than here. This goes not only for dinner, but also the
breakfast. Tor is up at five o'clock every morning to bake his own bread,
he makes his own rømme (a kind of sour-cream), and there's lots to choose
from like cheese, meat and herring in various shapes. Continuing with the
dinner, the dessert is usually either whipped cream with bringebær
(I don't know if this is what's called boysenberries), or icecream, and
a cup of coffee or tea comes with it.
After breakfast, there are several places to walk for the day in this area.
There's a little dirt-road leading into Hjerdalen from Rjukan Fjellstue.
This is the only road going in here, and so it's very quiet. You have the
view of Gausta in one direction. Many people claim Gausta to be the most
beautiful mountain no matter where you are. From the top, you can see one
fifth of Norway, which is uncommon considering how long Norway is. Taking
a look in the other direction in Hjerdalen, you are closer to Hardangervidda
for each step you take. There are cabins many places, I believe that these
once were used as seter, which is places farmers used to bring their animals
during summertime, to let them go free around. There are old rock-fences
build, so man being here is nothing new.
When you come to Hardangervidda, you can really see the greatness of the
plains, both in size and majesty. There are wide fields where you, if lucky
can see wild raindeer, which is unique today. Norway has the last wild
hurd of raindeer, and we hope that they will never disappear. Today, there
are no activity like building or any other form of human destroyal in these
parts. If there were, I seriously doubt that life would be meaningful to
me anymore. You can also see mountains in the horizon. Usually, they will
have snow on them even if it's june or july. Late august there might only
be a trace of snow left, but the mountains are rarely naked. There's a
special sort of berries growing on Hardangervidda, called molter. They are
quite common longer north in Norway, but not so much in these parts. There
is no possibility of getting commercially grown molter, and that's a thing
I appreciate highly. Commercial growing of any fruits, berries or whatever
takes away the real and natural taste, try out the raindeer-stew at Rjukan
Fjellstue and compare to anything else if you want to. The difference is
clear. The berries are ready to be picked around june/july many places,
but on Hardangervidda, it's colder, so they take longer time to be ready.
For now, let's leave this untouched image of Hardangervidda and take a
look at other places.
I mentioned Gausta, this beautiful mountain. It's not especially high, the
top peaks at 6178 feet (1883 meters) if I'm not mistaken. Looking at the
mountain, it's very symmetrical from one side (the side most people see
when they drive to Rjukan). It's an impressive sight, and thousands of
people walk to the top every year. I was there for the first time this
summer (which makes it about half a year ago now), and I was especially
lucky. From a parkinglot it's about two hours walk to the top if you take
the time to look around (and take some photographs in my case), but it's
possible to get there in one hour. I was early enough so there weren't too
many people when I reached the top, and I like peace and quiet so that was
very fine. Then, it turned out that the local newspaper called Rjukan
Arbeiderblad calebrated their 80.th anniversary this day. This is a very
special newspaper, it has about 2000 subscribers and they still have their
own printing gear, which is uncommon even among newspapers in big cities.
Anyway, they arranged the first concert ever on Gaustatoppen (the peak),
and it was quite a special feel to hear folkmusic and countrytunes at such
a place. Furthermore, they gave away food to everybody who wanted it, real
norwegian food like the aforementioned spekemat and local traditional bread.
Tor Nicolaysen was alse there, like I have already told, he's an excellent
storyteller and he also told a story from these areas. To get you in the
right mood, I will try to retell it here in English :
It was common in the old days that during summertime, farmers had a place
where they brought their animals where they could walk around freely, before
they took them back to the mainfarm when fall arrived. Often, the young
people on the farm, both boys and girls, were the ones who stayed with the
animals during this time. Norwegians have always been an independent people
and so there were no huge farms, so it was the children of the farmers who
looked out for the animals. At this particular farm, the daughter was the
one who was to follow the animals. She had a boyfriend, and on the day she
was going he gave her a lur (a musical instrument, almost like a big
trumpet) which he had made for her. He told her that every night when she
was finished with work, she could play some happy tunes, that way he knew
that everything was well with her.
Now, in these days, just like today, there were bad people travelling
about. After a few weeks on the summerplace, three robbers and killer came
to the young girl. They demanded that she served them some food, and she
brought them what she had, soup and grøt (something in the likes of oatmeal
in English if I'm not mistaken). This was not good enough for the bandits,
so they went out and killed one of the animals and demanded that the girl
prepared it for them. They also had brought booze with them, and they got
more and more drunk as the time went by.
Now, the girl was smart and pretended to be on their side. She told them
that she had a lur and that she could play a little for them. They agrees
to that, and she started off playing some happy tunes. Suddenly though, she
made some horrible screams with the lur and the bandits grabbed it away from
her, but it was too late. The signal was already sent.
Her boyfriend, long way down the valley had heard the first happy tunes, and
then when the noise came to his ear, he knew that something was wrong. He
grabbed his axe as the best weapon he had and started running. Approaching
the farm of the girl's parents, he stopped and told what had happened, and
both the father and the girl's brothers went with him.
These parts are very steep and the girl's boyfriend ran as fast as he could,
never stopping to catch his breath. He outran both the father and the
brothers of the girl. Arriving at the summerplace, he pulled the door wide
open just as the bandits were about to rape his girlfriend. He swung his
axe the best he could and one bandit fell, then another one. The third one
however got his knife out and managed to stab the girl's boyfriend. He
still had enough power left to kill this last bandit aswell, but he then
became weaker and weaker.
When the girl's father and brothers arrived at the place, they found their
daughter sitting on the floor with the dead body of her boyfriend in her
arms. She never found another man after this.
She spent many more summers at the same place though, and still today,
people say that in a quiet night, you can still hear the tunes of her lur.
The tones are light, yet with a sad feel to them.
There are many stories like this one but listening to Tor telling it on
such a place like Gaustatoppen gave a very special feeling to it.
Having told a little about Gausta, there's two more places I need to tell
about in this area. If we move back to the other side of the walley, not
far from Rjukan Fjellstue, we find what's remaining of the once so beautiful
Rjukanfossen, one of the most impressing waterfalls in the world. In the
1800's, people from far away took the time to travel here just to see this
sight. Back then, the place had a hotel located nearby and many known
people stayed here. Among the guests in these parts were Jules Verne, who
stayed here (I'm not sure if it was in this specific hotel) when writing
one of his books. Also the king of the land then known as Siam visited this
place. The ordfører (governer in Rjukan) wanted to make this special for
the king and wanted people to greet him upon arrival, but the people were
not interested. They had heard that he had several wives and this was not
proper in their eyes. This was solved by fooling the people into believing
that it was the king of another country named Sion who had several wives.
Today, Rjukanfossen is sadly destroyed. This is one of the most irritating
things here in Norway, more and more waterfalls are dammed up for making
power. We cannot use half of the power for ourselves, and the government
sells it to other countries. Then, when winter arrives and the powerusage
goes up, there's not enough water left, so Norway have to import expensive
power from other countries. It takes people from the government to be so
stupid that they don't understand that this is not a profitable business.
Anyway, Rjukanfossen was destroyed by the Hydro company which I told about
earlier. They are known to destroy places and then moving away from the
place. Today, it's another powercompany that uses the water which should
have been in Rjukanfossen. Anyway, if you are lucky, you might be on the
right place a day when they let the water back where it should be, and you
will then get a magnificent sight. I still hope to see this for real and
not just on pictures.
Right, the last place I want to tell you about is Tinnsjøen, a lake located
below Rjukan. This is in many ways a special lake. It's Norway's second
deepest lake, and it also has some history connected to it. Like I told
earlier, Hitler tried to make heavywater in Rjukan, and after the sabotage-
action, the factory was repaired and production continued. This time,
saboteurs waited until the barrels containing the stuff was loaded onto
a ferry on Tinnsjøen, which was going to transport it to a place with
railway connections. From here, it was going to be brought to Germany. To
make a long story short, they blew up the ferry and considering this being
Norway's second deepest lake (the deepest one is called Hornindalsvatnet),
there were no way of salvaging the barrels.
There also something else interesting about Tinnsjøen. There a very special
fish living deep down, most often over three hundred feet (100 meters)
down. No other lake in the world has this kind of fish, the closest you get
is one living in the Bajkal-lake in Russia. But it's not exactly like this
fish. The fish gets big, often around 15-20 pounds (7 kilos). The local's
way of fishing this fish was from old times to tie a stone to a rope which
had several fish-hooks tied to it with some distance inbetween them. The
stone assured that you could reach the bottom. You had to know where the
lake was not too deep for this. Then, when the ice was think enough to
walk on during winter, they made a hole, threw the stone in and let it sink
to the bottom. They then attached the other end of the rope to a stick so
they got hold of it. When they pulled the rope up somewhat later, most
often there were fish on atleast one of the fish-hooks. By the way the fish
in called Gaute and I plan to try to fish it when summer arrives. There's
a campingplace nearby and they have boats for rent and it would be
interesting to taste this fish. Some say it's good and some say it's not
for eating but you never know until you have tasted it for yourself.
Right, now you know what I like to do and what places I like to visit when
I get the chance. The nature gives me something that no computer ever will
be able to do and I think that if I didn't get the chance to be out in the
nature anymore, life would not be worth living any longer. If anybody is
interested, by the way, I would be happy to act as a guide for you.
