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Norwegian History in Stereoview
by Murray Lundberg
This series of stereocards was published by Underwood & Underwood in about 1905. The captions are as printed on each card.
Click on each image to see the whole card greatly enlarged.
674 - Among mountains and chasms of ice - enormous crevasses of Brigsdal glacier, Norway.
We are up above beautiful Lake Olden on the Brigsdalsbrae (brae means
"glacier"), one arm of the largest glacier in all Europe. This glacier is practically
impassable - the most venturesome tourists make merely a few experimental explorations about
the edge of the ice, as we are doing now. Only two men have actually crossed it, meeting with their
marvelously trained judgement all the perilous emergencies of the passage: one of those men was
the famous Norwegian guide Aabrekke, who now stands before us on that farther ridge of ice.
The nearer man is another excellent guide named Thor Eide. The axe carried by Eide is what he uses
to cut footholds in otherwise impassable cliffs and slippery ridges. The lower, pointed end can
be thrust deep into a mass of ice, forming a stake to which to cling. The rope connecting the two
men is indispensable; if the party were larger all the members would be connected in this same
fashion, probably not more than three or five on one rope. Though small it is strong enough to
hold the weight of two heavy men. Over and over again it happens in glacier-climbing that one
member of a party does break through a treacherous shell of ice or lose his footing and so slip
down into the mouth of a crevasse anywhere from thirty to three hundred feet deep. So long as
the other men can retain their own foothold, it is possible to pull him up, none the worse for the
slip. Ordinarily the rope is left a little slack between each two men, so that, if one falls,
the others may have time to brace themselves for the sudden strain. (See Stereographs 672-3 for
more inclusive views of the same glacier.)
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672 - Perilous Brigsdal Glacier, one of the grandest in all Norway.
We are part way up the mountain side above the Oldenvand (Olden Lake), near the
eastern head of the great Nordfjord. We are facing S. S. E. Before us, over that ice-rimmed
horizon, lie miles and miles and miles of ice-sheeted heights and ice-filled valleys, between
here and the more smiling farming districts about Christiana. Five hundred square miles of
Norway's area are covered by the one gigantic sheet of ice of which we see now merely a single
drooping corner, hanging down between those precipices!
The huge mass looks like snow, it wa originally snow, but long ago became
compacted by its own terrific weight into solid, crystalline ice. Now the weight of masses
higher up is steadily pushing this lower part down through the valley, and at that lowermost end
it is melting and breaking up under the midsummer sun. (Stereographs 673-674 take us close to the
broken ice masses.) It is much deeper than it looks from here; some of those innocent looking
cracks (crevasses) are fifty feet deep and others of the same nature higher up the valley may be
hundreds of feet deep. The grayish-brownish streaks are fragments of rock, rasped and torn off
the cliffs as the ice river pushed its way past. The soil in which these trees are now growing
consisted originally of just such rock fragments, ground up by the heavy ice and washed down into
the lower valley by its melting floods. The rate of motion in such an ice river as a whole varies
according to local circumstances. Similar glaciers in Switzerland have a definite record of
moving two feet in a day.
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762 - Ragged ice-masses of Kjendal glacier at lower end, where snows of years ago feed the
river - Norway.
Geography - To view the glistening masses of Kjendal glacier you must
first travel by steamer seven miles up the Nord Fjord on the west coast of Norway to Leon - a
mountain village. There you will find Leonwand, a blue lake in a setting of glacier-shrouded
mountains. A sail of an hour and a half on this lake rings to you its upper end; thence a
three-hour walk over a boulder-strewn old glacier bed leads to the glacier.
Physiography. - Geology - Western Norway bears evidence of past
and present glacial action. Everywhere it is wildly picturesque, but there is no better example
of past ice-work than in the deep, narrow Nord Fjord and the Sogne Fjord stretching to the Atlantic
at the west. Both were cut out by grinding rock-shod glaciers geologic eras ago.
The terminal moraine of the Kjendal was once pushed a mile farther down the
valley. We know this because of the vast assortment of boulders strewn over the surface. A glacier
moves very slowly, only a few inches a day. It is always forming above and melting away below, so
the terminal moraine is formed at the point where the rate of melting balances the rate of flow.
Future conditions alone will determine whether this glacier is to continue to recede up the
mountain, leaving the mass of debris in its wake, or again advance down the valley to the sea.
Some glaciers in Norway do actually reach the sea.
This Mer de Glace spreads up the mountain side at an angle of 45°. Below
two milk-white streams issue from blue caverns. Above it joins the greatest of glaciers in Europe
- the Jostedalsbrae.
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665 - Nordfjord bride and groom with guests and parents at their house door, Brigsdal, Norway.
The valley where we have paused now is in western Norway above Oldenvand (Lake
Olden) at the eastern end of the Nordfjord. It is a poor farming country, as one might infer
from the sight of that hillside strewn with the rubbish of some avalanche.
This is the home of the bride's parents. The elderly couple in the doorway
are her father and mother. It is a fairly comfortable house, quite typical of this part of the
country. That gorgeous gilt crown worn by the bride is the traditionally correct thing; this
little girl in the kerchief looks forward to the day when she herself may be the proud wearer
of such an imposing ornament, with similar dangling ribbons covered with tinsel ornament. The
front of the bride's bodice is also gaily embroidered and she wears as jewelry a particularly
large brooch with glittering pendants. The rest of her costume, including the long apron, is
such as she will wear on Sundays and holidays for years to come. A formal betrothal, made after
due deliberation on the part of the parents, is nearly as binding as the wedding itself, but
the ceremony, performed by a Lutheran pastor and witnessed by neighbors from far and near, is
an occasion for hospitable festivities as fine as the families can afford.
(Tales by Boyesen, Bjornson and others give a good idea of "the old, old
story," as they live it in country places just like this. There is an account of a country
wedding in Synnove Solbakken. See also Ibsen's Per Gynt.
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696 - People of the frigid North - Lapp home and family, near Tromsoe, Norway.
Only about 1,400 miles from the North Pole! We are away up in the Land of
the Midnight Sun, a short row from the fishing town of Tromso. It is a surprise to see grass
and fir trees clothing the ground, but mother earth makes the most of the short summer here -
rye, barley and oats will grow even as far north as this where there is a favourable exposure
and birch and wild cherry-tree trees are not uncommon.
This Lapp family have come over the border from Sweden just for the season
and it is their summer residence where we find them. They are lineal descendants of the aboriginal
inhabitants of these northlands, and their language is a far-off cousin of the Hungarian. This
house is built of stones and small logs covered over with turf. There is an opening in the top to
let out the smoke of the open fire and all the air and light enter by that opening, and by the
door, where the mother sits with that chubby baby. A pretty large family it seems to be for one
such hut, but our friends yonder are not very exacting in the matter of food and clothing and
fresh air. They get along serenely with their reindeer to depend on as a chief source of
livelihood. This beast has just been caught in the pasture (by a lasso over its horns) and
led around here to show us a specimen of the master's herd. It is just as well that the mistress
does not bestir herself to offer us a drink of reindeer milk, for it is peculiarly thick, as if
it had been beaten up with eggs, and the flavor is too strong to recommend it at first to a
stranger; in fact the mother dilutes it with water before she gives it to these uncritical urchins
for their supper. By the way, it must be good food on the whole, for the children do look plump,
well-fed, and rather bright, with all their natural shyness in the presence of us queer southerners.
They and the dog, like children and dogs everywhere, are fast friends.
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661 - From the mountain inn at Vidde saeter, down the Vidde valley - Mt. Skaala in the right
distance, Norway.
We have come up eight miles through that valley from the Strynsvand (Stryns Lake).
When we were at Hjelle (Stereograph 680) we looked across the head of the lake to the same Mt.
Skaala that now stands of there at the right, at the end of the valley.
The government maintains a small inn or rest house for travelers at this point
on the road; it is the direct route between Strynsvand and its sister lakes at the head of the
Nordfjord and Marok at the head of Geirangerfjord. The building just before us is a farmhouse
such as the country people build hereabouts. The roof is covered with a thick blanket of sods,
weighted somewhat like a Swiss chalet. Those windows open like doors, in French fashion.
In winter they are seldom opened at all; few Norwegians like fresh air. A large herd of cows
is kept here. Seeing for one's self how the bare rock crops out here and there like elbows
through a tattered garment, one realizes what a little way this part of the valley has developed
beyond the stage of uninhabitable wilderness.
Looking sharply, we can trace for some distance down the valley the road which
passes beyond the farm house. If we continue our journey in the opposite direction, following
the road as it leads (to the right) to Marok, we shall by and by have to descend one of the
steepest grades ever controlled in the road construction of the world (Stereograph 683-684).
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748 - Herd of reindeer, hardy creatures of the northern wilds, and snowy heights of Hardanger
glacier, Norway.
In order to reach this point away up on desolate t. Berakup, it is necessary to
tramp for hours up over dreary, uninhabited heights, northeast of the head of Hardanger Fjord.
In order to secure this negative, the photographer crept around behind sheltering rocks, keeping
out of sight until this moment. As soon as the creatures realized his proximity, they stampeded.
At this instant we have a rare opportunity to study them at close range. They colors vary from
snow-white to all sort of yellowish and reddish browns. No other creatures could live on the
scanty pasturage to be found in this region, but they manage to get a living. Just now, in
midsummer, they can find plenty of mosses and lichens. Those spreading antlers are in most cases
not yet fully grown and they are still more or less tender and yielding in texture, but just
before winter comes they will be as hard as flint and of extraordinary toughness, so that they
can be used as tools with which to cut and dig away the snow. The cutting will be done with that
portion of the antlers which projects down and outward over the forehead. The upper branches will
catch the loosened snow and toss it out of the way so that the mosses beneath are accessible for
food. The only person whom they will knowingly allow to approach them is a certain Lapp who
follows them about and occasionally gives them salt. These particular animals have never been
milked or taught in any way, but they are of the same species as the deer domesticated by Lapps
in other parts of the country. (See, e. g., a Lapp family with their animals, near Tromsoe -
Stereograph 696).
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667 - Grytereids glacier glittering above drifting clouds, seen across Lake Olden, Norway.
We are looking westward across the deep and narrow Oldenvand (Lake Olden) in one
of the most beautiful parts of the famous district about the head of the Nordjford.
Notice that lonely gaard (farm) where some thrifty Norseman is getting a
living off the soil washed down into the lake as the result of ages and ages of work by that
glacier and by the stream formed from its melting waters. In fact we have here before us now in
one glance a sort of condensed history of world development as scientists trace it out. There are
the solid rocks, the earth's substance, some of them very likely the primeval stuff just as it
cooled, some more or less transformed by the changes in the earth's crust ages ago. There are
the drifting clouds whose condensed moisture makes the snowfall on the mountain tops. There is the
glacier (snow transformed into ice by the pressure of its own tremendous weight), slowly sliding
downwards - perhaps a foot in a summer day - as its lower edges melt, tearing and grinding the
rocks beneath and beside it as it moves. There is the stream, sweeping the rock waste down the
mountain side and grinding it finer as it goes, till that great heap of debris has accumulated in
the edge of the lake. And there is the vegetation that has developed by feeding on the powdered
rock stuff, the water and the air. The life business of these agile goats is to eat the grass
growth and transform it into milk. And, last of all, the family over in that farm house live
mainly on their garden stuff, milk, cheese and such like stuff of home production.
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620 - Imposing beauty of spray-enshrouded Rjukanfos, the "foaming fall," in the 800 ft. leap,
Norway
We have already seen this Maan River, a few miles farther down in its journey
(Stereograph 619). This is the most exciting of its varied experiences on the way from the
mountains of northern Telemarken (southern Norway) to the sea. We are facing about S.S.W. Eight hundred
feet the waters leap from the lap of those worn cliffs down to the bottom of the valley. We cannot,
from this perch of ours on the side of the mountain wall, see away down to the bottom of the valley,
and those veils of iridescent spray that rise from the lower rocks make part of the chasm quite
indistinct. The draught blowing through keeps the mist moving like vapoury clouds.
Does this seem a dizzying height from which to overlook the roaring waters? Yet
it is secure and commonplace in comparison with the place from which travelers used to see it a
few years ago, before that narrow shelf was blasted out of the mountain-side, to make a road. As
you see, there is room for only one wagon, but in former years only a rough footpath was available.
That arrangement of stones along the edge of the road, to guard against accident, is such as we
shall see many times in this region of rugged heights and dizzy highways. (Stereograph 621 gives a
close view of the falls from a point on those cliffs at the right only a few feet from the
pouring torrent. No. 622 gives a chance to look through the arch of a rainbow spanning the gorge
a few rods distant.)
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8992 - Karl Johan's Street, W.N.W. to the Royal Palace, Christiana, Norway
This is the principal business street of the fine old town; you are looking a
little north of west up to the palace on the hill, the residence of young King Haakon VII and
Queen Maud. The national Parliament House is just ahead at the left beside that mass of trees
in the Ejdsvolds Square; there the Norwegian Storthing (Parliament) meets yearly, 114 members
assembling from all parts of Norway, and there the Council of State maintains its offices.
Seventy-six of the members of Parliament represent rural constituents, for Norway does not
crowd many of her people into large cities. Christiana here has a population of about 150,000
but it is the only city with over 100,000.
The University is farther up, at the right (north) side of the street. A
great many famous Norwegians have been students there - among them Nansen, the Arctic explorer,
and Ibsen, the dramatist, whose reputation extends all around the world. Both these men have
many a time walked up and down this very street.
The great market and the Church of Our Saviour are farther back down the
street behind us, on the north (right) side; the main railway station is still farther away
behind us at the east end of the street, near the fine harbor.
The shops and hotels here are excellent and a large volume of profitable
business is carried on every year. There are large mills and factories here and the considerable
export business includes the handling of quantities of timber, fish, oats and ice.
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609 - Leaving old home and friends - waving goodbyes to emigrants starting for America,
Christiana, Norway
The chief business and residence districts of Christiana lie off at our right.
We are looking approximately south. These waters are the head of Christiana fjord. The Wilson
line ocean steamer Angelo is just steaming out of the harbor; it will take her five hours
to get down to Christansund at the mouth of the fjord, and then there will be a thirty-hour voyage,
across open sea, to Hull (England). There she will connect with transatlantic lines for New York
and Boston. A large proportion of the passengers are on their way to America. It is said that
there are to-day more men and women of Norwegian descent in America than there are living in
Norway. The increase in the emigration movement during the past few years is very striking: in
1901 there were 12,488 emigrants to America; in 1903 the registration reached 25,109.
Increasing numbers are also making new homes in certain of the new lands in the
northwestern provinces of British America, adjacent to Minnesota and North Dakota. They make most
desirable citizens wherever they go, for they are intelligent, thrifty and ambitious for their
children, and are very soon found taking their share of responsibility as office-holders under a
republican form of government. Nor do they forget relatives and friends here in the old home-land.
Postal records kept by the United States government show that in a single year Norwegian residents
of the United States have sent cash remittances to Norway amounting to more than a million dollars.
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648 - Bergen, west from the Floifjeld, over the harbor (right) and Puddefjord
(distant).
This height from which we are looking off is a favorite overlook for both
townspeople and tourists. The zigzag approach is so steep that one is very glad to find those
benches provided for pedestrians. We are now facing nearly west , with the greater part of
inhabited Norway behind us; the open (North Atlantic) ocean is twelve or fifteen miles away
beyond those hilly islands that enclose the Puddefjord.
For nearly 900 years there has been a town here and during the 16th and 17th
centuries it was one of the greatest business centres of northern Europe. Some 54,000 people
live here and the residence districts reach off to our right and left farther than we now see.
We are overlooking the chief business districts. It is the cathedral whose square tower with
the slender spire rises near the foot of our mountain. The famous market which we shall
presently visit (Stereographs 650-651) is held at the head of the harbor near where we see
the vacant, open space south-west of the cathedral. Those warehouses along the quays are devoted
very largely to the wholesale fish business, for this is a famous old centre of that trade.
Every year great fleets of fishing-boats come in with cargoes of cod, herring, salmon and
cod-liver oil, and Bergen shippers send out of this one harbor fish exports to the value of
$6,000,000 annually.
This happens to be a day of bright sunshine (but with some haze in the distance)
- a rare occasion, for according to local tradition it is rainy or at least cloudy four-fifths
of the time. It is said that one home-coming Bergen skipper saw bright sunshine on those roofs
and put out again to sea, not recognizing the haven!
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