From Aftenposten: New Arctic oasis found
Researchers have found the world's northernmost underwater hot springs, spouting out of the seabed in the otherwise chilly waters of the Norwegian Sea. It's a veritable oasis featuring tropical-like coral and unusual plant life. (...)
The underwater hot springs were found at a depth of 600 meters on the so-called "Mohnsryggen" north of the Arctic island of Jan Mayen, where Norway maintains a weather station and military presence. Researchers made the discovery during an international expedition this summer.
The researchers were assisted by techological equipment on board the research vessel GO Sars and the remote-controlled mini-submarine Bathysaurus.
Their eyes widened when the mini-sub glided into an underwater forest of sorts, featuring pinnacles from which streamed water as hot as 250 degrees C. [continue, see photos]
From vnunet.com: Norway goes open source.
The Norwegian Minister of Modernisation, Morten Andreas Meyer, has promised that his government will stop using proprietary software and transfer to open source.
Speaking at the eNorge 2009 conference Meyer outlined an initiative to digitise government relations. This includes a commitment that all public institutions will plan the introduction of open source systems by next year.
He also said that every citizen would be given their own home page on the government's servers to make dealing with the state easier.
"Proprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and government," explained Meyer.
While he did not mention Microsoft by name, Meyer did make references to " the spreadsheet almost everyone uses" and commented that this would be the last time he made a presentation using the software. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Bergen switches to Linux
Linux info
From Aftenposten: Ancient structures found near highway.
Two longhouses estimated to be about 2000 years old have been found during excavations near the E6 highway just south of Sarpsborg.
For the first time archeologists in Norway have been able to reveal a large surface area linked to known helleristninger - rock carvings - and the dig has produced results.
Traces of two 12-15 meter (39-49 foot) long constructions have come to light in the middle of the key area for rock engravings in Østfold County, near Solbergkrysset in Skjeberg. A few meters to the side of the longhouses lies a large stone bearing carved drawings of a great ship and a rider on a horse.
"The houses are probably built during the Roman iron age, in the first few centuries AD. In one of the houses we have found an iron knife, ceramics and burnt animal bone, the remains of a ritual burial of sacrifices to protect the house and its inhabitants," Bårdseth said. [continue]
From Norway's Criminal Habit Uncovered, a section of the Easter Around the World page at Infoplease.com:
In Norway, reading detective novels and crime thrillers has become a popular Easter pastime. Paaskekrim (Easter crime) refers to the new crime novels available at Easter. The period from Holy Thursday through East Monday is a public holiday, and many Norwegians take vacations to the mountains, or to the coast at this time. According to folklore professors at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the University of Oslo, the tradition of reading about crime at Easter may stem from the violent nature of Christ's death.
Related:
Easter - påskekrimmen - thrillers - cyberclip.com
From Aftenposten: Moose rings twice.
It was too early to be the postman, and a family in Buvikåsen found instead that their unexpected visitor was from the animal kingdom.
The family had barely risen from their beds when they heard the doorbell chime on a frosty morning during the winter holidays last week.
The man of the house, which is on the edge of a forest, tried to spot who their unexpected visitor could be, but the view of the front door was blocked by a veranda roof - but he could hear heavy breathing from the entrance stairs, newspaper Trønderbladet reports. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Moose breaks into grocery store
Don't mess with a drunken moose
From canoe.ca: Norwegian ski jumpers leap into trees for contest.
Unlike most ski jumpers, entrants in a Norwegian competition this weekend will lose points for any smooth and graceful landings on the snow.
These jumpers will be aiming for the trees. And the higher they land, the better their scores may be.
The unofficial Norwegian tree ski-jumping championships are being organized for the second time in southern Norway's mountains by a group of mountaineering enthusiasts, who are hoping that roads closed by snow don't stop them.
"It isn't really all that dangerous," Oeystein Lia, one of the organizers, said Friday. "It usually goes pretty well." (...)
The idea is to take flight from a mound of snow, fly through the air and land in a tree. To qualify as a completed jump, the skier has to hang onto the tree without falling to the ground.
"You really have to dare to give it your all in the jump, so you end up near the top of the tree," said Lia. "If you don't, you can slam right into the trunk." [continue]
If you were Norwegian, you might have a bunad, or national costume. The styles vary from region to region, and these days they're worn on special occasions, usually just by women... or so I thought, anyway. Aftenposten reports that now more men want national costumes.
Women traditionally have made up the biggest market for the unique Norwegian national costumes known as bunad. Men have been getting into the act in recent years, and some tailors are now reporting a big jump in sales.
Author Ari Behn, married to Princess Martha Louise and known as a bit of a fashion hound, is just one of those keen to put on his national costume at important events.
It's high season for makers of the costumes that represent different geographical districts in Norway. With the 17th of May approaching, when nearly everyone who has a bunad wears it, needles and thread are flying around the nation to get the bunad ready.
It takes months to make a bunad and they sell for anywhere from NOK 12,000 to NOK 50,000 (USD 2,000-9,000). It all depends on how elaborate the bunad is, and how much gold or silver jewelry goes with it.
They're used for all formal occasions, from weddings to Christmas Eve, and are designed to last a lifetime. Most are passed on to the next generation as well. [continue, see photos]
Related:
Bunad - Wikipedia
Syttende Mai (17th of May) - Mirabilis.ca
From Aftenposten: Ancient church found.
The site of a nearly 1,000-year-old church has been found in Skien, making it likely Norway's oldest. Norway may have been converted to Christianity far earlier than believed.
The remains were found in 2001 but have only now been dated radiologically. Experts believe the find strengthens theories that Norway was Christian in several spots long before Håkon the Good, Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldsson began their missionary raids.
"It is fun to see confirmation of what we have long believed, that there was a Christianization of Norway long before the two Olavs came," said Jan Brendalsmo, archeologist at the Foundation for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU). [continue]
From Aftenposten: Archaeologists strike gold in secret spot.
Eleven small, golden reliefs have been unearthed at an archaeological dig somewhere in eastern Norway. Officials won't say where, because they think more of the 1,400-year-old gold objects will be found at the site.
"This is a tremendously unique and exciting discovery, the kind an archaeologist makes only once in a lifetime," professor Heid Gjøstein Resi told newspaper Aftenposten. Resi, who's tied to the Oslo museum housing Viking treasures (the Oldsakssamlingen at the Kulturhistorisk Museum), has been leading the excavation where the gold objects were found.
They were first unearthed in October, before digging was forced to stop for the winter. Resi said they found on the excavation's first day, and the thrill intensified when no less than 10 more were found later.
The archaeologists call the small reliefs gullgubber, which basically translates to "golden old men." That's because the first of their kind found in Scandinavia depicted men with beards, even though those found this fall depict a man and a woman. [continue]
From Aftenposten: Svalbard takes over ice golf.
Temperatures around minus 30C (-22F), the danger of snow blindness and the possibility of a tragic meeting with a polar bear - if these strike you as exciting instead of terrifying, then you should consider signing up for the Ice Golf Championship 2005 on Svalbard, golf.no reports.
Are you tempted?
Armed guards keep the polar bears at bay while the golfing takes place, and specialist equipment is highly recommended. Tinted goggles are needed to prevent snow blindness, and colored golf balls are advisable if you want to have a chance of making a second shot. Clubs should have shafts of steel, since graphite shatters when exposed to extreme cold and force. [full article]
Related:
Not your usual round of golf - athropolis.com
From Aftenposten: Moose breaks into grocery store.
Arne Halberg thought his store was being robbed when its security alarm started howling early Thursday. The prowler turned out to be a moose, who apparently was hungry or confused, or both.
The moose, who may also have been somewhat mentally disturbed, first crashed through the main window of the grocery story in Elverum, just east of Hamar.
The huge animal then made its way past a heavy refrigerated case before it started galloping through the aisles. [continue]
Poor moose!
From Northampton Today: 13th century silver cross found in field.
Historians at the British Museum have been studying a 13th century crucifix unearthed in a Northamptonshire field by treasure hunter Steve Kane.
The solid silver cross was found by Mr Kane while he was using a metal detector in the field at a farm near Grendon. (...) Beverley Nenk, the curator of the medieval collection at the British Museum, said: "It would have been used as an item of personal jewellery, and would have been bought by someone fairly affluent. It would have been used to ward off evil spirits and harm, and would have had the same symbolic significance as a modern-day crucifix."
The article includes a photo of the cross. It's similar to my silver Norwegian crucifix, which is apparently a replica of a medieval crucifix found in Norway.
From This is Lincolnshire: Strand of science saves Viking hair.
Strands of hair from Viking times have been saved by students from the University of Lincoln.
The artefacts, which were uncovered at a burial site in Russia, have been handed to the university by the Hull and East Riding Museum.
They are said to be unique as many human remains dating back more than 1,000 years to the Viking period have deteriorated over time.
But after they were handed to the university by the museum, a group of conservation students took it upon themselves to work to preserve them to ensure they last well into the future.
Senior technician in conservation and restoration at the university Chris Robinson said the artefacts include braids of hair wrapped in wood, leather and metal and Viking-age jewellery.
"Some of our third year and masters degree students collected the items and decided to work on them, as they have been kept clamped to a wooden board for many years and had started to deteriorate," he said.
"The work they did meant painstaking hours of cleaning the hair down, removing it from the board and then packaging it up again to be displayed and stored in the future." [continue]
From the Norway Post: Remains of ancient farm excavated in Oestfold.
The remains of a farm dating back to the Roman period is being excavated in a field in Raade in the county of Oestfold.
It is believed to be the largest find from the Roman period ever made in the Nordic countries, and seen as unique in this region, according to public broadcaster NRK.
The 2000-year find consist of among other things the foundation of a 66-metre long farm building. This is the longest such building found from this period, according to the experts.
The building had a food store at one end and a barn housing cattle at the other, with living quarters in the middle.
Of all the places to find a Roman bowl!
Bergen, Norway, Jun. 4 (UPI) — A Norwegian archeology student found an ancient Roman glass bowl in a second-hand shop and was able to buy it for less than 1 percent of its real value.
Espen Kutschera saw the bowl, which is about 1,900 years old and from the Roman Empire, at a store called Fretex and bought it for $15, the Bergensavisen newspaper reported Friday.
Experts put the bowl's real value at $7,500. [continue]
Here's a Norwegian article about the find; it includes a photo of Espen holding the bowl.
Related:
Roman bowl at second-hand store - Nettavisen
Et sant funn! -from Fretex, the store where Espen bought the bowl. This article is in Norwegian.
From Aftenposten: Major excavation to open Viking graves.
The largest excavation of a Viking burial site in 50 years is underway at a farm in Vestfold, south of Oslo. Archaeologists already started finding ship nails last week, and chances are good more Viking treasures are about to be revealed.
Expectations are high as experts start opening up ancient Viking gravesites over the next few weeks. "This is an incredibly exciting project," says Lars Erik Gjerpe of the University of Oslo's Historic Museum in Norway.
Gjerpe, in charge of the major dig at Gulli Farm in Vestfold, said he and his team expects to find weapons and jewelry, including jewelry brought back to Norway by Vikings more than 1,100 years ago. [continue]
Oooh! Phluzein has found a fascinating thing:
A group of modern day Vikings is sailing and rowing to the Caspian Sea. They are retracing the route taken by the Viking chief Ingvar den Vittfarne (Ingvar the far-travelled). The Vittfarne Expedition would terminate in Baku in August 2004.
In 1036, Ingvar den Vittfarne led a fleet from what is now known as Sweden to the Caspian Sea. He navigated the Russian waterways to the Black Sea and from there, most probably continued down the Georgian river Rioni. After hauling his boats across land, he is believed to have continued his journey via the Mtkvari River in Georgia, which is known as Kur in Azerbaijan south eastward to the Caspian. [continue]:
Vittfarne.com
Expedition Vittfarne
From the Global Ideas Bank: Extending the living room to the street.
Inner city residents in Stavanger, Norway (population 108,000) have transformed a whole street into a permanent ‘social space’ by furnishing it with benches, tables, a pergola, potted plants, a notice-board, wiring for those who want to sit in the street with their computers and surf the internet and a flagpole (a flag is hoisted on the pole to celebrate residents' birthdays).
It all started one day when Trond Sigvaldsen took his father's garden bench out in the street to give it a polish, taking with him his newspaper and a coffee flask. People started to gather around his bench for a chat. So, they thought, why not make the whole of Vikesdalsgata street into an open air living room?
Having first knocked on doors to get the agreement of all the residents, they spent tedious months negotiating with local authorities and then more months furnishing their new dwelling space.
The launch took place in the spring of 1999 and nowadays the street has become something of an attraction for surrounding neighbourhoods. The improvements are much appreciated by the elderly waiting for their buses and by school pupils in their lunch hours.
Today is Syttende Mai - The 17th of May, Norway's national day of celebration. Feel like singing the Norwegian national anthem? Wikipedia has all of the lyrics in both Norwegian and English. For the tune, check out the midi file on this page.
Related
The 17th of May. A historical date and a day of national celebrations - Norwegian Embassy in Canada
Happy Birthday, Norway! - jacobsen.no
From Aftenposten: Stone Age child's bones found in Aukra.
Norwegian archaeologists were ecstatic this week after making a rare discovery at Aukra in Romsdal, north-central Norway. They've confirmed finding bone fragments from a child who must have lived in the area around 6,000 years ago. (...)
Researchers know that the area around Aukra featured ancient settlements, and several thousand items already have been found and recorded.
"We knew, of course, that there were children in the Stone Age as well, but we're probably guilty of focusing on the male hunters from the period," Hein Bjerck, from the Science Museum in Trondheim (Vitenskapsmuseet i Trondheim), told newspaper Aftenposten
"But when we actually find a child, it's almost heartbreaking," Bjerck said. It's the first time a child's remains from so long ago have been found in Norway.
He said that initial examination suggests the child was between two and four years old at time of death. The child's bone fragments were found in a compact mass of sand. Archaeologists also noted contures in the sand that probably were made by a human body, as long ago as 5,000 BC.
Bjerck and members of his team were ecstatic over the discovery because "there's a lot of facts we can get out of such remains, for example cause of death, physiology and the child's diet. We're on the threshold of something very exciting."
Viking harbour remains found. From The Australian:
Archaeologists today said they found the remains of a harbour complex built by the Vikings 1000 years ago, the first of its kind discovered in Norway.
"This is very special," said district archaeologist Lars Forseth. "Archaeologically, it is a sensation."
The Vikings were renowned for daring voyages as far as North America in their open longboats which also provided essential transport along this northern country's long coast and required the construction of port facilities.
The ancient harbour complex at Faanestangen, near the west coast city of Trondheim and some 400km north of Oslo, was discovered when a local landowner started work on a small boat dock on the same spot selected by his ancestors a millennium earlier.
Local history buffs noticed the stumps of at least 10 pilings sticking out from the water around the site but believed they were from as recently as the 1880s, Forseth said.
However, they took a sample of the wood and sent it to a laboratory for dating. It turned out to be 1000 years old. [continue]
(The same article appears here at the Guardian)
From The Telegraph: Stalin's last army - hordes of gigantic crabs on their way to invade Europe.
Millions of giant Pacific crabs, whose ancestors were brought to Europe by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, are marching south along Norway's coast, devouring everything in their path.
The monster crabs, which can weigh up to 25lb and have a claw-span of more than three feet, are proving so resilient that scientists fear they could end up as far south as Gibraltar.Energised by a mysterious population explosion a decade ago, whole armies of the crustaceans - known as the Kamchatka or Red King Crabs - have already advanced about 400 miles along the roof of Europe, overwhelming the ports of northern Norway. [continue]
Dear heavens!
IC Wales has an article about Christmas the Viking way today. First there's the content one expects from this kind of article:
If the Vikings had seen pictures of Santa Claus cruising the skies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, they probably would have assumed he was catching a ride with Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
According to Viking traditions, which carry over into modern Scandinavian Jul - or Yule - celebrations, Thor's personal transport was a flying wagon pulled by a team of horned goats.
"The idea of St Nicholas got very much mixed in with Thor's transport when it comes to the sled with flying reindeer," said Helge Soerheim of the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger. [continue]
Then later on we come to interesting stuff about beer.
Modern Scandinavians would say they celebrate Yule, while the Vikings "drank Jul".
And a key part of "drinking Jul" - today as in the year 1000 - is brewing special Christmas beers.
In Norway alone there are more than 50 kinds of Juleoel, or Christmas beers, ranging in strength from 4.5 to 9.9 per cent alcohol, brewed just before the holidays each year. They are darker and more flavourful than regular beers.
In Viking times, Helge Soerheim said, people thought drinking themselves into a stupor on holiday beer and other alcoholic beverages would create a euphoric connection with supernatural forces. And failure to get drunk at a Viking feast was an insult to the host, implying that his alcohol wasn't good enough.
Because modern Jul is generally a family affair, today's Scandinavians are more moderate in their "drinking Jul".
But the old Viking toast - "to a good new year and peace" - still echoes in the modern Christmas wishes of the North, Soerheim said.
Even after Christianity made inroads, brewing Jul-time beer remained a serious matter. In medieval times, every farmer was required to brew Christmas beer or risk fines and worse.
"Everyone had to make two batches of Christmas beer a year, one for themselves and one for guests, or be fined three riskdollars," Olaug Flakne, 31, Norway's only female brew master, said, referring to the currency of that day. [continue]
From the New Zealand Herald: Historic shipwreck discovered off Norway.
OSLO - A sunken 18th-century ship laden with artefacts has been found off Norway's coast during a gas pipeline project, archaeologists said on Tuesday.
The ship's bell, bearing the date 1745, had been raised as well as an empty French wine bottle, presumably from 1760 to 1780, but five canon, parts of the ship's rigging, almost a thousand other bottles and ceramics were seen on the deck.
"This is a relatively well preserved and big shipwreck from the second half of the 18th century with thousands of artefacts," marine archaeologist Marek Jasinski told Reuters. [full article]
Today's fascinating news: Viking queen may be exhumed for clues to killing.
OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- The grave of a mysterious Viking queen may hold the key to a 1,200 year-old case of suspected ritual killing, and scientists are planning to unearth her bones to find out.
She is one of two women whose fate has been a riddle ever since their bones were found in 1904 in a 72 feet longboat buried at Oseberg in south Norway, its oaken form preserved miraculously, with even its menacing, curling prow intact.
No one even knows the name of the queen, but the Oseberg boat stirred one of the archeological sensations of the 20th century two decades before the discovery of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings.
Scientists now hope to exhume the women, reburied in the mound in 1947 and largely forgotten, reckoning that modern genetic tests could give clues to resolve whether one was the victim of a ritual sacrifice. [continue]
Related:
The Oseberg Ship - from the Vikinskiphuset at the Universitetets kulturhistoriske museer in Norway
Viking Women - BBC
Scandinavia's Greatest Archaeological Treasure - from allScandinavia.com
From Ananova: Norwegian hospital opens ‘kiss and drive’ lanes.
A Norwegian hospital has opened "kiss and drive" lanes so its staff can say goodbye to loved ones without blocking ambulances.
Managers at St Olavs Hospital in Trondheim say employees saying emotional farewells can often cause traffic jams by the emergency entrance.
"A kiss is a good way to start the day," states a brochure that urges staff not to "get in the way" while they are doing it.
The hospital has opened special lanes on both sides of the road, with pink hearts painted on the pavement, for its 5,500 members of staff.
Hospital spokeswoman Marit Kvikne said: "It is important to ease access for patient transport (by car and ambulance) and visitors. Staff are encouraged to use the kissing lane on their way to and from work."
The Hardanger fiddle (in Norwegian, hardingfele) is often called the national instrument of Norway. It is similar to the violin and each one is a handmade work of art. A typical hardingfele is beautifully decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay and black pen-and-ink drawings, called rosing. It is topped with a carved head of a maiden (see photo below) or, more frequently, of an animal, usually a lion. Its most distinguishing feature is the four or five sympathetic strings that run underneath the fingerboard and add echoing overtones to the sound. The traditional playing style is heavily polyphonic. A melody voice is accompanied by a moving "drone" voice. Together, the instrument and the playing style create the sound for which the Hardanger fiddle is famous.
The instrument probably originated in the area around the Hardanger fjord of Norway — whence comes the English language name. The oldest known fiddle, the "Jaastad Fiddle," was made by Olav Jonsson Jaastad from Ullensvaang and may date from as early as 1651. By the mid-1700s the Hardanger fiddle had become the dominant folk instrument in much of the inland south-central and western coastal areas of Norway. It is one of the few European folk music traditions that has survived the assaults of cultural change and foreign musical influences to continue nearly unchanged up to the present day. [continue/see photos]
That's from the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America website. You'll find lots more information there, including sound samples in .mp3 format.
Imagine finding something like this at the bottom of your local lake.
OSLO: A dugout canoe that may date from Viking times has been found in south Norway, giving clues to the lives of people who fished a small lake perhaps 1,000 years ago.
The pine vessel was dragged from Royraas lake in south Norway after a tip from the family of two elderly men who had spotted the boat when they swam in the lake as children in the 1930s.
"We believe it dates from the Viking times or perhaps from the early Middle Ages," Snorre Haukalid, the county archaeologist for Vest Agder, said. He put its likely age at 800-1,200 years.
"If we're really lucky, it could be even older, perhaps 2,000 years," he said. A splinter had been taken for carbon dating tests that would take several weeks.
"A lot of archaeology in the Nordic region looks at burial mounds and the lives of the rich," Haukalid said. "The special thing here is that this is an isolated lake so the boat was probably used by ordinary people, perhaps for fishing." [continue]
From Canoe.com: DNA study to settle ancient mystery about mingling of Inuit, Vikings. [Update: article no longer available.]
A centuries-old Arctic mystery may be weeks away from resolution as an Icelandic anthropologist prepares to release his findings on the so-called "Blond Eskimos" of the Canadian North.
"It's an old story," says Gisli Palsson of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. "We want to try to throw new light on the history of the Inuit." Stories about Inuit with distinct European features - blue eyes, fair hair, beards - living in the central Arctic have their roots in ancient tales of Norse settlements and explorations.
"The Icelandic sagas, at several points, mention the Norse in Greenland meeting people who belong to other cultures," Palsson said.
Although those settlements pushed ever westward from Greenland as early as the 9th and 10th century, they had mysteriously disappeared by the 15th. The fate of settlers - did they simply disappear into the local population? - is unknown.
The Inuit tell legends of long-ago meetings with people from a strange culture.
Tantalizing accounts of European-looking Inuit surface in the accounts of some of the earliest western Arctic explorers, including Sir John Franklin, who was later to lead the doomed Franklin Expedition. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
DNA test to tackle Arctic mystery
Viking DNA in England
Update, October 28th, 3003:
DNA tests debunk blond Inuit legend - from the CBC
Norway's famous antarctic explorer is back in the news 75 years after his death. From The Age: Norwegian search may end 75-year explorer mystery.
A slab of driftwood and a fisherman's chart may help solve a mystery about the death of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in a plane crash 75 years ago.
Amundsen, who in 1911 became the first person to reach the South Pole after a historic race with Briton Robert Falcon Scott, vanished on June 18, 1928, when his seaplane crashed during a rescue mission for an Italian rival lost in the Arctic.
Armed with tantalising new evidence, Norway is considering sending a submarine to scour the seabed for the wreck of Amundsen's plane near Bear Island in icy North Atlantic waters 70 to 100 metres deep.
"We have a chart, new witness reports and what could be part of a plane," said Per Arvid Pettersen, project leader at the Norwegian Aviation Museum in Bodoe, northern Norway. [continue]
Related news articles:
New clue in Amundsen disappearance - from Aftenposten (Includes photo.)
Search for South Pole hero - from the BBC
Related links:
Antarctic Explorers: Roald Amundsen - from south-pole.com
The life of Roald Amundsen -from Oden.dep.no
Roald Amundsen - from CoolAntarctica.com
Roald Amundsen - from Wikipedia
When a fjord takes on a tropical hue, there are a lot of surprised Norwegians. From Aftenposten:
An unusually warm summer and lots of sunshine has given rise to plankton that's turned the usually blue waters of Northern Norway's Alta Fjord to a tropical turquoise.
A plunge into the water would jolt anyone to reality. It's still a lot chillier than the warm waters of Kailua or St Thomas.
But the visual similarity is striking, and local government agencies have received plenty of calls from worried residents who wonder what's going on.
Researchers attribute the phenomenon to the more than 12 million plankton plants per liter of water that were measured in the Alta Fjord on Monday. [continue]
At the beach last night we were more than surprised when this Viking ship sailed past. It's not the sort of thing one expects to see in Vancouver waters, you know? Turns out that a local group, The British Columbia Viking Ship Project, built this 40 foot replica. They've named the boat Munin. Go have a look at some of the sailing pictures, the launching ceremony pictures, or the picture gallery.
I've been thinking about building a boat (more on that another day) but building something like this never would have occurred to me.
Travelling with Norwegian goat cheese is one way to add excitement to your airport security check. From Aftenposten:
A block of brown Norwegian goat cheese recently raised a fuss at the Brussels airport. Security guards thought the unusual sweet, gooey substance called geitost was a dangerous explosive.
Norwegian goat cheese, also called brunost, or literally "brown cheese", is a local delicacy on bread, crackers and waffles.The drama began when Norwegian Tore Fauske, who lives in England, was given a block of the delicacy from his homeland while on a business trip to Brussels. He was delighted with the gift, which in turn had been brought from Norway with no trouble at Oslo's airport.
Fauske tucked it into his carry-on and headed for the airport for the return trip to England.
When his bag rolled through the X-ray machines at check-in, however, security guards stopped him and sent all others in line behind him to other checkpoints.
Fauske told newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad that he then was asked to open his bag, "and the guards visibly took a step backward when I unzipped it."
Still puzzled over what the guards were worried about, Fauske emptied his bag and its contents were then sent through separately until the culprit was singled out: The block of goat cheese from Norwegian dairy cooperative Tine.
Fauske says he tried to explain what it was. "It's a goat cheese, a Norwegian goat cheese," he said of the much-loved local staple that's an acquired taste, especially for non-Norwegians.
Related links:
Teddington Cheese's description of gjetost
Ski Queen Gjetost from Tine.no
A Norwegian kid found a Viking ring on a class field trip. From Aftenposten:
A sixth grader unearthed a ring during a class outing to Borre National Park, where children could try their hands at archeology. The ring was likely part of a larger piece of woman's jewelry and probably over 1,000 years old, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reports.
Magnus Hempel Naess was on a field trip with Galleberg Elementary School from Sande when he made the exciting discovery at the Midgard Historical Center. Magnus was digging near the ship mound where the major Borre find was made.
"I was digging for something like this and there it was!" the sixth grader said. Magnus noticed the ring shining in the sun and gave it to archeologist Terje Gansum, even though it was tempting to pocket it.
"We had, after all, been told to turn in anything we found," Magnus said.
Gansum believes the ring hung with others like it in a necklace.
"From the size, which is 6mm (.23 inch) wide, and the execution, which is like gold leaf, it can't take much weight and is probably part of a larger woman's piece. It is of eastern inspiration, possibly from the Finnish or Baltic region," Gansum said.
"If the ring is part of the ship's mound it is 1,100 years old, or more," Gansum said. [continue]
Related links:
Midgard - historical centre in Vestfold
Midgard Historisk Senter - Midgard Historical Centre. (Site is in Norwegian; English version of the site is under construction.)
Tur til Midgard Hidtorisk Senter (in Norwegian, but mostly photos)
Hee! This is from Aftenposten.no: Tourist council tries to fool Swedes.
It was April Fool's Day, and the Norwegian tourist council just couldn't resist poking some fun at their neighbors to the east... like trying to lure them to a holiday at "Playa Los Fjordos," where they could swim in fjords warmed up to tropical temperatures. (...)
It remains unclear how many unsuspecting Swedes may fall for the joke, "but I hope they'll understand that we've done this in jest," Andreas Nasman, Norwegian tourist chief in Sweden, told newspaper Aftenposten.
At issue were full-page ads placed in Sweden's biggest newspapers on April 1st that promoted some sensational news in the charter tour market: Norwegian researchers had succeeded in leading the Gulf Stream right into three Norwegian fjords. There, the water temperature had risen to a positively balmy 24C (75F).
The ads, which featured full-color, scenic photos of a beach along a fjord and happy tourists in swimsuits, went on to claim that researchers at the Institute for Climate Studies at the University of Bergen found that the fjord areas now have the same number of hours with sunshine as the Canary Islands and Thailand.
Their findings, according to the tourist council, created completely new possibilities for Norwegian tourism. New hotels were under construction, and some fjord towns were changing their names. Molde, for example, was now being called Costa del Molde, while tropical fruit trees were being planted in Rio de Hardanger.
"We figured maybe some of the Swedish readers would forget what day it was," said Nasman. [continue]
From Ananova, 106 year-old offered free bus rides to school.
A 106-year-old Norwegian woman received an offer from local authorities for free bus rides to the school where she is supposed to attend next autumn.
Ingeborg Thuen, born in 1897 when the Klondyke gold rush was going strong, actually started school just before she turned six in 1903.
Computers in the Os township near Bergen read the '97 of her birth year as 1997, meaning she would be starting the first grade the next autumn.
She welcomed the free ride, saying that the last time she started school, she had to walk for an hour every morning.
The letter from the township also encouraged Ingeborg's parents to list the children she would like to have in her class.
"Since I can already read, maybe I should skip a couple grades," she joked.
From the Norway Post: Bicycling to work tax deductable?
Norwegians may in future be able to earn tax relief by bicycling to work. Bicycles may also be excempt from value added tax.
These are proposals presently being considered by the Highway Directorate, Aftenposten reports.
What a brilliant idea.
The latest interesting news about the Opera web browser is that it's now available in the Sami language. (And 41 other languages too, of course.) From an Aftenposten article:
A Norwegian software company has released a version of its Internet browser in Sami, the language used by the indigenous population of northern Scandinavia and Russia, many of them traditional reindeer herders.
...
The Sami, once called the Lapps, are believed to have followed their herds of reindeer to Europe's northern fringe thousands of years ago and, like the Inuit of North America, are an indigenous people of the Arctic.
Related links:
Northern Sami Completed, Opera Released in 42 Languages
The Sami and Lapland
From an article in the Herald:
Archeologists have discovered the remains of a 9000-year-old community that shows Scotland's earliest settlers may have been of Nordic origins.
The site, halfway up the 4000ft Ben Lawers in Perthshire, has uncovered a range of flints and tools almost identical to those originally created in Norway. [continue]
Riskrem is a yummy dessert, and it's a one of the traditional Christmas foods in Norway. It involves rice and cream and some other stuff, and is served with a red fruit sauce. Here, my dears, is the riskrem recipe.
In a novel use of clean energy, the world's most northerly town will soon be the first to get electricity from a sub sea power station run on tidal currents tugged by the moon.
Gigantic forces in the oceans - waves, currents and tides - have often proved too costly or awkward to harness, compared to wind or solar power in global efforts to cut reliance on nuclear power or on fossil fuels blamed for global warming.
From late November or early December, however, a tidal current will start turning the blades of a windmill-like turbine standing on the seabed near Kvalsund at the Arctic tip of Norway.
"We will be the first in the world to use tidal currents to generate electricity to be fed into the local grid," Harald Johansen, managing director of Hammerfest Stroem, told Reuters.
Yay Norway!
Here's the rest of the article, Arctic town to get offbeat tidal energy, [update: article no longer available] on the Environmental News Network website.
Related:
Harnessing ocean energy
Norwegian has two official versions: Bokmål and Nynorsk, and it's not just to confuse the tourists. I noticed an article about this unusual language situation at the Odin website. Professor Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen begins:
"...it is hard for foreigners to comprehend why Norwegians, who 150 years ago did not have a written language of their own and managed quite well with Danish, have, over the past 100 years, developed for good measure two Norwegian tongues. The purpose of this article is to attempt to explain this paradoxical situation."
And he explains it rather well, I thought. The article is Norway: Small country with two written languages.
What do you do when you run a Norwegian language and culture centre, and find that you're missing the password for an important database? You ask hackers for help, of course, and they respond. [Update: article no longer available.]
Update: the password has been recovered.
"According to Aasen Centre information chief Torgeir Dimmen, the institute received a solution for their long-standing security headache within five hours of their Internet appeal." The BBC has more info: Simple password holds the key.
A June 2004 New York Times article tells a bit more:
When a man who maintained a database of 15,000 historical books at the Ivar Aasen Center of Language and Culture in Norway died suddenly a few years ago, other employees discovered that they could not gain access to the book list, which was on a computer disk. It seemed that the dead man had been the only person who knew the password to unlock the file. A team of computer technicians tried but failed to crack the password.
"I was frustrated and confused," the center's director, Ottar Grepstad, said in a telephone interview. "How could all this work be done with such bad security routines?"
So in a national radio broadcast, Mr. Grepstad appealed to hackers. Some 25,000 people worldwide responded, and one of them suggested the password in less than an hour: the deceased man's last name, only reversed. Employees now write their passwords on papers that are stored in the center's safe.
