Tromsø

“ After a trip up the magnificent Maans Fjord, and the sight of some sea-green glaciers, we approached Tromsöe, the capital of Finmark. This is a town of nearly 3000 inhabitants, on a small island in the strait between Qvalö and the mainland. It was just midnight when we dropped anchor, but, although the sun was hidden by a range of snowy hills in the north, the daylight was almost perfect. I immediately commenced making a sketch of the harbour, with its fleet of coasting vessels. Some Russian craft from Archangel, and a Norwegian cutter carrying six guns, were also at anchor before the town. ”

“ A cleaner place can scarcely be found, and I also noticed, what is quite rare in the North, large square fountains or wells, at the intersection of all the principal streets. The impression which Drontheim makes upon the stranger is therefore a cheerful and genial one. Small and unpretending though it be, it is full of pictures; the dark blue fjord closes the vista of half its streets; hills of grey rock, draped with the greenest turf, overlook it on either side, and the beautiful valley of the Nid, one of the loveliest nooks of Norway, lies in its rear. ”

“ Descending from Hell the railroad runs for a long distance close to the edge of the lovely Throndhjem fjord, with its transparent waters, clusters of islands, and on the opposite side its deeply indented and darkly wooded shores, with a background of pale blue mountains. Then we roll into the most northern railway station in the world, and are in Throndhjem, a city of 23,000 inhabitants, the third largest city in Norway, situated on a line with the south coast of Iceland. ”

“ Among the red-letter days of the trip will be a sail among the Loffoden Islands, “jagged as the jaws of a shark,” and swarming with sea-fowl; a glimpse at the neighborhood of the Maelström, so celebrated in fable; a visit to a Lapp encampment, and an occasional stroll through some of the towns at which the steamer stays. Tromsö is one of these halting-places: it is a modern town, which has grown rapidly. ”

“ But, even if one has not realised the fact amid the romantic scenery of those fjords where the works of man are confined to tiny fields like handkerchiefs scantily stretched upon the mountain sides, and settlements of wooden huts which are lost among the towering mountains of God, in Trondhjem Fjord one can hardly ignore the fact that this northern land has a history and a mythology of no mean kind, and one that is her very own. ”

“ From Tromsöe vessels are fitted for exploration towards the North Pole; some for the capture of seals and walruses among the ice-fields, and also on the coast of Spitzbergen. A small propeller is seen lying in the harbor fitted with a forecastle gun, whence to fire a lance at whales—a species of big fishing, so to speak, which is made profitable here. Little row-boats with high bows and sterns flit about the bay like sea-birds on the wing, and ride as lightly upon the water. These are often "manned" by a couple of sturdy women who row with great precision, their faces glowing with animation. ”

“ I turned right and left, and my horse galloped and trotted gaily on.
The road to Drammen is exquisite, and would afford rich subjects for an artist. All the beauties of nature are here combined in most perfect harmony. The richness and variety of the scenery are almost oppressive, and would be an inexhaustible subject for the painter. The vegetation is much richer than I had hoped to find it so far north; every hill, every rock, is shaded by verdant foliage ”

“ Between Christiania and the western coast is a broad mountain range extending hundreds of miles north and south. No railroad crosses that gigantic barrier. True, the town of Trondhjem, in the north, can now be reached circuitously by rail. But all the great southwestern coast, including the towns of Bergen and Molde, and the large fjords, can only be approached by several magnificent highways, of which the finest here awaited us, the one extending for a hundred and sixty miles from Lake Mjösen to the Songe fjord. And here one naturally asks, "What is the mode of traveling in Norway? ”

“ Tromsö, a town (6) and island (65) of Norway, in the NW.
Trondhjem (29) , an important town, the ancient capital of Norway, on Trondhjem Fjord, 250 m. N. of Christiania; is well laid out with broad level streets, most of the houses are of wood; possesses a fine 13th-century cathedral, where the kings of Norway are crowned; carries on a flourishing trade in copper ore, herrings, oil, &c.; is strongly fortified.
Trophonius, in Greek legend, along with his brother Agamedes, the architect of the temple of Apollo at Delphi ”

“ Those who have the mind to do so can wander up to the glacier, sleep the night at a sæter, and on the following day hire a sleigh, and career for miles over the vast field of perpetual snow, right across the headland to Odda. And great is the joy of plunging suddenly, on a hot August day, into the depths of winter.
But our steamer does not stay here long—only long enough to put some Norwegian passengers on shore, and take fresh ones on board. This occupies some time, however, for Norse people, and especially the ladies, refuse to be hurried. ”

“ Tromso, and Norwegian Lapland.We were now in Norwegian Lapland, the region which was at one time almost entirely populated by the Lapps. The number of this strange people has however now gone down to only 30,000 i.e. about 18,000 in Norway and 12,000 in Sweden and Russia. When we reached their encampment we were much impressed with what we saw. The Lapps are a very short people scarcely over 5 feet in height, and men and women all clothe themselves in reindeer skins. ”

“ The men of the fjords are in large measure of the tall, fair, long-headed Nordic type, but around the seaward ends of the southern fjords are dark broad-heads, who in this case are almost beyond doubt settlers from the sea. The physical geography of Trondhjem Fjord, on land and water, helps to make clear its special early importance, particularly during a period of good climate, but the whole of Norway suffered sadly in the fourteenth century from bad harvests and Hanseatic interference, and from that time onwards to the nineteenth century Norway's fortunes were low. ”

“ Even in a week one can cover a deal of ground. One can go by steamer from Bergen up the Hardanger Fjord to Eide, and thence drive across the neck of land to the Sogne Fjord, through the finest and most varied scenery imaginable, returning to Bergen, if needs be, by steamer down the Sogne Fjord. Or, if there be a few days to spare, one can steam across the head of the Sogne Fjord from Gudvangen to Lærdalsören, and thence again take carriole or stolkjærre to the Fillefjeld, and so visit the wildest of Norway’s mountain districts, the Jotunheim—the Home of the Giants. ”

“ The narrow Tromö Sound, with its swarm of small coasters, lighters, pilot-boats, and vessels of larger build, suns itself there between fertile or wooded slopes and ridges, over which are scattered in every direction the red cottages of the sailor population, skippers' houses, and villas; and in every available spot, in every creek or bay where there is barely room for a vessel, the white timbers of ships in course of construction come into view. It is an idyllic dockyard, a very beautiful and very appropriate approach to Norway's principal seaport town ”

“ The museum of Tromso specially interested us. We saw there stuffed specimens of the Polar Bear, the Northern Wolf, the White Fox, the Whale, the Shark, the Walrus, the Grampas, the Eagle, the Seagull, various kinds of Ducks and many other birds seen in the Arctic seas. We left Tromso in the evening. On our way we saw a splendid glacier all along the slope of a high hill. ”

“ Yet it is in this severe region that the eider-duck has its home; it is upon those naked cliffs where its nest is built, from feathers plucked from its own breast, that silky soft down which is scattered abroad over the whole world, that people in the North and in the South may lie warm and soft. How many suffering limbs, how many aching heads, have not received comfort from the hard cliffs of Norway.
Upon the boundaries between Nordland and Finmark lies the city of Tromsö, the now flourishing centre of these provinces. It was here that Alette was to spend her life ”

“ Something awkward and uncouth stamps the country people of Norway. Honest and simple-minded they are said to be, and probably are; but of native refinement of feeling they can have little, unless all outward signs of character are false.
We changed horses at Moshûûs, and drove up a level splendid road to Holmen, along the river-bank. The highway, thus far, is entirely new, and does great credit to Norwegian enterprise. There is not a better road in all Europe; and when it shall be carried through to Drontheim, the terrors which this trip has for timid travellers will entirely disappear. ”

“ The industry of the Norwegian peasant is very great; for every spot of earth, even on the steepest precipices, bore potatoes, barley, or oats; their houses also look cheerful, and were painted for the most part of a brick-red colour.
I found the roads very good, especially the one from Christiania to Drammen; and the one from Drammen to Kongsberg was not very objectionable. There is such an abundance of wood in Norway, that the streets on each side are fenced by wooden enclosures ”

“ The spring morning in the year 995, when the “Alruna” landed on Moster Island, in the Hordaland, Olaf Tryggevesson thought no earthly country could be so fair as Norway. The white mists like soft, filmy veils floated away from the face of rock and fen and blue-waved fiord. The tender verdure made inviting the harsh outline of the shore, while the fleecy clouds glided over the silky sails that fluttered in the strong breeze. The ships landed at the Island, and Thore Klakka went ashore to prepare the king’s tent. ”

“ From an old watchtower, which stands on the top of the first sharp hill above the harbor, is a sweeping off-look, seaward and coastward, to north and south: long promontories, green and curving, with low red roofs here and there, shot up into relief by the sharp contrast of color; bays of blue water breaking in between; distant ranges of mountains glittering white; thousands of islands in sight at once. Stavanger's 223 approach strikes Norway's key-note with a bold hand, and old Norway and new Norway meet in Stavanger's market-place. ”

“ Little of the Norwegian costume that is so attractive a feature of the fjord villages is to be seen in the city; the general life of towns is becoming distressingly the same all over the Western world. The atmosphere is, however, distinctly Norse by the quays, where the fish boats come in and large barrels of their catchings are rolled about, and also where high wooden warehouses, not entirely without picturesqueness, fringe the shores of the Nid and exhale a smell of fish and tar. ”

“ In the heart of Norway lies this country. Is the soul wearied with the tumults of the world or fatigued with the trifles of poor every-day life—is it depressed by the confined atmosphere of the room,—with the dust of books, the dust of company, or any other kind of dust (there are in the world so many kinds, and they all cover the soul with a great dust mantle) ; or is she torn by deep consuming passions,—then fly, fly towards the still heart of Norway, listen there to the fresh mighty throbbing of the heart of nature ”

“ It is strange that there are very few large towns in Norway; every peasant builds his house in the midst of his fields.
Beyond this hill the scenery grows more monotonous. The mountains are lower, the valley narrower, and the road is enclosed by wood or rocks. One peculiarity of Norwegian rocks is their humidity. The water penetrates through countless fissures, but only in such small quantities as to cover the stones with a kind of veil. When the sun shines on these wet surfaces of rock, of which there are many and large ones, they shine like mirrors. ”

“ We have no sands that we can make available; but a tide there is, though a faint one. Did you ever hear how there came to be a tide in Norway—for originally there certainly was nothing of the kind? Thor was on a visit to Loki Uttgard, who, in all love, challenged him to drink his great horn out, and to turn it over to show there were no heeltaps, as is the custom in Norway. Thor had never been conquered yet in drinking, or in anything else; in fact, he had the hardest head, inside and out, of any god in Norway. ”

“ From the top, mountains fifty miles distant could be seen. Christiania Fjord lay like a panorama in the distance, stretching as far as the eye could reach. To the west the country looked wild and desolate, and was covered with wood-crowned mountains, though none of any considerable height could be seen. It was a magnificent view, and some of the most enthusiastic of the students declared that it was worth a voyage to Norway; but boys are proverbially extravagant. ”

“ Who could believe the rather plain grey fish we see in the fishmonger’s could ever look like a chunk of mother-of-pearl?
Woods and islands, rugged mountains, grey fjelds, with snow in patches, pass hour after hour, till we come to the fiord of the old capital—Trondhjem Fiord. It reminds us of our Firth of Forth, on a larger scale, with more woods. For me Norway begins at Trondhjem going north, and ends there coming south. Southern Norway seems to have no tradition, no direct appeal to me. In the soft distance I can see height after height fading into the distance ”