Norwegians and nature
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Published in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' article series, summer 1996
Norwegian adoration of nature is a vital ingredient in the country's
national identity. Over half of the population have ready access to a
cabin, the schools arrange annual obligatory ski days, and most postcards
produced by the tourist industry depict nature scenes rather than cultural
attractions.
[Image] A visit to Oslo on a winter weekend will provide
abundant proof that the widespread love Norwegians
About this site have of their country's rugged landscape is not merely
a myth spun by the government or the tourist industry.
[Image] Cities like Paris and London are full of natives and
tourists on Sundays, people who have come to enjoy
Relational index their many attractions and activities, from
restaurants and galleries to theatres and cinemas. In
[Image] Oslo, on the other hand, the suburban lines pointing
towards the forest-covered hills surrounding the city
Thematic index have the most passengers on the weekends. Take the
tram on a winter Sunday to Holmenkollen or
[Image] Frognerseteren, recreational areas lying several
hundred metres above the capital, and you will see
Alphabetic index hordes of people, an otherwise rare sight in this
thinly populated country. Swarms of cars looking for a
[Image] parking spot, people on skis dressed in characteristic
knee breeches and red or blue anoraks, and a
Recent complicated system of publicly maintained ski trails
of varying lengths and levels of difficulty, should
remove any doubt that skiing in Norway is a popular
[Image] and widely practised activity. Although the winter
pastime of skiing is in a class by itself, it is only
World one of many examples of the close affinity between
Norwegian identity and nature. Let us look at a few
[Image] Sites more examples.
Cabin life
"House and cabin, but no castle", reads a well-known
national poem. With these words the poet suggests that
Norway is a country without snobbery and major class
divisions, a land of simple, hardworking people
intimately tied to their ecological surroundings.
It has been many years since the majority of
Norwegians lived in log cabins and huts. Norway is an
extremely rich country with a housing standard that is
among the highest in the world. Most Norwegians live
in single-family homes and large apartments, equipped
with every thinkable electric appliance. Nevertheless,
great value is attached to closeness to nature and a
simple lifestyle. One curious fact is that Norway's
best known philosopher, Arne Næss, the founder of the
deep ecology movement, spends the greater part of his
time in a rustic, geographically isolated cabin in the
mountains between Oslo and Bergen. And he is far from
the only one. Thousands of Norwegians spend weekends
and holidays at the family cabin, which ideally
speaking should be should be tucked away in the
wilderness surrounded by the pristine landscape of the
Norwegian mountains. As a rule, you can't drive your
car all the way to the door, but have to walk - in the
winter ski - a couple of kilometres or more. Cabins
like this do not have indoor plumbing, so you have to
fetch water from a pond or haul water containers from
town. Mountain cabins never have a shower. Ideally, a
cabin is not supposed to have electricity either,
although over half are hooked up today. The typical
Norwegian cabin is built of logs and consists of a
living room, one or more bedrooms, an outdoor
lavatory, woodshed and small kitchen. Heating is
preferably by wood, although kerosene is permissible,
just barely. Oil lamps and candlelight provide light
on dark winter nights.
This simplicity is not due to a desire to save money.
In fact a mountain cabin in an attractive location is
a costly investment, no matter how simply they are
furnished. The absence of modern comforts is founded
on ideological and moral, rather than economic,
reasons. (It must be added here that many Norwegians
have a cabin by the coast, usually in an area with a
mild climate. Here, completely different rules apply:
these cabins can be comfortable second homes.)
The cabin is the starting point for private
expeditions into the great outdoors, on skis in the
winter, on foot in the summer. Spending a whole day in
the cabin is viewed as immoral and meaningless. Not
before evening is it legitimate to relax in front of
the fire with a game of cards and perhaps a drink, and
you should be physically tired from the day's nature
experiences. Simplicity is a virtue in all areas of
cabin life, although it is now generally acceptable to
have a small portable radio. On the other hand, it is
still controversial to have a television in the cabin,
not to mention a VCR.
Easter in the mountains
A special season in regard to cabin life is Easter. At
Easter time winter is on the retreat, even in Norway,
and you often have to go quite high up in the
mountains to find enough snow to go skiing.
Nevertheless, thousands of Norwegians head for the
slopes and trails at this time of year, and mountain
hotels are packed with families who don't have cabins.
The sun at Easter time can be powerful, both because
of the thin mountain air and because sunlight is
reflected by the snow. Consequently, newspapers in
recent years have warned against excessive sunbathing
in the mountains at Easter, now that we know that too
much sun can cause cancer. However, on the first day
of work after Easter, it is still easy to see from the
tanned faces which of your co-workers have been to the
mountains. Skiing in the intense Easter sun, with a
backpack containing oranges, chocolate bars and cocoa,
is viewed by many Norwegians as one of the strongest,
most positive experiences they can imagine.
Actually, a minority of Norwegians spend Easter in the
mountains, and the number is sinking according to the
latest statistics. In 1996 only 13 per cent of the
population did. Nevertheless, the mountains at Easter
time occupy a special place in the Norwegian
self-image, as a symbol of the good life in Norway.
It surprises many to learn that Norwegians, after a
long and cold winter, when spring has finally arrived
in the lowlands, actively pursue and seek out the
winter where it maintains its grip. The humorist Odd
Børretzen claims that this is due to some sort of deep
cultural infrastructure: Norway was first inhabited at
the end of the last Ice Age. The immigrants followed
the fringes of the ice as it retracted northwards,
particularly because wildlife flourished along the
periphery. Børretzen's claim is that Norwegians, like
their ancestors, are still following the disappearing
ice. His view is unlikely ever to receive the support
of scientists.
Hiking and walking
In the personal ads people place in newspapers and
magazines in the hope of finding a companion, very
many, perhaps a majority, include "hiking and going
for walks" as one of their interests. This type of
personal advertisement is in fact much more common
than "My interests include classical music and
literature."
Hiking and going for walks are a way of getting out of
the house, as Norwegians put it; you leave
civilization and all its comforts and depravity behind
to get in touch with your inner self and feel like an
authentic person. Hikes and walks can be taken on a
weekday after work, but are usually a weekend
activity. A normal yardstick for gauging the success
of a walk is the number of people you meet along the
way. The fewer the people, the more successful the
walk was.
One value connected with hiking and walking is peace
and quiet - freedom from the distracting noises and
man-made racket in the city. The purpose of peace and
quiet, as it is often construed, is contemplation and
spiritual peace.
Adoration of nature in Norway has many facets. It is
official and has a political aspect; unspoiled nature
is a national symbol. It is private and is associated
with family rituals, such as cabin life. But it is
also personal and individual, and in this area
veneration of nature has a clear sprinkling of
religion. The state religion in Norway is the Lutheran
faith, but reverence for nature is also very strongly
ingrained. Instead of renouncing it as heathenish,
Lutheranism has consciously embraced it - among other
things, Christian books published in Norway often
display Norwegian nature scenes on the cover.
Moreover, the outdoors is often recommended by state
church clergy as a great place for religious
meditation and reflection. In this way, Christianity,
which in principle places a sharp dividing line
between culture and nature (nature is evil, people are
by nature sinful), avoids a direct confrontation with
the strong Norwegian ideology that culture and nature
are two sides of the same coin. The comment has been
made, a bit ironically of course, that the cross in
the Norwegian flag does not represent the crucifixion
of Jesus, but is a pair of skis laid crosswise.
Nature and nationhood
To understand the unique position nature has in the
Norwegian self-image, it is not enough to look at
geography and climatic conditions. We have to go back
to the nation-building period in the 1800s, when the
modern Norwegian state was created.
In the 19th century Norway was forced into a union
with Sweden, which, true enough, permitted Norwegians
to manage their own affairs in most cases. For
hundreds of years prior to that, Norway was an
integrated part of the Danish realm. The written
language was Danish, and most intellectuals were
oriented towards Copenhagen. At this time,
particularly after the uprisings in 1848, a wave of
nationalism rolled across Europe, and many small and
independence-minded peoples became intent on defining
themselves as nations with the right to full political
sovereignty.
An important part of this process consisted of
defining a national culture clearly separate from that
of neighbouring countries, which was unique, and which
fused the inhabitants into a united people with a
common history, culture and spirit. For
nationalistically-minded Norwegians it was especially
important to prove that Norway was markedly different
from Denmark and Sweden; both because they were
colonial powers (previous and current respectively),
and because they were the country's closest neighbours
with a language and culture much like Norway's. In
fact many believed that Danes, Swedes and Norwegians
had so much in common that they made up one
Scandinavian nation. This view was naturally disputed
by the Norwegian nationalists.
However, Norway was an underpopulated and poor country
on the fringes of Europe, and had no rich military,
cultural and political history on which to draw. The
only monumental building in Norway was the Nidaros
Cathedral in Trondheim, which could hardly be used as
a national symbol after the Reformation. The boldest
nation-builders invoked the heritage of the Viking
Age, asserting that a direct line extended from the
fearless Vikings to latter-day Norwegians. But this
was not enough to create a nation.
This is where nature and veneration of nature come
into the picture. What Norway lacked in cultural
riches, it made up for in its diverse, rugged and
majestic landscape. National poets took to writing
poems celebrating the mountains and wide-open spaces,
and painters portrayed wild and untamed Norwegian
scenery. Norway's national identity gradually took the
form of a lifestyle characterized by closeness to,
respect for and love of nature, particularly the
subarctic mountain landscape requiring great courage,
strength and endurance from those who have to survive
in it. Danes and Swedes were in this light refined and
decadent city people, and the image of the thoroughly
healthy, down-to-earth, nature-loving Norwegian was
established as a national symbol.
Norway's unspoiled countryside thus became a bearing
element in the building of the nation, and the
national motto that was adopted, "United and true
until Dovre falls," refers to a massif in central
Norway, and not, for example, "United and true until
the Storting (Parliament) falls."
Nansen
The most recent biographer of the Norwegian Arctic
explorer Fritdjof Nansen, Tor Bomann-Larsen, has
remarked that the modern Norwegian nation was built by
a single person, namely Fritdjof Nansen. This is
naturally debatable, but there is no doubt that Nansen
was the most important driving force behind the modern
Norwegian national identity, which is intimately
intertwined with outdoor life in rugged, inhospitable
surroundings. Nansen's most famous feat was that his
expedition was the first to cross Greenland on skis,
although his other activities as an explorer were also
associated with skiing and harsh weather conditions.
Although much of the preliminary work was already done
when Nansen became a famous explorer at the end of the
1800s, it was he who showed that skiing and adoration
of nature could also be linked to political power.
Nansen's ambition, which failed, was to establish
Norwegian colonies in the Arctic areas he had been the
first to explore.
Winter sports
Among the breeches and anorak clad set invading the
Nordmarka recreation area like grasshoppers on winter
Sundays, you will also see the occasional man or woman
in body-hugging tricot, with muscular thighs and
narrow, expensive skis on their feet. They are
top-flight athletes, who ski farther and faster than
anyone else in their quest for gold medals and
national renown.
A short distance away from these skiers high above
downtown Oslo lies Holmenkollen Park Hotel. It is a
popular conference hotel, and many Norwegians bring
their foreign colleagues and business associates there
for lunch and dinner. Holmenkollen Park is richly
decorated with symbols of Norway. It is built in the
national romantic dragon style and surrounded by
spruce forests; employees are dressed in national
costumes and inside you will find moose and mountain
cranberries on the menu and rose-painted chests. The
hotel's biggest attraction, however, is its many
banquet rooms named after great Norwegian heroes,
whose pictures adorn the walls. Here you will find the
champion speed skater Oscar Mathiesen, figure skater
Sonja Henie and ski jumper Thorleif Haug, to mention a
few. "No generals?" a foreigner might ask. The answer
is no. Skiing, and to some degree, speed skating are a
central aspect of life in Norway, ranking perhaps even
higher than the global sport of soccer. Skiing carries
on Nansen's spirit, and although it cannot give Norway
colonies and real political power, it is important for
Norwegian self-respect and can turn the country into a
symbolic superpower when Norwegian athletes win major
competitions.
Had Nansen, for example, crossed Greenland on a
bicycle instead of skis, winter sports might well have
been relegated to a less prominent place in Norwegian
society. Consequently, it's not certain that the
familiar saying "Norwegians are born with skis on"
would be as popular today. As the situation now
stands, you can become a Norwegian, culturally
speaking, by putting on a pair of skis and heading
down the trail. Consequently, the ski days organized
by the schools are important initiation rituals, on a
par with the obligatory participation in the annual
Constitution Day celebration in the middle of May.
Norway the clean
In the early 1970s when the government began to be
concerned about the damage to lakes and spruce forests
from acid rain, Norwegian authorities quickly blamed
German and British industry of being the culprits
(which for the most part was correct). The assumption
that filth and pollution come from the outside, while
Norway itself is clean, is widespread. This view was
also clearly expressed during the EU debate before the
referendum in the autumn of 1994, when Norwegian
agricultural organizations claimed that Norwegian
products were cleaner and more natural than products
from the EU countries. In most cases this is not true,
but as is known the "no" side won the referendum.
Norway has cities, which are not much different from
cities in other countries. Norway also has forests,
but so do the Swedes and Finns. Norway even has flat
farming areas and an archipelago warm and inviting
enough to attract throngs of swimmers for a couple of
months each summer. But these things are also found
other places.
On the other hand, Norway's mountains and fjords are
matchless. The advance publicity distributed prior to
Norway's hosting of the 1994 Winter Olympics, clearly
showed which picture of Norway the country's tourist
industry and authorities want to lure tourists here
with. In the videos shown on television in other
countries before the Olympics, Norway was presented as
a country of endless white expanses, wild animals,
solitary skiers and simple log cabins.
What about city life?
Norway's national identity is thus intimately tied to
its dramatic scenery and especially to its wintry
image. However, it is an indisputable fact that most
Norwegians live in cities or urban areas; according to
the World Bank the figure is as high as 75 per cent.
Densely populated Greater Oslo is home to no less than
one and a half million people, a high figure in a
country with less than four and half million people.
Statistics show that the daily lives of Norwegian are
about the same as other Europeans. They drink coffee
from Colombia and orange juice from Florida, ceylon
tea and imported wines. They dress in suits and jeans,
drive imported cars (with tanks filled with Norwegian
petrol), and they are involved in basically the same
activities as other Europeans. They have the same
problems with racism and discrimination as the
Germans, British, and French. The hunting population
is not particularly large, and mountain farmers are a
microscopic minority.
You could perhaps draw the conclusion that there is
nothing special about Norway, compared to other
countries. It's not that simple. National identity is
not found so much in actual lifestyle as it is in the
cultural values and ideas embraced by a population.
And the dominating Norwegian ideology connects the
nation's distinctiveness and identity to the clean
countryside, egalitarianism, simplicity and the white
mantle of winter. It is confirmed in practice through
the rituals described above, through skiing, hiking
and walking, cabin life, Easter in the mountains and
so on. This ideology would have been useless in a
national context if it had focused, for example, on
city life in Bergen and Oslo, as then it would not
have drawn clear dividing lines between Norwegians and
foreigners. The purpose of national symbols is to
convey distinctiveness. When oil sheikhs from Arabia
dress like nomads, it just as much a symbolic
expression of their identity as when Norwegian oil
sheikhs dress up as farmers from the 1700s.
The official picture of pure, clean Norway does not
match very well with the daily life of most
Norwegians, who probably have much more in common with
the everyday life of other modern Europeans.
Norwegians drive cars and watch television, eat pizza
and sit in front of computers, wear suits and drink
coffee.
On the other hand, the official Norwegian visage of an
unspoiled, clean subarctic landscape, fits well with
the Norwegian self-image. That's why people from Oslo
leave their comfortable homes and travel up to
Nordmarka to surround themselves with winter
temperatures and snow for a few hours. They do it to
confirm that they are Norwegian, despite all.
⌐Thomas Hylland Eriksen 1996