Saturday, December 12, 2009

A Walk on the Way of St. Olav: Oslo to Trondheim, Summer 2009

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Welcome to the log of my Olavsleden Pilgrim trek. I walked the 669 kilometer "Way of St. Olaf" across Norway between July 1st and...

Hilsen fra Norge! Setting Forth

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July 5, 2009 Hilsen fra Norge! That one should attempt in these times to replicate a medieval pilgrim walk in heathen Scandinavia might...

Fridtjof Nansen: Getting a Grip on the World

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July 5, 2009 I bet you haven’t thought much about the “Armenian Genocide”. My estimate of the moral dimension of this modern diplomatic da...

Tested at Gjøvik

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July 7, 2009** I won't say that Norwegian Pilgrim walking is easy. First hot, now cold and wet. I remember Olavsleden Pilgrim Coor...

Why Pilgrim's Tell Tales

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July 9, 2009 So I’ve performed this peculiar exercise of reading five Pacific Crest Trail memoirs consecu- tively in the weeks prior to my ...

Smithing Medieval Gold

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July 9, 2009 Imagine you are a medieval master smithing gold and precious metals for manor Lords. You have a strong box for keeping your m...

Angel at the Hamar Domen Kirke

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July 12, 2009 Allow this to serve as your weather report from Norway: I’ve discovered it makes eminently good sense to carry my wallet...

Skype and Creative Capitalist Destruction

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July 12, 2009 I am, courtesy of the creatively destructive capitalist forces of educational infrastructure adjustment, now unemployed an...

Treacherous Trettsvea

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July 12, 2009** I had been forewarned of a route change north of Hamar. It must have been the stretch that gave me difficulty yesterday. I h...

Posting Mark's Way

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July 15, 2009 So there was this way mark post—centered in the middle of the tangled slash of a small clear cut five meters off my well trod...

Stig's Recommendation

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July 15, 2009 “I recom- mend it to you” is what Stig Grytting was saying. I’d reached Sygard’s Grytting, a mountain slope farm boasting t...

Black Death, Demand, and Supply

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July 16, 2009 A result of the Black Death in Norway, which left half the population dead, was a housing over supply that lasted for 200 year...

Games of Chance on the Olav's Leden

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July 16, 2009 By any analysis I’ve passed the midpoint of my summer pilgrim trek in Norway. I’m walking “coast-to-coast” by some reckoning...

Andreas the Pilgrim Dane

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July 17, 2009 I met my first fellow pilgrim yesterday, a Dane, Andreas. He caught me at breakfast at Sygard’s Grytting where I was having ...

Civilized Life at Sjøa

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July 17, 2009 The Olavsleden, not precisely wilderness, is still a rugged natural path. It makes for an interesting Pilgrim trek. Take t...

Pilgrim Loft Refuge at Jar

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July 18, 2009 My first visit to Nord Sel Kommune in 1991 was memorable. Bicycle traveling with my younger sister Lisa from Kristiansand ...

Deep Survival and Decisions on the Dovrefjell

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July 19, 2009 In fact I’ve seen snow on North facing slopes of high ridge lines twice in the past three days. I climb up to those elevatio...

A Rubicon Crossed on the Dovrefjell

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July 20, 2009 I had ever so succulent trout for breakfast at Sygard’s Grytting some days back. I seem to be vulnerable lingering over “Fro...

Hagesæter Hospitality

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July 21, 2009** Yesterday, leaving Budsjord to tackle my first day in the (for an American pilgrim) "great unknown"--the Dovr...

Swedish Princesses at the Kongsvold Fjellstue

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July 22, 2009 It's empty, open alpine tundra above tree line on the central Norwegian Dovrefjell “Oppland”. I was dropping down mounta...

Building Character on the Dovrefjell

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July 23, 2009 Yesterday on the Dovrefjell well above tree line I passed a scrap of a pond with snow banking its northern shore and a “growl...

Norwegian Bachelor Farmers?

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July 24, 2009 They had the appearance of bachelor farmers and this was Norway. I found them in a large shed obscured by brush from my Pilgr...

Rekindled Youth

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July 24, 2009 I had just snapped wide awake from deep sleep. It was disorienting. Looking at my watch … 9:15 … I thought at first it was ...