Foot-prints of Travel: or, Journeyings in Many Lands

Tröndhjem was founded about a thousand years ago by King Olaf Trygvason, upon the site of a much older city named Nidaros, but there is certainly nothing visible to indicate its great antiquity. The adventurous life of King Olaf, which occurs to us in this connection, may be outlined in a few words, and is more romantic than that of any other ruler of Norway which is generally known. Born a prince, he barely escaped assassination in childhood at the hands of the usurper of his rights, by fleeing from the country in charge of his mother. They were captured at sea by pirates, separated, and sold into slavery. Then followed a period of deprivation and hardship; but at a comparatively early age Olaf was discovered and ransomed by a relative who had never ceased to search for the missing youth. He soon after became a distinguished sea-king, of that class whom we call pirates. His career in this field of adventure is represented to have been one of daring and reckless hardihood, characterized by merciless aggression and great success. Finally Olaf married an Irish princess, embraced Christianity, and fought his way to the throne of Norway, assuming the crown in the year of our Lord 991. From this time he became a zealous missionary, propagating his faith by the sword, and like many other religious zealots he was guilty of outrageous cruelty. Seven years subsequent to the last-named date he destroyed the Pagan temples of Thor and Odin at Tröndhjem. Upon the site of this temple he built a Christian church, making the city his seat of government, and so it remained the capital down to the union with Denmark. Olaf was slain in battle while fighting for his throne, and was declared a saint by the Church, his tomb at Tröndhjem being a Mecca for pious pilgrims from all parts of Europe for centuries. In such veneration were the memory and services of this reformed pirate held by a certain class of religionists, that churches were erected in his name at Constantinople and elsewhere. His ashes lie entombed beneath the present cathedral of Tröndhjem.

A short walk from the town brings one to Hlade, where stands the castle of the infamous Jarl Hakon, whence, in the olden time, he ruled over the surrounding country with an iron hand. He was a savage heathen, believing in and practising human sacrifices, evidences of which are still extant. About a mile from the town, in the fjord, is the island of Munkholm, once the site of a Benedictine monastery, as its name indicates, and which was erected in 1028. The mouldering and moss-grown base of one of its towers is all that now remains. Victor Hugo gives a graphic description of this spot in his book entitled "Han d'Islande." Here the famous minister of Christian V., Griffenfeldt by name, was confined for a period of many weary years. He was guilty of no crime, his incarceration being the result of political intrigue. When he was finally brought to the scaffold for execution, a messenger interrupted the headsman at the last moment and announced a pardon from the king. "The pardon," said the worn-out sufferer, "is severer than the penalty."

The usual route of those who seek to gain a view of the "midnight sun" – that is, of witnessing the phenomenon of the sun passing round the horizon without sinking beneath it – is to depart from Tröndhjem by sea, for the North Cape, skirting the ironbound coast for a distance of about seven hundred miles.

As we sail northward, the rapid lengthening of the days becomes more and more apparent. At Lund, in the extreme south of Sweden, the longest day experienced is seventeen hours and a half; at Stockholm, two hundred miles further north, the longest day of the year is eighteen hours and a half; at Bergen, in Norway, three hundred miles north of Lund, the longest day is twenty-one hours. Above this point of latitude to the North Cape, there is virtually no night at all during the brief summer season, as the sun is visible, or nearly so, for the whole twenty-four hours. From early in May until about the first of August, north of Tröndhjem, the stars take a vacation, or at least they are not visible, while the moon is so pale as to give no light. Even the Great Bear puts by his seven lustres, and the diamond belt of Orion is unseen. But the heavenly lamps revive by the first of September, and after a short period are supplemented by the marvellous and beautiful radiations of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. Winter now sets in, the sun disappears entirely from sight, and night reigns supreme, the heavens shining only with a subdued light. Were it not for the brilliancy of the Auroral light the fishermen could hardly pursue their winter business, that being the harvest time with them, and midnight is considered to be the best period of the twenty-four hours for successful fishing in these regions. In and about Lofoden Islands alone, five thousand boats are thus regularly employed, giving occupation to twenty thousand men in the boats and a couple of thousand on the shore.

The coast of Norway is bordered by innumerable rocky islands, and also by deep fjords, winding inland from ten to fifty miles each, among masses of rock forming perpendicular walls often towering a thousand feet or more in height. The turbulent waves of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, hurled against the coast for thousands of years, have steadily worn into the land and thus formed these remarkable fjords; or perhaps after they were begun by volcanic or glacial action, the wearing of the waters has gradually brought about their present condition. The coast of Sweden, on the other hand, is formed by the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia, both of which are inland waters, and though there are many islands on the Swedish coast, there are no fjords worthy of mention. Notwithstanding that the extreme length of Norway, from north to south, is hardly twelve hundred miles, yet so numerous and extensive are these peculiar arms of the sea, that its coast-line is estimated to measure over three thousand miles, which gives to these deep indentures altogether a length of eighteen hundred miles.

The peninsula known as Scandinavia is composed of Norway, Sweden, and a small portion of the Russian possessions in the northeast. This division of country supports a population of little less than seven millions, and contains in round numbers three hundred thousand square miles. The mountains of this section of the globe are mostly of primitive rock, presenting as near as possible the same form as when they were first solidified, standing forth as tangible evidence of the great antiquity of this region.

In her course northward the steamer, upon which we embarked at Tröndhjem, winds in and out among the many islands and fjords, touching occasionally at small settlements on the mainland to discharge light freight and to land or to take an occasional passenger. The few persons who come from the little cluster of houses, which are not sufficient in number to be called a village, are found to be of more than ordinary intelligence, and many of them speak English fluently. Even in these sparsely inhabited regions education is provided for by what is termed the "ambulatory system"; that is, one able teacher instructs the youth of three or four neighboring districts, meeting the convenience of all by suitable variations regarding time and place in holding school sessions.

There is but one day in the year when the phenomenon of the midnight sun can be seen at the imaginary line which we designate as the Arctic Circle, a point in the watery waste or on the land, twenty-three degrees and twenty-eight minutes from the North Pole; but by sailing some three hundred miles further northward, to the North Cape, the projecting point of the extreme north of Norway, it may be observed under favorable circumstances – that is, when not obscured by clouds – for over two months, dating from the middle of May. Soon after entering the Arctic Circle, fourteen hundred and eight geographical miles from the North Pole, a singularly formed island is observed, called by the natives Hestmandö, or Horseman's Island, – a rocky and mountainous formation of some two thousand feet in height, more or less. On approaching the island from the west, by aid of the imagination one can discern the colossal figure of a horseman wrapped in his cloak and mounted upon a charger. The island forms a well-known landmark for seamen navigating the coast. It is believed that the summit has never been reached by human feet.

We touch on our way at the little fishing-village of Bodöe. Louis Philippe lived here for a brief period when travelling as an exile under the name of Müller, and visitors are shown the room which he occupied. It is the chief town of Nordland, and has fifteen hundred inhabitants. After leaving Bodöe the course of the steamer is directly across the Vestfjord to the group of the Lofoden Islands. Owing to the remarkable clearness of the atmosphere as seen from Bodöe, they appear to be about fifteen or twenty miles away on the edge of the horizon, though the real distance is about fifty. The play of light and shade is here so different from that of lower latitudes that distances are very deceptive.

A little to the westward of the steamer's course in coming from the mainland lies the famous whirlpool known as the Maelström, the subject of many a romantic and wild conjecture which lives in the memory of us all. At certain stages of the wind and tide a fierce eddy is formed here which is somewhat dangerous for small boats to cross, but the presumed risk to vessels of the size of the coasting-craft usually employed here, is an error. At some stages of the tide it is difficult to even detect the exact spot which is at other times so disturbed. Thus we find that another legend of the credulous past has but a very thin substratum of fact for its foundation. The tragedies recorded in connection with the Venetian Bridge of Sighs are proven to be without reliable foundation; the episode of Tell and the apple is not historical, but a poetical fabrication; and now we know that neither ships nor whales were ever drawn into the Norwegian Maelström to their destruction. There are several other similar rapids in and about these pinnacled islands, identical in their nature, though the one here referred to is the most restless and formidable.

On close examination the Lofodens are found to consist of a maze of irregular mountain-peaks and precipices, often between two and three thousand feet in height, the passage between them being very tortuous, winding amid straits interspersed with hundreds of rocky islets which are the home of large flocks of sea-birds. Dwarf-trees, small patches of green grass, and velvety moss grow near the water's edge, and carpet here and there a few acres of soil, but the high ridges are bleak and bare rock, covered in spots with never-melting snow. These islands are composed mainly of granite, and for wonderful peaks and oddly pointed shapes, deep and far-reaching gulches, are unequalled elsewhere. It seems marvellous that a steamer can be safely navigated through such narrow passages and among such myriads of sunken rocks. These elevations from beneath the sea vary from mere turtlebacks, as sailors call them, just visible above the water, to mountains with sky-kissing peaks. For a vessel to run upon one of these low hummocks would simply be destruction, as the water alongside of them is rarely less than two or three hundred fathoms in depth.

The total length of these remarkable islands is about a hundred and thirty miles, and the area is computed at fifteen hundred and sixty square miles. The population will not vary much from twenty thousand, and the entire occupation of the people is fishing, curing the fish, and shipping them southward.

The hardy fishermen work nearly all winter at their rough occupation, braving the tempestuous Northern Ocean in frail, undecked boats, which to an inexperienced eye seem to be utterly unfit for such exposed service. The harvest time to the cod-fishers here is from January to the middle of April. Casualties, of course, are more or less frequent, but do not exceed those encountered by our fishermen on the banks of Newfoundland. In the year 1848, a terrible hurricane visited the Lofodens, and in a few hours swept over five hundred fishermen into eternity. The men engaged in this service come from all parts of Norway, returning to their homes in summer and engaging in other occupations.

As we leave the group and steer towards the mainland, it is remembered that the coast of Norway extends three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, projecting itself boldly into the Polar Sea. Two hundred miles and more of this distance is north of the Lofoden Islands. Now and then portions of country are passed on the mainland, affording striking and beautiful landscape effects, where valleys open towards the sea, presenting views sometimes capped by glaciers high up towards the overhanging sky, where they form immense level fields of ice embracing hundreds of square miles.

The varied and ever present attractions of Norway to the artist are many, and in a great measure they are unique, especially in the immediate vicinity of the west coast. No two of the many abrupt elevations resemble each other. All are peculiar; some like Alpine cathedrals rear their fretted spires far heavenward, where they echo the hoarse anthems played by the winter's storms. One would think that Nature in a wayward mood had tried her hand sportively at architecture, sculpture, and castle-building, constructing now a high monumental column or a mounted warrior, and now a Gothic fane amid regions strange, lonely, and savage. There are grand mountains and glaciers in Switzerland and other countries, but they do not rise directly out of the water as they often do in Scandinavia; and as to the scenery afforded by the innumerable fjords winding inland amid forests, cliffs, and impetuous waterfalls, nowhere else can we find such remarkable scenes.

Like rivers, and yet so unlike them in width, depth, and placidity, with their broad mouths guarded by clustering islands, one can find nothing in nature more grand, solemn, and impressive than a Norwegian fjord. Now and again the shores are lined for short distances by the greenest of green pastures, dotted with little red houses and groups of domestic animals, forming charming bits of verdant foreground backed by dark and shadowy gorges. Down precipitous cliffs leap cascades which are fed by ice-fields hidden in the lofty mountains. These are not merely pretty spouts, like many a little Swiss device, but grand, plunging, restless torrents, conveying heavy volumes of foaming water.

CHAPTER XVII

As we advance northward, our experiences become more and more peculiar. It seems as if humanity, like nature, is possessed by a certain sleeplessness in these regions during the constant reign of daylight. People are wide awake and busy at their various occupations during all hours, while the drowsy god appears to have departed on a vacation to the southward. The apparent incongruity of starting upon a fresh enterprise at midnight is only realized on consulting one's watch.

All along the coast the birds are nearly as numerous as the fishes, and many islands are solely occupied by them as breeding-places. Their numbers are beyond calculation, consisting of petrels, swans, geese, pelicans, auks, gulls, and divers. These last are more particularly of the duck family, of which there are over thirty distinct species in and about this immediate region. Curlews, ptarmigans, cormorants, and ospreys are also seen in greater or less numbers.

The steamer lands us for a few hours at Tromsöe, a small island in latitude 69° 38´ north, a thriving place of six thousand inhabitants, a goodly number for a town within the Arctic Circle. It is the capital of Norwegian Lapland. Both to the north and south of the town snow-clad mountains shut off distant views. During the winter months there are only four hours of daylight here out of the twenty-four, – that is, from about ten o'clock A.M. until two o'clock P.M., – but the long nights are made comparatively light by the glowing splendor of the Aurora Borealis. The birch-trees in and about Tromsöe are of a remarkably developed species, and form a marked feature of the place.

Just outside of the town a field is seen golden with buttercups, making it difficult to realize that we are in the Arctic regions. A pink-blooming heather also covers other fields, and we are surprised by a tiny cloud of butterflies, so abundant in the warm sunshine, and presenting such transparency of color as to suggest the idea that a rainbow has been shattered, and is floating in myriad particles in the air.

The short-lived summer perhaps makes flowers all the more carefully tended. In the rudest domestic quarters a few pet plants are seen whose arrangement and nurture show womanly care. Every window in the humble dwellings has its living screen of drooping, many-colored fuchsias, geraniums, forget-me-nots, and monthly roses. The ivy is especially prized here, and is picturesquely trained to hang about the window-frames. The fragrant sweet-pea, with its snow-white and peach-blossom hues, is often mingled prettily with the dark green of the ivy, the climbing propensities of each making them fitting mates. Surely there must be an innate sense of refinement among the people of these frost-imbued regions, whatever their seeming, when they are actuated by such delicate tastes.

One of the most interesting subjects of study to the traveller on the journey northward is to mark his progress by the products of the forest. The trees will prove, if intelligently observed, a means of fixing his position. From the region of the date and the palm we come to that of the fig and the olive; thence to the orange, the almond, and the myrtle. Succeeding these we find the walnut, the poplar, and the lime; and again there comes the region of the elm, the oak, and the sycamore. These will be succeeded by the larch, the fir, the pine, the birch, and their companions. After this point we look for no change of species, but a diminution in size of these last named. The variety of trees is the result of altitude as well as of latitude, since there are mountain regions of Southern Europe, as well as in America, where one may pass in a few hours from the region of the olive to that of the stunted fir.

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. These boats, of the same model as that ancient Viking ship at Christiania, sit very low in the water amidship, but are remarkable for buoyancy and the ease with which they are propelled.

The Lapps in their quaint and picturesque costumes of deer-skins surround the newly arrived steamer, in boats, offering furs, carved horn implements, moccasins, walrus-teeth, and the like for sale. These wares are of the rudest type, and of no possible use except as mementos of the traveller's visit to these far northern latitudes. This people are very shrewd in matters of trade, and are not without plenty of low cunning hidden behind their brown, withered, expressionless faces. They are small in stature, being generally under five feet in height, with prominent cheek bones, snub noses, oblique Mongolian eyes, big mouths, large, ill-formed heads, hair like meadow hay, and very scanty beards. Such is a pen portrait of a people who once ruled the whole of Scandinavia. A short trip inland brings us to the summer encampment of the Lapps, formed of a few rude huts, outside of which they live except in the winter months. A Lapp sleeps wherever fatigue overcomes him, preferring the ground, but often lying on the snow. They are a wandering race, their wealth consisting solely in their herds of reindeer, to procure sustenance for which necessitates frequent changes of locality. A Laplander is rich provided he owns enough of these animals to support himself and family. A herd that can afford thirty full-grown deer annually for slaughter, and say ten more to be sold or bartered, makes a family of a dozen persons comfortably well off. Some are destroyed every year by wolves and bears, notwithstanding all the precautions taken to prevent it, while in severe winters a large number are sure to die of starvation.

The herds live almost entirely on the so-called reindeer moss, but this failing them, they eat the young twigs of the trees. When the snow covers the ground to a depth of not more than three or four feet, these intelligent creatures dig holes in it so as to reach the moss, and guided by instinct they rarely fail to do so in just the right place. The Lapps themselves would be entirely at a loss for any indication as to where this food should be sought when covered by the deep snow. The reindeer will carry, lashed to its back, a hundred and thirty pounds, or drag upon the snow, when harnessed to a sledge, two hundred and fifty pounds, travelling ten miles an hour for several consecutive hours, without apparent fatigue. The country over which these people roam is included in Northern Norway and Sweden, with a portion of Northwestern Russia and Finland, extending over about seven thousand square miles, but the whole race will hardly number thirty thousand. Lapland, in general terms, may be said to be the region lying between the Polar Ocean and the Arctic Circle, the eastern and western boundaries being the Atlantic Ocean and the White Sea, two-thirds of which territory belongs to Russia, and one-third is about equally divided between Norway and Sweden.

In the winter season the Lapps retire far inland, where they build temporary huts of the branches of the trees, plastered with clay and banked up with snow, leaving a hole at the top as a chimney for the smoke, the fire being always built upon a broad, flat stone in the centre of the hut. In these rude, and, according to our estimate, comfortless cabins, they hibernate, rather than live the life of civilized human beings, for eight months of the year.

After leaving Tromsöe our course is north-northeast, crossing wild fjords and skirting the mainland. Along the shore at intervals little clusters of fishermen's huts are seen, with a small sprinkling of herbage and patches of bright verdure. As we glide along among the islands which line the shore, we are pretty sure to fall in with one of the little propellers, with a small swivel gun at the bow, in search of whales. The projectile which is used consists of a barbed harpoon, to which a short chain is affixed, and to that a strong line. This harpoon has barbs which expand as soon as they enter the body of the animal and he pulls upon the line, stopping at a certain angle, which renders the withdrawal of the weapon impossible. Besides this, an explosive shell is so attached that it quickly bursts within the monster, producing instant death. A cable is then fastened to the head, and the whale is towed into harbor to be cut up, and the blubber tried out on shore.

The objects which attract the eye are constantly changing. Large black geese, too heavy for lofty flying, rise awkwardly from the waves and skim across the fjords, just clearing the surface of the dark blue waters. Oyster-catchers, as they are familiarly called, decked with scarlet bills and legs, are abundant. Now and then that daring highwayman among birds, the skua, or robber-gull, is seen on the watch for a victim. He is quite dark in plumage, almost black, and gets a robber's living by attacking and causing other birds to drop what they have caught up from the sea, seizing which as it falls, he sails away to consume at leisure his stolen prize.

Long before we reach Hammerfest our watches seem to have become bewitched, for it must be remembered that here it is broad daylight throughout the twenty-four hours (in midsummer) which constitute day and night elsewhere. To sleep becomes a useless effort, and our eyes are unusually wide open.

The Gulf Stream, emerging from the tropics thousands of miles away, constantly laves the shores, and consequently ice is not seen. At first it seems a little strange that there are no icebergs here in latitude 70° north, when we have them on the coast of America in certain seasons at 41°. The entire west coast of Norway is warmer by at least twenty degrees than most other localities in the same latitude, owing to the presence of the Gulf Stream, – that heated, mysterious river in the midst of the ocean. It brings to these far-away regions quantities of floating material, such as the trunks of palm-trees, and other substances suitable for fuel, to which useful purpose they are put at the Lofoden Islands, and by the fishermen along the shore of the mainland. By the same agency West Indian seeds and woods are often found floating on the west coast of Scotland and Ireland.