An excerpt with from the book "Norway"
Photos by Robert & Loren Paulson
Text by Sidney & Lois Rand
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Along Norway’s west coast are magnificent fjords---narrow,
glacially formed arms of the sea reaching many miles inland. South of Alesund, ships often sail into the
Stor Fjord and maneuver their way between the cliffs of its remotest inlet, the
Geiranger Fjord. Here, a small vessel
sails past the fabled waterfalls, The Seven Sisters, toward the tiny village of
Geiranger lying sheltered at the fjord’s inner end. |
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The Seacoast
He was an American, a world traveler. One
summer he found himself in a European tour group with Norway on its
itinerary. This was a country he had never visited and with which he
had not even remote ties.
He
rode the tour bus over the mountain highways and onto the ferries,
hiked the trails, scouted cities and farms, and shot the tourist’s
rolls of film. When he returned home, he exclaimed, “I have never seen
anything so beautiful. Norway should be made an international park!”
This small, out-of-the-way country on the northwest edge of
Europe affects most of its visitors this way. Yet when one realizes its
rather remote geographical position, it is hard to imagine a less
likely place for an “international park.” The latitude of Norway –
between 58º and 72º north – is only slightly farther north than the
latitude of Alaska.
Forming the western border of
the Scandinavian Peninsula, Norway is shaped like
a tadpole, with an oval body forming its southern part and a long tail
extending to the north. The country is eleven hundred miles long,
roughly the distance from New Orleans to Minneapolis. Its width ranges
from four to two hundred seventy-five miles, with a land area similar
to that of New Mexico. It stretches from the Skagerrak and the North
Sea on the south and west, to the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea on
the north. Much of its border is seacoast, with the most direct route
around the coastline 2,125 miles. Actually, because of the extreme
irregularities of the coastline, the real sea perimeter is more like
thirteen thousand miles.
Those unfamiliar with Norway might expect it to be a bitter,
unwelcoming land, positioned as it is with the Arctic Circle bisecting
it almost in the middle. Yet geography also provides it with a
moderating boon in the form of the Gulf Stream, which moves from the
south coast of the United States across the North Atlantic, to bathe
the Norwegian seacoast and keep its waters ice free the entire year. As
a result, average temperatures throughout coastal Norway are milder
than this latitude would suggest – with temperate winters, cool
summers, and abundant rainfall much like America’s Pacific Northwest
and Canada’s British Columbia. Inland, Norway has warmer summers,
colder winters, and less rain – similar to the weather in America’s
Upper Midwest. Traditionally, Norwegians thought in terms of two
seasons, summer and winter. Spring and fall are imported concepts,
regarded as brief reminders that the next season, a longer one, is
approaching.
