Chapter IX
A Glimpse of the Fjelds
“Fjeld-weather” is the Norwegian term for fine, warm, bright days. It implies that the weather is suitable for a tour on the mountains. But, alas! it is not the weather that is always encountered there, for even in the summer the climate of the high plateau is ever varying, and though there may be a long spell of fine, hot weather, with a glorious crisp air, yet at any moment a change of the wind may bring a week of soaking rain, sleet, possibly snow, and a fall of temperature by twenty degrees. That is no time for the fjelds, and the traveller is better off in a fjordside hotel.
Given fine weather, there is no more splendid touring ground than the highlands of Norway, where, at a height of anything up to 4,000 or 5,000 feet above the sea, stretch thousands of square miles of wild and uninhabited moorland, cut up with numerous large lakes, and clothed only with a dwarf vegetation. Such parts usually lie off the beaten track, and to reach them means an expedition—heavy, uphill walking for two or three days, with the baggage carried on the backs of ponies.
If you were going to undertake an expedition to these high fjelds, you would probably make a start from the lowlands by following some well-worn track leading to a sæter. In nine cases out of ten the track will be running by the side of a river, at first wide and flowing lazily through the valley, but soon narrowing, until its upper waters become a rushing mountain torrent, swishing between mighty boulders. After a while you find that the path gradually begins to ascend by zigzags up the mountain-side, and the scenery, whenever you pause to look down, is magnificent. In time you reach the upland pastures, with here and there a sæter-dwelling, and this is the end of the first stage of your journey, for you probably will have climbed some 2,000 feet and walked a dozen miles or more. Thus you will be glad enough to accept the hospitality offered to you by the simple peasants.
All these sæter-huts are much alike, though, of course, they vary in size and in the way in which they are fitted up; but as they are only occupied during the summer months, luxurious fittings are not considered a necessity. The outer walls are constructed of fir-trunks, let into one another at the corners on the log-hut principle, and the interior is lined with boarding. In some parts, however, where timber is scarce the buildings are of stone.
The roof consists of rough planks, on which is placed a layer of birch-bark to fill in the cracks; and on the top, again, are laid sods of earth to a thickness of about a foot. Grass and weeds soon cover the roof, binding it together and keeping the rain out.
The door opens into a dark hall or chamber, which serves as a receptacle for rubbish of all kinds—fishing-nets, tools, skins, empty milk-pans, and the like; and in the corner is a roughly-built fireplace for boiling the milk and for cooking. On one side of this hall is the door into the sole living apartment, which possesses a window at one end, and against one of the side walls a couple of bunks, wherein three or four dairymaids sleep.
Sometimes there is a separate room, or even a detached hut, for the dairy work; but there is generally only the one room, the milk being set in large, shallow wooden vessels on a number of shelves fixed against one of the walls. Everything is scrupulously clean, and the cattle women are working hard all the long daylight hours. Periodically a man from the farm in the lowlands comes up to the sæter with a couple of ponies and takes down butter and cheese, and such visits are the only excitement in sæter-life.
If you have time to linger here for a day or two you will be made welcome, and you will find plenty to interest you. The views down into the deep valleys and away to the fjords in the distance are always delightful, and there may be a stream with pools holding trout worth trying for. The tiny rivulets which trickle down from the hills are lined with ferns and forget-me nots, and elsewhere may be seen flowers of every hue—red Alpine catchfly, blue meadow cranesbill, hawksweed, wild radis, and a score of other pretty things.