Midnight Sunbeams; or, Bits of Travel Through the Land of the Norseman

by Edwin Coolidge Kimball

We entered a dining room, around which were arranged little tables covered with snowy linen; in the centre stood a large table, one end spread with the usual diversified collection of the smörgasbord, at the other were piles of plates, knives, forks, and napkins. The soup is brought in and placed on the central table; each one helps himself, and, taking it to one of the small tables, eats at his leisure; the soup finished you serve yourself with fish, roast meats, chicken, and vegetables, in quantity and variety as you choose, and return to your table. The servants replenish the supplies on the large table, remove soiled plates and bring tea, coffee, beer, or wine, as ordered, to the occupants of the small tables, but each one must serve himself from the various courses, ending with pudding and nuts and raisins. There was none of the hurry, bustle, and crowding usually encountered in a railway restaurant, but plenty of time was given for a quiet, comfortable meal, with no necessity for bolting your food.

For this abundant and well-cooked dinner the charge was forty cents,—tea, coffee, beer, and wine being extra. Your word was taken without questioning regarding the extras, as you paid for them and your dinner at the table from which the coffee was dispensed. The matter of payment was left entirely to the individual, and it never, apparently, had entered the manager’s mind that one could easily have walked off, without first conferring with the woman at the coffee urn.

After dinner there was time for a short walk up and down the platform, and then we continued our journey through a country where the rail fences, red farm houses, pine trees, and abundance of stumps and rocks, made us imagine we were in Maine or New Hampshire, instead of on the other side of the “great pond.” The scenery improved, and in places was beautiful, especially as we skirted the shores of a chain of lakes formed by the Ljusne river; and under a sky burning with the gorgeous coloring of a brilliant Northern sunset, we arrived at half-past nine at the little station where we were to take supper. Here was the same arrangement as at dinner, each one waiting upon himself, and a good supper of fish, hot and cold meats, eggs, tea and coffee was furnished for thirty cents, which is likewise the charge for a substantial breakfast.

There were few passengers on the train, and during most of the day we two had had a compartment to ourselves. There are no sleeping cars on the route, so as it was getting late we closed and fastened the doors of our compartment, drew the curtains to shut out the bright light of the Northern night, and lying on the long seats covered with our thick railway rugs slept undisturbed, until suddenly awakened by a loud rapping at our door. The train was in a station, female voices were calling to us in Swedish, and we sprang up anxious to learn the cause of this unlooked-for visitation. But when the door was opened, the dear creatures beat a hasty retreat the moment they saw us, and evidently were as surprised as ourselves at our meeting; as we soon heard their voices in a neighboring compartment, we knew they had found those they were seeking.

At five o’clock in the morning we arrived at Ostersund, where the train stopped for an hour. We paid four cents and entered a toilet room with marble wash-bowls, brushes, an abundance of fresh towels, and that article which is never furnished free in Europe—soap. After taking bread and coffee, and a brisk walk, we felt as fresh and rested as though we had passed the night in the state-room of a vestibule Pullman.

We had previously congratulated each other on having a compartment to ourselves; on resuming our journey, during the entire forenoon, we were the sole occupants of a whole car.

We skirt the shores of a series of lakes connected by rivers, and then through a dreary country ascend the range of mountains separating Sweden from Norway. We pass through snow sheds, and between high board fences built to keep the drifting snow from the track (both much simpler in construction than those along the roads crossing the Rocky Mountains), and in the midst of snow banks, enveloped in a thick chilling mist, arrive at Storlien, two thousand feet above sea-level, the last station in Sweden. We gather for the last time about the smörgasbord (we never saw it later in Norway), and a good dinner cheers us in our desolate surroundings.

Then we enter the Norwegian train of second and third class carriages, on the common European model of compartments entered from the sides, with the second class, in their fittings, fully equal to the first of many other countries, and begin the descent to the sea coast. The snow mountains are veiled by clouds, there is little vegetation, barren rocks are succeeded by marshy land and swamps, but soon we emerge from the mist into bright sunshine.