We Love Farfar
Farfar (Grandfather) is Northern Norway – a hard working farmer . Our Farfar is 82, 90% blind, needs two walking sticks to get around and still climbs ladders! Once a farmer, always a farmer.
In 1960 Farfar bought a patch of land in rural Alta and built a house on it. Over the years he has worked hard to build the cutest little farm – planting groves, making fences and digging a water hole for a paddling of ducks, all while raising a family. The farm is duly called Solslett gård (Sunny-field Farm).
Moose spent his childhood eating strawberries, bottle feeding new lambs and fishing in the salmon river. He would help Farfar take the sheep up into the mountains for the summer grass – and back down again to the barn for the snowy winters. Farfar would teach him about the land – what plants to use to make tea, how to rest the pastures and to train working dogs. He taught Moose that even though farmers have to work hard for little money, their life is always rich.
Farfar has so many amazing stories – like the time when he had to train a German Officer to ski behind a reindeer during the war, or how he was part of re-establishing the mail service across the mountains. Farfar would go on reindeer herding treks with his Sami friends and every Christmas give “one-horse-open-sleigh” rides in town.
His house is always open – school children visit to learn about the farm animals and local teens pop round to exercise the horses. Every summer they have farm-experience guests and many friends just drop in from Sweden, Finland and Germany to say hi – and, of course, the locals are always stopping by for a chat (especially to eat some of Farmors famous berry bread).
With only a primary school education, Farfar can speak three other languages – German, Sami and Kvennish, which is a Finnish peasant dialect from the 1800s – but no English. As yet I haven’t been able to speak more than a few sentences with my Father-in-law as I am just a beginner in Norwegian. However, I’m finding there is no need for talk when it comes to understanding – I know that he loves us dearly and is tickled pink with his new granddaughter.
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There is an opposition in everything. At the darkest time of the year, we celebrate Christmas. And at the exact opposite end, when the midnight sun is at its highest, we celebrate Midsummer.
On any celebration table in Norway you can always find a Norwegian layer cake (bløtkake). What better way to celebrate Norwegian Constitution Day than with fresh cream, wild berries and a little bit of sponge in between.
The sun never goes down during this season but the mountains to the East are so high that the sun still has to raise above them in the morning hours and an artificial dawn-effect wakes the city.
Reindeer herding is more than just an occupation, it is a way of life and an integral part of the Sami culture and identity.
Pølse is THE fast food of Norway. When the grilled pølse was first introduced to Norway in the 50s it was eaten naked – without bread.
Farfar sounds like he has much wisdom. I love to read about a more simple life. I think we make life so complicated with all of our material things. Your children are blessed to have the opportunity to grow up in this way.
What a blessing this life is. How wonderful you see it there right in front of you.
What a beautiful post
Your farfar sounds wonderful. My daughter’s farfar is actually 100% Finnish himself (I am a Norwegian married to a Finn).
So we go to Finland a fair bit to keep up with the language (I’m awful at speaking Finnish!).
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from L-Jay:
You’d think that Finnish and Norwegian would be similar since the peoples have lived next door to each other for a long time. It’s so weird that they are from completely different language groups. I find that Norwegian Sami is very similar in sound to Finnish – I guess they are from the same language group? But we also have Finnish family (who speak Swedish…lol).