Only in Norway: Moose Prepares for a Road Trip
Sometimes I still get culture shocked. Right now Moose is walking around the house gathering things for his trip. He is traveling down to Nesna this weekend to another farm to learn some natural horse-husbandry. Also, he will be picking up some smålensgjess (Smålens geese) which are a Norwegian heritage breed that are at high risk of extinction (basically, they are the next to go).
Moose pulls off the sheath to his huge Sami knife (Look out Rambo!). ’You are not going to take that, are you?’, I said with one eyebrow raised, ‘It’s not like you’re gonna get hungry on the way and need the knife to slaughter and roast a goose’. He replied, ‘It’s in case I hit a reindeer.’ Referring to a reader’s comment on the Alt for Norge post, ‘What, you gonna cut of the testicles and eat them?’ ’No’, he said, ‘it’s to finish it off humanely’. ‘Oh’, I said, a little gobsmacked at even the idea of having to slaughter an animal on a simple road trip. I guess, only in Norway.
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The Norwegian smålens goose, or smålsensgås, is a heritage breed of Norway. Our smålensgjess arrived on the farm in September 2011.
How Norway became a country is shrouded in mystery and folklore. The most well known tale is of Harald Hårfagre who gathered the small kingdoms of the north into a unified nation in 872AD – and of course, this story is about love.
Today herding reindeer is synonymous with the Sami culture. It is recently thought that the Vikings were the first people to herd reindeer.
Lathari beach is the only beach in Alta.
Norwegian dogs were born with a purpose. They were bred to be hunting dogs, herding dogs and farm dogs.
Even in the peak of summer our mountains have touches of snow.
Haha! Eirik does the “city” (although Tromsoe is hardly a big city) version. Every time head out to the woods/shore/out in general, there is always a pocket knife somewhere. In the pocket, in the mushroom basket…I keep thinking that he gets caught, I wonder what the police will say!
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from L-Jay:
Sami are actually allowed to carry their knives on display around their waist in public. It is part of their tradition and costume custom.
I still think it is odd going into a sports store and seeing all these guns hanging on the wall. You’d never get that back home. Us Aussies aren’t as comfortable around guns as Norwegians.
@L-Jay – I think you have to accept that huge knifes is more a symbol of Australia and men that use these to impress women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01NHcTM5IA4
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from L-Jay:
Yes, that is why I am very amused that it is normal in Norway to have such knives…lol. (Aussies also think it amusing that we eat the animals on its national emblem…lol. But we do have an emu and a kangaroo.)
I was driving home with friends years ago and we hit a deer. They both felt horrible that they didn’t have a knife to do just that, and one walked across a huge farm field in the bitter cold to bring some hunters over to do it for us. Norway/North Dakota.
I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed all your interesting articles, and how much i look forward to your updates! I now live in Texas although i am Scottish and like you have not quite got used to the whole gun culture thing, guns and amo at the grocery store is to me very strange!!! On another note I made the Marzipan cake from your recipe and my partner said it was just like being back in Norway! Thank you so much!!!
Goodness me! A preperation knife – perhaps im not as prepared to drive in Norway as I thought I was, it seems logical as to why he would take the knife but in all honesty I simply wouldnt have thought of it!