Black Friday Christmas Card

I found this picture in my archive. Homer Alaska, January 2008. Frosty riding a beat up old truck. Hi Frosty. Since they put up the first Christmas decorations here yesterday I thought it appropriate to decorate the blog too. Consider this your Black Friday greeting: Welcome holiday season, let’s prosper in the name of family, love and frequent consumer frustration. Now hurry to your nearest store and help the corporations meet their consumer quotas for the year.

Digital Asset Management

I am inside. Literally. While inside I'm staring at files within files within files of work from what feels like another life. Yet it's only from a few years back. It's a bit like going on safari through my own life, because all these photographs I have were taken by me at a place where I've been. They feel so foreign, not because most of them are from someplace I had to show my passport to get to, but because when making pictures for a living it sometimes feels like life in the frame isn't really happening to me but to someone else. I'm just there to see it. So as I sit in a foreign country at a foreign desk browsing pictures of fun times somewhere else, I remember why I thought signs in China were funny. I was there.

Brooklyn On My Mind

Eight and a half years ago I moved to Brooklyn. The part I moved to was then a hipster haven, and over time it has become hipster central, every corner a new cafe filled with Apple laptops. Illegal lofts are condos, the sugar factory rumored to become a hotel and the vacant lot by the river a park where children play. So when I showed up, eight years later, my two old addresses had become a tapas restaurant and a japanese dormitory hotel. In fear of sounding old I miss my old Brooklyn. The one where there were two coffee shops, four languages, and all non-Brooklyn natives made less than 25 000 dollars a year.

The Small Things

I’ve long heard about dessert in my generation. Especially in Norway. We apparently like it, as we’re nick’ed the Dessert Generation. In my family we sometimes got dessert on Sundays. I can’t say that should qualify for an entire generation's name, but I guess they’re not referring to the actual meal when talking in these terms. We are Dessert because we have been able to eat things we like, do things we like, play anytime we like, go anywhere we like and all to the tune of music we like. Freedom seems to be an appropriate word. So then I wonder why so many people are trapped. Seems less is more doesn’t apply as I read about people hollering for more money so they can have a house with a garden, a cabin, two cars and three children in pre-school, all the while paying less taxes and having free health-care. I spent a few hours in a cabin with a friend who gets his light from candles, water from a creek and still can make a mean espresso on his gas stove, all with the biggest smile on his face. He lacks nothing. When did we get so used to dessert we forgot how tasty real food is?

Summer

Summer. In the northern hemisphere it's the perfect time of year, when the winter cold has melted away, scratched the earth and given way for chlorophyll and allergies. And fruit. Oh, strawberries, how your red beautifully mismatches the green. And cherries. So many cherries. Once again the air smells of something, not just a chill that burns the insides of the nostrils. It's summer. Freckles, beer on boats, shrimp out of and into the ocean, and people grinning on every Hipstamatic-print-for-iPhone. The one thing summer in Norway lacks is people at work. At least people who work for Norway. Welcome home, where the government governs from vacation.

Leaving Again

Facebook says I have 544 friends. Today. Tomorrow I may have more, or less, depending on which way the wind blows. Some are caught in the (inter)net, but most are people I've had at least one conversation with. These friends are my village, readily available from a handy pocket-device where I can access them at all times. But as I pack my bags to make another journey to someplace else for however long it will take me, I start to realize; 544 friends on Facebook is worth little compared to one in person. With this I'd like to say to my friends in Tromsø: It's been a wonderful two years, I'll miss you all very much. Please come find me sometime. In person.

No Exam

For 730 days I have been studying. One topic has taken up my entire brain for two years, taken over all spare time, my life. One short film and one thesis later, the buildup was going to be complete. Relief was to come in the form of two hours with a committee judging the product of my 730 days of thinking. So when a woman with an attitude phoned me up three hours before my defense to tell me one of my committee members was sick and couldn't make it, my exam would just have to be postponed for two months, it was like a volcanic explosion. All that pressure from all that time had to come out somewhere. And for once it got me what I wanted; postponement of exam for only a week. Come Tuesday this will all be over.

Thesis Thoughts

I just wrote 17033 words down in 875 sentences on 53 pages separated into 5 chapters and a conclusion. This writing was the result of two years at the University of Tromsø, and is accompanied by a film of 27 minutes and a little over 30 seconds. On Tuesday I have to stand in front of two anthropologists for an hour, explaining why I wrote the 17033 words in the order I did, as well as give them a few words left out within those 53 pages. Between now and Tuesday I have to read nearly 1500 pages with words written by writers practicing varied skills of word organization. I have learned to use words such as identity, reflexiveness, stigma, globalization, modernity, and discovered a level of anxiety only possible through sleep depravation and a caffeine induced diet. I've been high, low, and high-and-low at the same time, my brain has felt inflated and squeezed, like a sponge. So come Tuesday I will be released from the university system back to my own making. I will no longer be imprisoned by poorly organized words; on Tuesday I will be free to feel less like my own shadow.

Writing Woes

Thesis writing is something entirely new to me. As I read academic writing I find it tiresome that it has to be so completely void of fun. Each page is a series of words, all linked by some connection to the topic, but lacking any murmur of comedy. This is perhaps because academia is serious, and like a law needs to be written with exact words to give exact meaning. So now, after two years of reading these meaningful words it’s time for me to write my own. One word at a time I decipher the meaning of being Sami in Alaska, trying my best to keep it as succinct as possible while dreaming of going outside to picture what I see.

Brackish Blog and Mining Gold

Lately this blog has been brackish, as I’ve been focusing my attention on blackboards and learning new things (see below). But today, as I enter into another anno of mine, it struck me my brackish blog should be revived, and who better to do that than this gold miner I met on the beaches of Nome this summer. He’s come to Nome for years, sifting through the sand, hoping to strike rich, as so many generations have done before him. He’s building a shack on the beach, his very own, from driftwood and found scraps. He has a vision. He’s 70-years old. My great-grandfather went to Nome and had a claim just a kilometer behind where this gold miner stands. He struck rich, went home to Norway and bought a farm on an island, which eventually had to be sold back to the government because the island became too popular of a place to live for there to be a whole farm there. I live on this island now, about two kilometers from the site of the old farm. I went to Alaska to find a different kind of gold, my kind, story-gold. Which is what I’ve done this year, which has left my blog brackish. And now the revival of the blog will spiral on...

My Life, For Fun

Some time ago I returned to school. The grand idea was to get a Master’s, which in my head would equal unlimited smarts plus fun learning experiences. Although it has been, and still is fun, after spending most of my days either glued to a monitor or fixed on a book I have yet to locate the well for this unlimited smarts I was so eager to find. So when my professor made the blackboard a little bit like how I picture my head to be, I decided to cave, rule out unlimited smarts and just settle. For fun.

FAI-ANC-SEA-NYC-OSL-TOS

NYC

Holy Smokes

When you turn on the local news in Fairbanks, Alaska, there's the normal local jibber; the cat in the tree, the car in the tree, the fire chief's wife in the tree, it's the normal local goings-ons, and sounds exactly the same as anywhere else in America. Until the weather report. It may go something like this: Today's forecast includes highs of 84 degrees, lows at 70. Calm winds, with increasing clouds. High chances of smoke. When the fires burn in the interior, the wind drifts smoke into the Fairbanks valley and makes the air impossible to breathe. Old people and children are advised to stay inside, and the rest of the population urged to keep away from the outdoors as much as possible. On the front page of the paper, next to a smiling Bettie Upright bowling in the International Seniors Games, the weather will tell you only two things: the temperature, and that there's smoke. Later the news announced the arrival of a state-of-the-art firefighting jet, a 747 ready to dump water on all areas inflamed. But it has to stay on the ground because there's too much smoke for it to fly...

Two Years of Radio

Back in the town, in the cafe, at the window, by the table, on the chair, drinking the latte where it all started, I couldn't help but think about when was it exactly I started this blog. And holysmokes, it was exactly two years and two days ago. Which is ironic, because that also happens to be my father's birthday, which was one of the reasons this blog came into existence: to inform my father of my whereabouts without him having to leave too frequent voicemails. I don't think I planned it to start on his birthday, but since it did; happy birthday, Pappa and happy second, BushRadio. And funnily enough, this is exactly my 100th posting.

A Day of Firsts

I went reindeer herding. After 2500 deer, 13 hours and 12 miles stumbling over tussocks on the tundra in my work-boots not recommended for hiking, I finally got my reindeer footage. Every few miles I'd get picked up in the helicopter, and plopped down where I was needed to keep the reindeer bunched together, which was the main function of the herding. It's the new meets the old, we were three walkers on the ground while the helicopter buzzed above. When I was returned to the cabin where we started, a RedBull was waiting for me, given to me by the young guy who'd been there earlier. I remembered he had a million dollar grin, and was told he was also a convicted murderer. Apparently for running over his dad with a car. Twice. Never met one of those before. It was an Alaska day of firsts, for sure.

Reindeer, And Then Some

It's reindeer season. Reindeer are penned up, tagged, notched and recorded. While we record, notch, tag and pen, food will be prepared, because it takes days. Food is also reindeer. And since winter just ended, coats are being shed, so reindeer hair is everywhere. And when you finally get to steal some shut-eye, dreams are about reindeer. Yes, it's reindeer season.

Fly Away

I met a man on the beach and he had an ear-to-ear grin talking about how he ended up in Alaska. It had something to do with the weather. Everybody in Alaska has a story about how they ended up in Alaska, even if they're born here they have some story about how their parents ended up in Alaska, only to conceive them somewhere in Alaska so they could end up in Alaska. The man on the beach told a story about being swallowed by the weather, and then the chopper flew overhead running away from the weather.

Roaming Religion

Religion is very important in Alaska. Nome has eight churches, five of which are spread over a three-block radius, ready to serve. Once upon an Alaska time someone in charge took a map and designated certain settlements to be this that and the other Christian denomination. The Natives already thought there were some kind of higher spirit lurking, but they’d never known its name. In come the missionaries eager to tell. Now the locals could go to a building every Sunday and pay their respects to a specific god, named God, and their place in the afterlife would be a done deal. It must have been the missionaries dream-come-true, and the result is churches everywhere.

Car Talk

Alaska loves dogs. After taking some evolutionary steps from the wolf, the dogs have helped deliver mail, provide transportation and fill the Alaska air with barks, howls and general dog sounds. As the great state continues through westernized evolution it's not surprising to find dogs doing the same thing.

Break Up 2

Yearly is an event the locals call Break Up. This has nothing to do with switching partners, but everything to do with the Bering Sea and watching the ice sail away to unavoidable ice-death. Somehow Break Up doesn't seem to come fast enough as the locals started talking about it sometime last month, and a few days ago euphoria hit. The shoreline broke the ice's heart and sent it packing to sea. Welcome back the smell of salt, ripples on the water and the shade of dark blue. It's as if the place woke up; the dancers scheduled to entertain the elders failed to show, apparently they'd taken their boats and gone hunting, and the townies walk around with permasmiles big enough to melt what's left of the permafrost. Good times to be had.

Noon!

Every day at noon the fire-alarm rings loud over Nome. It’s loud enough to make a cadet stand attention, and the town's many dogs howl. It also announces it's time for town to take lunch, which I think is odd because nothing here seems to open before noon. Which leads me to believe that perhaps it’s not the lunch bell, but the time-to-go-to-work bell. Either way, it’s a sign.

Boondoggle

I love English. It has words like boondoggle. I learned it on CNN, yes, I barely have internet, but CNN seems to flow without interruption here, don’t ask... Boondoggle means work that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value. CNN is a bit of a boondoggle sometimes. Internet too. Personally I can spend hours, even days on the internet, surfing blogs, Facebook and the occasional world renown newspaper (only if someone is reading over my shoulder of course, after which I return to boondoggling blogs and Facebook), and always make it seem like I’m doing very important work. Point and case, I just made you spend 30 seconds on my boondoggle of a blog, much appreciated, where I use words like boondoggle frequently and in many incorrect ways... Keep up the good work!

Temp Home Nome

It lives under the motto: There’s No Place Like Nome. It’s true, a city of 3000 on the spit of a peninsula in the Bering Sea, 15 minutes on foot will take you from one side of town to the other, about 7 minutes will do across. It’s a city built on a promise of gold which still holds. Named because of a spelling error, apparently some Brits sailed around in the Bering Sea some 150 years ago and realized this prominent point was nameless. The officer wrote “? Name” on the map, which the guy copying it down saw as “C Nome” which turned into Cape Nome, which means it was officially named by a mapmaker in the British Admirality. Gold was prominent here once, still is, and every year the Iditarod lands about 1000 dogs here. It’s also very rhymalicious: Nome, home, alone, condone, moan, grown, tone, bone, cone...

Weather Man

My hostess' brother is the Weather Man. He used to work for the weather service in Nome, as the weather forecaster, which is different from the meteorologist, but since he's entirely Inupiaq and born into snow, his instincts get cred. He was known to change the forecast the meteorologist in Fairbanks had for Nome, he'd call up and say: "Hey, do you know something I don't" and then they'd give in. He asked me to go for a ride up the road to see how far along they were on clearing it of snow, and how could I say no to that. I mean, who doesn't want to know how the road-clearing is going. About five miles out he nodded his consent and declared the road-workers were doing a much better job this year. He didn't say much else. He made jokes about things I didn’t understand, and as he’d forgotten his hearing aid, he couldn’t really hear me asking about it either. So we just laughed, which is what people do in the north when things get complicated. Laugh.

Fun with Framilends

They let me back in, these perky people of the north. The framilends grew in size, learned words in need of translation from bi-lingual interpreters, and acquired a particular fondness for puddle-jumping slash rolling. Basecamp Framilends is as warm and welcoming as always, the six-month old who became a one-year old is now a two-year old walking around the house saying “excuse me” and constantly reminding me that I came on a plane and live in the basement, or kjeller’n, as she speaks two languages simultaneously. A fairly accurate assesment of my life done by a two-year old. After I resupply at the grocery store where you can buy your eggs, milk, bread, flat-screen tv, gas, gun and garden furniture all in one go, I bid farewell to fair Faribanks and get on a plane. Nome next.

Disclosure: NYC

My brother works in finance, NYC. Admirable, perhaps a little free-falling at the moment, and all very hush-hush. When I get an email from the bro, let's say to remind me of dinner reservations at 8, I also get a full disclosure underneath stating that the message contains confidential information only intended for the named individual(s) above. In this case me. If I'm not that person, I can't read nor distribute the information anywhere or pass it along. I am also informed that the message does not contain any investment advice, nor should I take it as a recommendation to buy or sell anything. I wonder if purchasing food and eating it is considered an investment. I'll have to ask the bro at 8, we have dinner reservations and I'm disclosing that here...

Grandma Giggles

Grandma giggles. Especially when it comes to her main man Ares, the dog, who unfortunately had an accident and tore his nail. Now he gets to look silly with a tract over his head, and grandma gets to get appalled that I'd photograph him in such a state, apparently I'm inconsiderate of his feelings... I miss grandma.

Circum Circus

Sun! In the polar regions there’s sometimes a circle around the sun, but nobody seems to remember what that means. It has something to do with the weather, this much is agreed, but the old folk tales have been lost on the townies of Tromsø. I bid my farevell to Tromsø for the summer, headed for another advendture in Alaska. Four months of frisky funness, stay tuned!

Looking Light

Sometimes the only solution is to find some light.

Pink Think

In fickle financial times, what better news to read over tea than the pink paper. Providing gossip on the latest of the former greats being hunted down for embezzling and stealing, looking prison in the eye, it's now as fun as the tabloids. Time to think, re-think and be thankful for modest means...

Turning 30 (it's an annual thing...)

Last year I had my picture taken on sea-ice, holding a giant Shee-fish, fur around my collar and sporting a smile only someone high on nature can carry. This year I'll share another portrait. It's from yesterday's fever-daze, in a room as tidy as my brain, wearing glasses which make everything blurry... Welcome, wisdom of the weary.

Sighting Svalbard

New adventure. This time I wanted to investigate a place known to be under the plastic on your common classroom globe. This island houses the world’s entire collection of seeds, has more polar bears than inhabitants (although most have never seen one), one school, one university which only offer courses in Arcitc something-or-other, and an automatic preservation of anything and everything placed here before 1945. Even cinderblocks. It is also a place where everything should be in the Guinness World Book of Records; northern-most swimming-pool, northern-most newspaper, northern-most road system, northern-most café-which-serves-lattés, northern-most elementary school, northern-most car dealer, northern-most restaurant and northern-most city where I'm visiting the northernmost-family-who-just-moved-here. And I'm currently the northern-most-girl-in-a-coffeeshop drinking the northern-most-latte.

High Noon

It came back! Euphoria! Who knew a few minutes of sun could cause so much excitement. The D-vitamins have returned, and there's no rest for the weary.

Lunar Links

Since November our days have for the most part looked like this. Nail clipping of light towering 384 403 km above us. Someone told me the Japanese think there's a picture of a rabbit in the moon. I'm still struggling to find that man in there everybody's going on about, wondering what he's thinking about us gawking at him all the time. Must be uncomfortable being started at by billions for eternity. Tomorrow we get our light back, the sun will again arrive to make us happy. Only pity it's forecasted to be a cloudy one...

Bush Bus

Happy New Year, people! It happened sort of suddenly, 2008... It's now an imprint in the memory of times past. Kind of like waiting for the bus and leaving an impression of how that can be done. With this the Bush Bus leaves the station for hopefully more exciting adventures in 2009, stay tuned, I'll try to make it interesting...

Granny Sports

Watching sports with grandma is always a favored pastime. Generally I’m not a sports-on-TV kinda girl, but Norwegian commentators, along with an 88-year-old sidekick, are just too good to pass up. Sunday we watch wonders of the snow all over the Alps, people with steady muscles and extended feet working miracles in the hills. Aside from grandma’s extensive knowledge about skiers’ competence and personal life, along with general weather conditions in the area, the commentators are my most favorite part of watching sports. They talk non-stop, in many levels of Decibel, and if the great ski-nation of Norway doesn’t have a competent enough skier, they choose a Swede. If there are no Swedes or Norwegians to get excited about they holler in favor of the Finns. And if there are no Finns, well, then perhaps it's not worth watching...

Night Light

In the Polar regions there's a symbol for the sun seldom seen other places. It's a simple drawing of the sun below the horizon line, providing local third graders with an alternative way to doodle sunset-on-the-horizon. It never comes up, and it never sets. People get physically affected by this perpetual lack of natural light, so much so it has it's own name: Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Treatments include light therapy with bright lights, ionized air, anti-depression medication, cognitive-behavioral therapy and carefully monitored doses of melatonin. Or, simply, go native and drink cod-liver-oil every morning followed by several doses of alcohol at night-time. Whenever that is...

69˚Manhattan

I live on an island shaped almost exactly like Manhattan, only much smaller. Despite its small size there has been no need for people to build towers to the sky, as there is more than enough space to go around for its 60 000 inhabitants. This polar town comes complete with its very own mountain, university, lake, hotel-shaped-like-a-ship, Aurora Borealis, and towers made from doorbells.

Fire

The other day we were at the university learning about this, that and the other when the sudden sound of fire rung through. Memories of childhood past came back as we scurried in an orderly fashion toward the door, only to find that it was completely locked. We school in a building where doors can only be unlocked from the outside, windows don't open more than a crack, and the fire alarm cause a complete lock-down. One of many things about my university experience that defies all logic.

Notes on Facebook

The dusk is hitting the north like a vortex swallowing the earth. Daylight's few hours become precious minutes of D-vitamin boosts, eating fish and consuming cod liver oil to fight the darkness depression. And when not scurrying to the top of mountains or drowning the boogeyman at the bar, the blog gets plotted. In the wee hours of surfing the web a fun project presented itself. A website for the website, which can be found here for all you facebook enthusiasts. Coming soon will be the myspace-page-for-the-facebook-page-for-the-blog-for-the-website, or something along those lines.

Surf's Up (North)

Somewhere over the rainbow is a beach over the arctic. People go here to surf! They travel this surge above the circle, as if jumping into sub-zero is the most natural thing in the world. Waves of the North Sea, watch out for the children of the 69th latitude.

Young At Heart

In the face of the elderly you can find the wisdom of the past. Every little wrinkle represents a story, every word lost to memory is another sign that the inevitable is at the doorstep. They live in homes, where the only people who can benefit from their wrinkled knowledge are the other wrinkles, bunched together in circles trading stories of the old days. On a recent outing to such a home I witnessed a room full of elderlies with missing words learning how to use YouTube. The intention was to invoke memories of the past by teaching them technology of the future. To the sound of old folksongs, the elderlies sang, laughed and cried, and it made me wonder if we sometimes forget that even the old are young at heart.

Writing Woes

Somewhere in the maze of scholastic information I’m expected to write a paper. Writing, along with talking and making photographs of stuff are a few of my favorite things. I’m assigned an academic paper with an opinion about approaching people, which in my science is profoundly non-academic and also one of my favorite things. I’m expected to write a paper where I pepper in words of scientific significance, big words, which makes me feel somewhat like a 1-year-old trying to read a book my way, and having an adult tell me it’s up-side-down.

Soon, Snow

Summer has fallen. I just realized I won't feel warm again 'till spring.

Currently

Learning o'hoy.

Icy Stomachs

Moving to Norway proved to be just a matter of some heavy packing, some even heavier luggage, a plane and a small move to my grandmother's basement. Only then to be informed that the most northern university in the world had accepted me, but couldn't inform me until a week before school started, due to the administration being on vacation. Thus some more packing, some light luggage, another plane, and a small move to a city three degrees north of the arctic circle. Things here move like syrup. Everything seems to happen tomorrow and next week, only to be happening tomorrow and next week again. And after three weeks, it's still going to happen sometime tomorrow or next week. If you ever try to speed up the process, the answer is always the same: "Keep some ice in your stomach and see what happens." Luckily the first ice has appeared on the tallest mountain around, so there's enough to go around. More tomorrow. Or next week.

69˚N

Summer Solace

It happened, it's over! Summer in Norway has taken leave, and fall has made its gray entrance. Gone is cucumber news full of water and fluff, shrimps on the dock, laps in the ocean and shameless flirting. So long summer, hello winter!