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!

What Is Freedom?

It's a humongous question. Open to and subject of all kinds of philosophical discussions done by brains everywhere. Particularly in the US where they once defined it, only to loose the definition in order to create newer definitions on something already defined. But if you'd met this five-year-old girl in a field somewhere in the middle of Norway a summer afternoon, she'd have no problem giving you a satisfactory answer. Sunny day. Dirty knees. A large field of really tall corn, the ability and willingness to run run run, fall fall fall, and perhaps, at the end of the day, an ice-cream cone from grandma's freezer. Sometimes looking hard for something means it's just right there.

Free Food!

On a recent stroll in the many parks of my hometown I came upon a childhood favorite. Cherry trees! As a young punk I used to steal cherries from Arnardo, the circus family. They had several large ones, surrounding their house by our cabin, and all summer they’d be gone circusing leaving us free to pillage their trees. We’d sit for hours shoving our faces, making our moms very upset over our cherry-soaked t-shirts, rendered un-cleanable and making it impossible to stand before a judge with innocent faces. Now these trees scattered all around the public greenness that is Oslo serves a different purpose. Free food! In these times of low income, new beginnings and an anorexic wallet, the red berries have become a valued source of vitamins and juice. But as I bite down and devour the pulp, I admit, getting them off the forbidden trees tasted much better.

Universal Vacation

It’s summer in Norway. Summer is a favorite of Norwegians, it gives them free rains to party, drink and fornicate. To assist its citizens in this endeavor, various festivals have been created with this purpose in mind. And music, of course. Jazz, rock, punk, indie and classical can be enjoyed in a natural, outdoor setting. Add some overpriced beer in plastic cups, a scorching sun overhead, and you have the ingredients for the perfect Norwegian summer. It also has another interesting, yet determining factor. It’s called the Universal Vacation. Every year, around July, Norwegians go on vacation so they can enjoy said festivals and the summer cabins they occupy only a few weeks a year. This sociodemocratic nation provides its citizens with five weeks of vacation a year, most of which is taken during July and August. The result of this is that doing things like eating at a restaurant, seeing your favorite dentist, having a baby, taking a train or seeing a judge becomes very difficult as all these people, and more, have gone on holiday at the same time. Norway in the summer moves at a slower speed than a slug, but the happiness is vast and bountiful.

I [heart] Oslo

"The minority is always right" from En Folkefiende by Henrik Ibsen

Oslo’s main street is named after a Swedish king, Karl Johan. He earned his keep as king from the swedes after he excelled in battles against all-time-favorite, little man Napoleon. In 1814 Norway became its own kingdom united with Sweden and with Karl Johan as king. Norway’s training wheels as a country came off in 1905 when we broke free, much to Sweden's current dismay. Strolling his street on my way to work one morning I noticed something that I’m sure has been there for years, but it’s new to me as I’m about 11 years behind my countrymen. The sidewalk is littered with quotes! And not just any quotes, words of wisdom from one of Norway’s late great men, Henrik Ibsen. They’re spread all the way from the King’s castle to the Parliament, as a reminder of who we are and were we came from. His quotes about life’s hardships with nationalistic undertones ring loud on a street he once walked every day for his coffee and chatter with fellow literary greats. Even now, more than 100 years after his death, he's still chattering up a storm on Karl Johan.

I [heart] New York

Relationships can be hard. Sometimes the love just isn’t there anymore, and passion fizzles into a memory of the past. Instead of skipping a beat, the heart feels dreary and lame, searching frantically for feelings once there. Nothing. Gone. No deal. So as I packed my bags and closed the door behind me one last time I remember the good times, what once was this magical city which taught me so much, but alas the magic is gone. Later Yorkis! I'll miss ya!!

Combat Fishing

As I leave Alaska for what I'm thinking will be a while, salmons are starting to school up the rivers. Readying themselves for what salmon do best they take off for multiplications, smelling their way toward an inevitable death. Little do they know what awaits them on the way. If it wasn't enough that these swimmers had to swim against the flow and switch from salt to freshwater, they have another predator to fend off. And it's not only the bear. Once they reach the mouth of the river, the worlds most dangerous predator awaits with a stick. As the salmon season starts, people everywhere sharpen their hooks, string out their rods and prepare for little more than Last Frontier elbowroom in an event coined Combat Fishing.

Just Crazy

Crazy is such a good word. The US loves crazy. There is a whole industry of doctors out there who rely heavily on Americans acting out of the ordinary and needing to talk about it. Even the shrinks go to see shrinks and talk about the crazy stuff they hear from the crazies. Crazy is cool. So when you go to the middle of nowhere, to an island sans trees which was never intended as a place to live, and meet some crazy locals full of spirit and spirits, crazy hits another high. And all the while you watch the craziness unfold, you come to the realization that these people aren't crazy at all, but I am for thinking so. They have come to terms with their craziness, and are completely at ease in their findings. As Captain Ahab says: "They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!"

Sea Trippin'

One of the most amazing things about this country is their road system. It just works, it's a fine tuned machine. Americans love their cars so much there are actually on average more cars than there are people to drive them. Each U.S. household holds 1.9 cars and 1.8 drivers. Every day people set out on roadtrips, ready to spend some quality time with their vehicles, seeing the land buzz by in a fleeting and speedy way as they howl to their favorite pop songs. It's the freedom of the land of freedom. But there are other ways to see land. By boat, for example. Less people do it, there is no hassle with traffic in your lane, and the road is always not taken. So, in these times of costly fossil energy and much disdain with general gas consumption, I urge you Americans, set sail and find a different freedom. It's the ultimate roadtrip.

Breaking Bearings (again)

Nome. Again. Only this time there's no snow. At all. Completely gone. In the stores hang posters wishing welcome to watchers of birds. Apparently one of Nomes biggest pulls in the summer is birds. And gold. The miners are in full fledge dredging the sand through washtubs resembling half-sunken ships. Apparently there is money in this gold business, although you wouldn't imagine by looking at them. Face and hands are so embedded with dirt they look like they just came out of a cave. They probably did. Come out of a cave. Like the bears. Come to think of it they actually kind of look like bears. Their stories are great and they are always busy with something. I am also going on a boat. In the Bering Sea, an ocean I'm completely facinated with, but also a little scared of. Which is the best reason to go I think. I'll be back in three weeks with some pictures and some more stories, wet stories.

Eating Apples.

I forget about this town sometimes. Sorry, city. The City. It’s as if this place is a universe of its own, with small solar systems spinning around at different paces within. Sunday I went on a nature hike with 45 000 other walkers, 6.5 miles of gridlock exercising, if you will. Granted, it was for a cause, successfully collecting some 7 million dollars to fight AIDS. Thursday I had an assignment to photograph a businessman in his office who subsequently announced he’d just lost two million(!) dollars overnight (ooops), and in the same breath offered me espresso. He didn’t even flinch. In fact, he smiled even more broadly. Wow. Then there was the wedding assignment in Tribeca, two lovers getting hitched at a loft, which happened to belong to a famous Pop artist, as in late 50s art. Casually he was wedding the couple, yet not casual at all, as I had photographed this same painter five years prior when his work had invaded the whole Guggenheim museum. I think they called it a retrospective. Hellonicetomeetyouagain, as I’m hoping my awe isn’t showing too much as my nervousness trickles out of my pores and stains my armpits. Awe! Sometimes this town, city, universal gridlock of a place is just too much to handle. In a good way. I think.

Emotions

They run high, especially at airports. Old friends, family members, the car service guy from Brooklyn who doesn’t know where he’s going nor speaks any English, emotions everywhere. The worst part about meeting someone at the airport is the waiting. Worrying about your meter expiring, thinking about the work you’re missing. Regretting you didn’t bring that book. Or flowers! How could you forget the flowers! But wait, in America, flowers, like chocolate, Pepsi and convenient snack sized potato chips, come in vending machines, so if you had that affair or forgot that anniversary, savior is conveniently placed in a machine. Welcome home.

CrumGum

In an alley under a market behind a bar stands a wall. Once upon a time this wall was just like any other brick wall, standing solid, protecting it’s inner sanctum from forces fumbling outside. Until one day, one fumbler deposited a piece of gum, radically changing its fate forever. Because, like all things one person does, another has to mimic and so on. Until finally the end result is a wall no longer recognized for it’s bricks, but for its crummy and colorful array of gum, rendering it brilliantly disgusting.

Webdings

It’s all the rage. Getting married. Wiser people than myself blame it on age. I remember when my parents were my age, they were really old. Adults even. The fact that I can remember my parents being my age, not only makes me old, but also a late bloomer. I’m not bothered by this. In my generation being a late bloomer is all the rage, as well as saying all the rage multiple times in one blog. Which is another thing that is all the rage. Blogging. My most recent friend to get hip and engaged was perhaps a bit more curious than the others. She’s a woman who likes other women, until she met a boy she liked more, and now they’re engaged. She is a self-proclaimed hasbian, making it all the rage enough to earn its very own hip word.

Break Up

It’s spring! This is evident by the sun being up when I get up and go to bed. Spring is, as always, highly unpredictable. One day there will be people in shorts and flip flops running around eating ice-cream with glee in their faces and a skip in their hop. The next day ice-rain will prevent mail planes from landing anywhere in nowhere, and put wool shoes back in fashion. All the while people will shake their heads and wonder what happened to spring, certainly this has never happened before. As far as I can recall this event takes place most everywhere seasonal with the same outcome. As it were, spring also signals another very important event in Alaska. Break up. It’s the time when everything shifts, but until the change is complete limbo rules. You can’t travel on the ice, and ice renders your boat useless. Driveways are knee deep in mud, and people use the puddles on their lawn as training ground for the upcoming canoe trip. The bear resurfaces after its long doze as do odd creatures from other bubbles. So as I watch the white man in the extravagant indian costume bob to his iPod I take a minute to realize I’m going through my own breakup. I’ll sure miss this wonderful and smelly place.

Animal Farm

We went to Animal Farm. It isn’t exactly Animal Farm in that there are no Napoleons or Snowballs, and the animals don't speak human. It's an animal sanctuary for animals in need of general sanctions. As it were, these creatures of the wild got themselves into a bit of trouble, and lost the ability to care for themselves, hence a non-profit stepped in and saved them from Darwins rule. There’s the three legged moose and the orphaned caribou, the clipped-wing bald eagle and a whole array of other animals whose wild ways were cut short by fate. Now these disillusioned, disenfranchised, distraught, displaced and overall dissed creatures can live out their years in a beneficial environment close to their old one. We, on the other hand, can get the true wilderness experience without even exiting our car. Which is optional on the 1.5 mile stroll that is the park.

Roadtrip Droppings

We went roading and tripping. A common fact is that there are no toilets in cars, but there are toilets in various forms all across the state. As noted before the outhouse is a very interesting structure that can be found in most places, thus save a poor bottom from the itchings of raw leaves. The town of Girdwood, a place were we went tripping, has a rule about outhouses which says that you simply can’t have them anymore. Unless you were grandfathered in, which means something of the like that your grandfather set up an outhouse once upon a time that for some miraculous reason is still standing. Not really, but it sounds nice. Anyway, as it were, we stayed in a yurt, which had no outhouse nor plumbing, as a yurt is a fancy tent of sorts. But fear not, bum, there’s a new invention in town. The incinerating toilet. Which will reduce your excrement to a teaspoon of ash. By way of heat. Our host described it as a similar process to cooking your droppings in a pan on the stove. Which makes me wonder how they came up with all this in the first place.

Freaky Fairbanks

Icefog. February, Fairbanks. -40˚C/F.

First time I came to this town I wondered why anyone would live here. Nestled in a valley, there’s ice-fog in the winter and smog in the summer, with mountains barely visible on the horizon. On a good day. But once I got to know Fairbanks with all its quirks and charm I found it’s inner beauty. It’s a town with personality. It’s where you’ll sit next to a one-legged lady who got the missing leg shot off one night stumbling drunk down a village street when another drunk thought she was a moose. It’s where you’ll happily bounce down the sidewalk while walking your dog and someone will yell from the window of a passing car: Get a yard! It’s where crazy is embraced and normal is shunned, where crazy is considered normal. It’s where all corporations have been delegated to one side of town, contained, so as not to spill into the lives of liberals. It’s where the grocery store has everything you need, from milk to firearms to armchairs. It’s where you’ll meet the old man who used to smuggle weapons during WWII, who had to get smuggled to Alaska when a crazy lady set fire to everywhere he lived.
Fairbanks has personality. It’s the place that fills in the gaps.

Framilends

When you travel around on extended flimsy whims there’s a lack of normalcy in your daily life. A certain stability of family is missing, and although you are greeted with the most welcoming arms, you will always feel that there’s an emptiness in your life. Along comes amazing. People who act as your substitute family, people you can return to and never feel the lesser for it. People who has already accepted your quirky flaws, people who will even appreciate those. People who’ll have a bed made ready and waiting. People who’ll open their door when they’re not home, let you know where the key is, and even expect you to be there when they get home. This is family. It’s where you can open the fridge and find food, sleep in a bed and rest good, make a fool of yourself and wake up sans paranoia, and overall believe that they’ll love you nonetheless. My fortune is the greatest in that I have people just like this, whose homes I feel warm in and presence I crave. This is my family, these are my friends. It’s when the lines blur between friends and family and you end up with framilends.

Are You Lost?

I came to Kotzebue nearly three weeks ago. My plan was to stay a few days, visit with some friends, and return to coffee shops and latte. Again, that was three weeks ago. Since then I’ve learned loads about shoveling snow, caught an unlikely number of fish, mushed some dogs, and learned some words I’ll most likely forget within the week. So it’s no surprise that new people I don’t know start the conversation with ‘are you lost?’ because Kotzebue isn’t exactly the navel of the world.

I contemplate this, yes, I am perhaps a bit lost since I am in the middle of nowhere for no other apparent reason than to be in the middle of nowhere. But no, I’m not because when in doubt, make pictures, which is what I did. Only when I’m on the arctic highway driving a snogo outside town I can’t help but wonder if I’m not just a tad bit lost after all.

Turning 30

I did it, made it past the three-oh landmark that is the halfway point to retirement. Or something like that. Regardless, I have now exited my roaring 20s and entered into what is supposed to be the ripe old age of maturity. What can I say about it so far... I have learned more in the past two weeks from a couple of eskimos than I would have staring at New York Times, Google and Wikipedia all day. My favorite muscle in my hand has returned, if only for now; this year has taught me that it will leave as soon as my fingers start pounding the keyboard again, it’s a muscle that only comes with gripping things like a shovel, hammer or axe. I’ve also learned in no particular order how to maunouver a snowmachine/snogo/ snowscooter/ that-thing-that-travels- on-snow, fish under the ice, dig holes, face my fears, drive dogs, scoop their crap, speak about half a dozen words in eskimo, endure cold, colder and coldest, go without shower, telephone, internet, running water, electricity, lattes and other modern conveniences for weeks on end, sow fur things, appreciate wool, and laugh at just about anything that goes wrong.

Mostly I learned that instincts are present to be followed, and a little spontaneous behavior never hurts. I also learned that turning 30 is totally a mental thing, because I feel no different than before. On the contrary, I think it made me younger.

Photo taken by LuLu Nelson on the Kobuk Lake outside Kotzebue. It’s a Sheefish.

Broken Bearings

In front of Nome lies the Bering Sea, vast and scary. All the streets in Nome dead ends in it, with a perfect sign just begging the question ‘where to now?’ Nome is the end of the road, last call. The shoreline is where my great grandfather once stood searching for the perfect piece of gold, further out lies Russia and a roaring sea that will claim lives every year. At present the water is frozen for miles out, and besides the Nome National Forest; discarded Christmas trees planted in the ice for an otherwise treeless town, there is nothing but ice, ice, ice as far as you can see. The Bearing Sea is the perfect place for philosophic reflection, long walks, snow angles, spinning around in circles, making lists, shrieking loudly to the tunes from an ipod, and, well, other memorable things. As I leave my 20s in a town built on dreams of fortunes from gold, I realize I struck it last year when I stood on the Bering ice and decided it was time for a change.

Bella

It's my birthday. Today I round the corner of adulthood and obligations, and to underscore that, Sigrid gave me a dog. My favorite dog. So with my thirtieth birthday follows obligations and commitment in the form of a four legged Iditarod athlete by the name Bella. Welcome to my life, Bella!

Consider it Crazy

Would you ever consider trudging 1000 miles through the snowy wilderness of Alaska on foot?

A Little Fur

I have relearned to sow. I learned this skill first from my mother, then from various teachers during my younger years, and now from one of my new friends in Alaska. So far I've made Beaver mitts, and I'm almost done with a Fisher hat, before starting a ruff. This new sowing skill entails leather and fur, a product so enraging to some people they feel the need to throw paint on it, generally red. This was a popular past time for various types of activists in the late eighties, and like most fashions is on its way back. They have clearly never been doing their activist activity in 50 below, and thus have no concept of the usefulness fur has to offer. People in Alaska live in the middle of nowhere, which clearly is somewhere, since they can live there, but nowhere to us normal folk who need roads and Starsucks to function. Living in the middle of nowhere requires fetching of food, like fishing, but also trapping, and in doing so, they are left with fur. The fur is then treated, cut, sown into a parka, hat, mitts, ruff or mukluks, and then worn outside where the freezing cold will claim your life unless you dress properly, so you can further go outside and fetch food for the family. And so the cycle continues, which it has been doing for centuries before we invented espresso and BlackBerries. This is what I tell myself as I poke my needle through the skin (mine and the fur) to build a hat for warmth and protection, the process is Darwinistic, and I just don’t want to get cold.

Shocking

There was all kinds of excitement going on last night as I checked into a hotel and found that it had a few amenities I didn't realize how much I missed.

King size bed. And it's all mine. It's not a desk, carpet, floor or foam pad. It's an actual bed on which I can spread whichever way I want without fear of falling off, poking my feet in someone's nose, or freeze to the window.

Electricity. So far I've managed to plug something into every socket in the room, two external harddrives, one smaller external, my card reader, computer, battery for camera, battery for phone, so much so that there's none left for the lightfixtures in this cream colored room.

TV. Who'd have thought that the box would be so welcomed back, only to find that there's nothing on of any interest. There are seven channels devoted solely to the race for president, three for sports, one for Alaska with reruns of the same tourism ads, as well as the usual cartoons and Law and Order reruns.

And then, as the day went to night, and the night turned into an all night work thing, I discovered that the bed had those annoying covers that insist on being stuck under the mattress, the TV was only showing reruns of reruns I'd already seen, at a previous hotel stay, I'm sure, and the electricity, well, let's just say it's shocking me all over the place. I guess the combination of an all wool outfit, dry winter air and 40 below will make your fingers spark every time you touch your computer. Ouch.

So as the second day at the hotel goes into night, I long for my sleepingbag, my headlamp and maybe a nice comfortable desk to sleep on.

Pfew Year!

I live at Dog Camp. No shit! Every day I tour the yard seeking the betterment of our four-legged friends. I consider them such, even though they don’t exactly communicate with words, nor have the ability to dispose of their own crap, which we do by shovel and hauling faaaar away from sensitive noses. Here, at Future and Current Race Dog Boarding School, I act as kind of a preschool and kindergarten teacher. There are the eight puppies who won’t listen to a word I say if it’s not a word they associate with food. Hell, they can’t even remember their own names, so hoping for anything more is stretching it. Then there are the teenage dogs who like to make noise at any and every move you make around the yard, and then there are the more seasoned dogs in their twenties who just play it cool and wait for their turn in the harness. These ages are all in dog-years of course. So when I make my way to the outhouse for another completely unrelated chore it is with a certain five-year-old humor I have to chuckle, as it carries the title Poopsickle, and is perhaps the dirtiest of all jobs here. This inanimate object needs to be knocked down so as not to poke someone in the butt, a repercussion of residing in the cold with no running water. Happy Pfew Year everybody!

P.S. For 2008 I’d like to know whom other than my father is lending me their time here in cyberspace. Drop me a line if you have time; mail@kristinenyborg.com.