91/- EARLY HIS'IDRY OF IDRWAY ·-..... ( Compiled from a book on Norway from Sugarhouse Library) • • IDHWAY, according to archaeological explorations appears to have been i nha. bi ted long before the historical time .• Thr~ populations have inhabited the North: a Mongolian race and a Celtic race, types of which are to be found in the Finns and the I,a.planders in the far North, and third a Caucasian race which immigrated fro~ the South and drove out the Celtic and La.plandic races, and from which the present inhabitants are descended. The Capital of Norway, Oslo, havin~ been destroyed by fire, King Christian requested the inhabitants to move across the bay where he laid out the new ·town. Norway was then under the Danish King Christian so he named the new Ca~ital Christiania in 1624. (In 1925 the capital was called Oslo again.) The union between Denmark and Norway lasted more than four hundred years. King Oscar I, died in July, 1859 at the age of sixty years. His eld~st son Charles XY was thirty three yea.rs old when he ascended the throne. Progress in the material welfare of the country was continued during his reign and like his father he was very popular. Numerous roads and railways were started, all parts of the country were connected by tele{!I'aph and the merchant marine grew to one of the largest in the world. It was at this time that my Mother,Hanna.h S. Peterson (Lythgoe) was born in Norway March 21, 1861. These are lands to be visited in the spring or summer between the first of June to the end of August. Days are short and up in the Arctic circle there is practically no daylight in mid-winter. Life in Scandinavia_ has preserved many formalities. Punctuality (especially for meals) is strictly observed. Christmas -is celebrated from Dec. 24th until after the new year and all good Scandinavians celebrate almost exclusively with t ·heir own families. Easter is . ~ . . another happy occasion. With high sununer the nights never grow black at all and even the dusky darkness lasts only a few hours. Above the Arctic circle people will be watching the midnight sun. During the summer you can wander all day pickinp wild strawberries and blueberries. Midaummer night is celebrated by suppers and parties and dancinl?. round maypoies ln the meadows. The canital of Norway, Oslo, does truly represent the country. It is large enough to be interesting but small enough to be homely. It was originally founded with true Viking traditions at the beginning of the 11th century by a Viking King Harald Haardraade. Still preserved are three Viking ships which were found buried in great mounds near the Oslo fjord, with inside them the bodies of their owners, two Vikings and a Queen, and their most treasured belongings. Archaeologists maintain that early Norwegians carried on hunting and fishing on the narrow strin of land between the ice-barrier which .covered the rest of the coqn,,t~y and the open fjords in Fi nrunark as early as 12,000 .years ,before Christ. Many remnants of this prehistoric and primitive culture have been discovered .• It was by ?-brwegian Vikings that Irish missionaries were bro.ught to Norway to Christianize the country • . Repeal of the union or' Norway .and Dernnark caused the loss of the former rbrwegian colonies, Greenland :·and Iceland, which up to then ha~. been Norwegian _. terfritories. dThe00end of the union with SWeden came in 1905. Today Norway is a ree and in epe ent kingdom with a limited and heredit,a.ry m;,narchy. The JPEG-~p;elical-Lut,heran religion is the official r~ligion of the State. The execu-tive J)OWer is vested in the King and responsibility rests upon his council. 1 .. t .{ } ) 1 i l,. , I, •' • • FARLY HISTORY OF OORWAY ( continued) Of all the three Scandinavian countries, Norway today seems to be the most self-assured if not the roost prosperous. 1Torwegians are more naturally light-hearted and brotherly than the SWedes, while ·also more reserved than the Danish. They have been able to make a wonderful recov-ery since the World War and are very optimistic. The moun~ins cut Norway effectively from SWeden. The mountains also separate people from each other. There is only a single motor road running from tbrth to South and many of the coastal villages can be reached only by sea. Only 4 per cent of the huge area is cultivated land and the rest is all mountain and forest. This compells the people to take to the sea for a living. The land separates the country; the coastline unites it. The ms.ny fjords are narrow valleys, relics of the glacial age, along which the sea reaches inland for miles through the high mountains. Outside the fjord~ are 150,000 islands of the skerries protecting the coast from the full force of the :r-brth Sea. Naturally :r-brway produced the worlds most famous boat-builders in the Viking Age and still possesses the world's fourth largest merchant fleet and leads the world in fishing and whaling. The railways are scanty but are the pride and joy of the :r-brwegians as each was a triumph of engineering. A cruise of N:>rway' s fjords leaves you With an unforgettable impre-ssion of glassy waters, soaring mountains, and farmhouses resting on rocks in what look to be impossible places. On some of t,he little platforms of rock on which houses are perched the young children are tethered like dom-estic animals, to prevent them from falling off. Scenically, lbrway is Nature in her mo~t s-i:-a,cious mood. The forests seem darker, the lakes more still and deep, and the mountains more precipitous and lonely than any-where else on earth. To just visit there one still has the feeling of being something of a pioneer. One quality of the Vikings the Norwegians have never lost is the urge to explore the world. Many famous explorers came from l'brway. In early times there was Erik the Red (found Greenland). Also Leif Erikson and Amundsen. Over four million people of l'brwegian descent now live in ~rth America, off-spring of "peaceful Vikings" who sought new opportunities across the sea. Because of their wartime achievements and perhaps because of their suffering too, 1'.orwegians today show they are no longer aloolf from other nations but a virile partner in the world's effort to solve its problems. The real basis of the success of all three Scandinavian countries is personal enterprise. An inqlliring visitor will be welcomed with warmth and sincerity and whatever the purpose of his visit, he will be ~iven an almost embarrassing amount of assistance and advice. J\Torway is 4.lldeed, as Bjornson wrote: "A land lying close to perpetual snow, Where life only blooms in the valleys below". 7J Fage 2 1 (J . ' ">~ 1~ -,;. -:;- -i~ -i;· ~- "h- 1~ -;;- * 0,:- ~~ -:;- ~.:- * :;;6}~ '7J j ~().A,<) ~. JJ/uU-QJ po-1UL,,<-,U--,u / 79 {; /'IJ'O 5 JPEG-Bk13 ~a_,,,), ur.Ju S"tf tJ50