Nearness to Nature

Long Litt Woon is a Malaysian social anthropologist who immigrated to Norway in 1976. One of the things that was hard for her to understand in the beginning was the emphasis Norwegians placed on going for walks in the country. She recalls first of all the embarrassing feeling of dressing up in an old-fashioned outfit, and then the surprise she experienced when she discovered how Norwegians went about walking in the country. In an interview in 2005, she remembers how exhausting it was: ‘We climbed a mountain, and when we reached the peak, there was barely time for an orange, a bar of chocolate and a few photographs. Then it was time to go home. The funny thing was that there was not much conversation. It was not a social event. Everyone seemed happy to walk alone. Now I realise that it is not the destination of the trip that’s important to Norwegians, they focus on the walk itself.’ 5

Walking in the country is for most Norwegians a pleasure and a duty. You need a good excuse to sit inside on a Sunday when the sun is shining and all your neighbours are out in the woods cooking hotdogs on a bonfire or skiing down the slopes. Leisure time is highly valued in Norway. And leisure time should be spent sensibly. The outdoors is looked upon as the place to relax and recharge your batteries. Walks in the country compensate for the daily routine of the city, and national parks, barren mountain plateaus and spectacular fjords even serve as symbols of the nation itself. Norway has a law from 1957 which guarantees public right of access to the countryside. This means that anyone may use private property for hiking, swimming and gathering berries, flowers and mushrooms of all kinds as long as the area is not under cultivation.

According to most surveys, 80% of the Norwegian population go crosscountry skiing and hiking. However, this does not mean that everyone goes for a walk in the country on a weekly basis. During Easter, between 13–20% of the total population go skiing in the mountains. But surveys indicate that 70–80% of the Norwegian population wish they could spend more time on outdoor activities. This is a high figure compared to other desired goals, for example spending

5 http://www.long.no/2007/02/hvordan-jeg-lrte-g-tur.html

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more time with their family (50%), spending more time with friends (56%), making more money (18%) or spending more time in shopping centres (5%).

There is evidence that an increasing number of people are starting to live according to their values. In 1970, there were 190,000 holiday homes in Norway. In 2016, the number had risen to 425,000, and anyone who reads newspapers will realise that there is an explosion in the building of cabins. The main difference from earlier times is that most cabins today have electricity and running water. Many are located next to a ski resort with machine-made ski tracks and restaurants. A new trend is to build luxury apartments in the mountains with an outdoor hot tub and a panoramic view of the mountains. This is a provocation to traditionalists, who think that cabins should be located ‘in the middle of nowhere’, where the charm is to fetch water from a nearby lake, to put logs on the fire, to make your own ski tracks in virgin snow, and to eat your matpakke under the blue sky.

Anthropologist Ernst Gellner claims that a national value system is only possible in a modern society with universal schooling and a strong state

Hiking in the countryside or in the mountains is regarded as a pleasure, and close to an obligation, by most Norwegians. Kids learn to be outdoors at an early age.

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Roald Amundsen posing on skis in a fur coat. Together with his team, he was the first person to reach the South Pole in 1911.

to maintain a national educational system. There has been a strong and long-term emphasis on educating pupils to value and use the outdoors in Norway. It started in the 19th century during the nation-building process. Norway was a colony under Denmark until 1814, and farmers and fishermen living in different parts of the country had few values in common. The leaders of the nation-building process lived in the cities, were educated, decided the content of the school curriculum, and found the true Norwegian character in the inland valleys, as far away as you could get from Denmark. The farmer, living close to nature, was to become the incarnation of Norway. Literature, music and painting in the 19th century were often inspired by life in rural areas, and taught to children in schools. According to this tradition, the original Norway was located out in the countryside, not in the cities. Norwegian heroes in the 20th century were people like Fritjof Nansen (1861–1930), Roald Amundsen (1872–1928), Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) and Monica Kristensen Solås (1950 – ) who challenged the forces of nature, skiing to the North and South Poles and crossing the oceans on wooden rafts.

One consequence of this emphasis on values connected to nature has been a certain scepticism towards cultural expression connected to city life, such as non-figurative art, ballet and opera. Norwegians lack a firmly rooted urban culture. Even today, it is difficult to find urban dwellers with 3–4 generations of urban ancestors. But things are changing. Today, more than 80% of the Norwegian population live in villages or towns. A well-founded prophecy says that urban culture will increasingly permeate Norwegian values in the future. One of the most visible examples is the growth of a great variety of cafés and restaurants.

The Norwegian national curriculum for the last few decades has emphasised the importance of education in promoting the tradition of an active outdoor life. For the youngest children, there has been a rapid increase in kindergartens where they spend most of the day outdoors in all kinds of weather (naturbarnehager). Let us take a closer look at this new trend. The first naturbarnehager appeared in the late 1980s. Today, there are about 350. The government has been a bit worried that children in naturbarnehager will suffer from spending 5–8 hours outside in the forest every day of the week, even in cold and wet weather conditions. As a consequence, the gov-

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