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June 05, 2024 - Haugesund
The direct product of severe jetlag, I rose at 4am to a brightening sky - the gulls were still active, as evidenced by their calls on a line outside my window. The constant rain from the previous day had died to a light mist, which was now a welcome sensation as I took to the streets in my lightweight running clothing. Passing back through the city center, I head down a cobblestone street towards a park and scenic viewpoint I’d identified on a map of the city the day before. I enjoy running as a way of exploring cities - a bike would be more efficient, but it’s far too early to consider a rental and the speed of my two feet allows for frequent stops and plenty of reason to wander off the main path. As I run through an area containing old apartment buildings and brightly painted storefronts, the land to either side of the road begins to narrow into a peninsula. It eventually rises up as well, giving me a ridgeline from which I can see Bergen ringing two seaports to my right and my left. It’s quiet out. I pause for a glimpse over several rooftops at a giant cruiseship moored right in the midst of the city. It’s immense size dwarfs the buildings hugging it to either side, and a thin line of steam rises from the vessel into the cool morning air. A little further down the path I come across an old fort, and even further lies more residential buildings and a preschool with a quaint playground endowed with the design sensibilities of Noguchi. Finally heading into the park at the tip of the peninsula, the path drops down into a lush cover of trees - I’m surprised to find an outdoor lap pool along the path, with two or three people already in the pool completing a work out. An Institute of Fishing shares the park with the public, their buildings scattered throughout. Down at the scenic viewpoint, a totem pole sits overlooking the water; as I arrive to take in the sights a large raven flies over me, coming from the water and disappearing into the trees.
Winding my way back through the city I pass Bergen Havn again, as well as several other neighborhoods upon one of the hillsides. Eventually arriving at my hotel, I briefly visit the grocery store across the street to snag breakfast before heading up to change and move on to my next destination. The showers and bathrooms here are interesting; there are no shower pans, or at least very few. The entire floor is a tiled surface that slopes to a drain at the shower, with either a swinging door and gasket grazing the floor or simply no barrier at all. After showering and checking out at the hotel, I walk up to where I’d left my rental car the night before only to find I’d been issued a parking ticket - my first day driving in Norway and I’d successfully violated local ordinances by being unable to read the sign indicating this area is for residential permits only. Being an ordained adversary to parking officials everywhere, regardless of nationality, I quickly dispute the ticket at the site listed on the yellow plastic tag and continue on with my day. Today I’m heading south to Haugesund to meet a former teaching fellow from Taubman College, Kristine, who now lives in the Vestland region.
On my way out of Bergen I stop at the site of an old stave church, the traditional typology for religious buildings in this region. The stave is nestled deep in a mossy old growth forest, and I have the misfortune of arriving at the same time as a tour bus carrying some 30 odd tourists. We trudge through the forest together, eventually greeted by the tall form of the church lurking in the greenery. A large green chainlink fence surrounds the site, and when I ask the attendant about the barrier she informs me that the original building was burned down in the 90’s; it’s been protected since. Quickly looking around the restoration of the church, I decide I need to keep moving and make my exit as the tour group files into the building for an informative lecture from their guide.
The road south out of Bergen is beautiful - the road travels along the water, and I pass through two major tunnels that allow the highway to dive underneath the fjords instead of trying to cross over them. Where tunnels can’t exist, ferries take over. There is one major highway ferry between Bergen and Haugesund and it operates like clockwork. I drive up to the queue and wait for five to ten minutes before the boat slowly pulls up to the dock. The gate comes down and a flood of cars, trucks, and buses drive off of it, the traffic waiting in queue swiftly replacing them on the evacuated vessel. Once on the boat everyone parks their cars and gets out, filing into a door off to the side and up a flight of stairs. On a deck above, a conditioned cabin hosts a cafeteria, bathrooms, and lounge seating where patrons have plenty of views of the surrounding fjords. All of this is so foreign to me, and pleasantly streamlined - I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was told there’d be a ferry crossing. Exactly halfway through the trip I happen upon a sign saying I needed to pay for the crossing, and those who hadn’t paid in advance would be fined 2,200 NOK (about 205 USD) - panicked and in a hurry, I head back down to my car to make sure I hadn’t been issued a fine. It wasn’t until later in the trip I was able to verify my car had been loaded with an autopass for the ferry by the rental service prior to my travel and my worries were all for naught.
The rest of the drive to Haugesund is uneventful, though the road narrows at moments to a width extremely unfamiliar to me as an American. I arrive at my host Kristine’s house and am greeted by her lovely family. We chat about my past 24 hours in Norway over a quick lunch inside a living area with panoramic views of the Haugesund waters. Ships lazily cross back and forth to the port, wind turbines spin on the horizon line, and a large yellow industrial mass rises up out of the cityscape off to the far left. After a while we head into the town center - Haugesund is much smaller than Bergen but interesting in its own right. Arranged around a canal waterway of sorts, boathouses line the periphery, with mainstreets running in parallel. We stop at a local library that’s buzzing with activity. The building was designed by David Sandved and completed in 1967 - it’s an exemplar of modernist style, and elegantly houses shelves of books across two communicative levels. Today, a language learning program is taking place, aimed at assisting a growing immigrant population with the intricacies of Norwegian. Upstairs, a seed archive is housed - the design of the library aside, this is one of the reasons I’ve come to see this place. It stands in direct opposition to the seed vault I’m set to visit at my journey’s apex, both in stature and in operation. The seeds are housed in a humble drawer system; anyone is free to take a packet of seeds and anyone is free to contribute their own stock to the archive. Most of the drawers are empty, though some of the repurposed dewey compartments are filled to the brim with packets. I’m told that at one time this seed library was raided, with one individual taking all the seeds at once - rather than seek retribution on the seed thief, Haugesund citizens revamped contributions to the archive, nearly doubling the original stock. The archive is colocated with literature about plant stewardship and cellular biology.
Leaving the library, we walk down to the aforementioned waterway that runs through the city center. From here you can observe a strange juxtaposition in the landscape - rising up over the rooftops of the local houses and businesses are two very prominent structures. The first, an oil rig manufacturing factility; this is the yellow mass I previously mentioned being able to see from afar. Haugesund has exploded as a manufacturing hub for petroleum-based industry in recent history. Today, another rig is mid-construction, towering over the houses - it is clearly the tallest built object here. The size and imposition of the structure is one that is newly observed in the city; I’m told that the body of the rig wasn’t there the week prior. When it’s finished, the massive structure will be floated out to sea, destined for one of the preexisting offshore facilities run by Equinor or some other scandic petrol company. Perhaps it will head to the Breidablikk to drill into the vast untapped oil fields off Norway’s coast. My hosts openly acknowledge the irony of Norway’s petrol industry; oil has made the country very rich, a country that is held up as an exemplar for its environmental policy and proactive legislation. Also lamented is the fact that most of the energy produced is sold to other countries - indeed, it is the export of oil that has made Norway rich, while the price of energy remains high for Norwegian citizens. Opposite the half-finished oil rig rises three lonely wind turbines. In a similar tone, by hosts decry the turbines as a spiteful imposition in the landscape; theoretically generating clean energy, these turbines were willfully placed in a location with low wind harvesting potential. The energy they produce in this location doesn’t justify the price for their creation, and many speculate that the turbines were placed there by the neighboring municipality as an eye sore for the citizens of Haugesund. Both the oil rig and the wind turbines feel out of place here in an otherwise slow-paced town.
Returning home for the evening, I head out on an evening walk around the neighborhood and shoreline with Kristine. The suburban area feels very different from anything in America. Walking paths criss cross the patchwork of homes, and not every building seems directly accessible by car. Kristine tells me that most days, children run to and from their friends’ houses, and the community gathers for events in shared park/playground space that is collectively maintained. Farmland forms a buffer between houses and the sea, with sheep and goats grazing in the pastures. A gravel trail runs through the area, taking you down to a lighthouse and swimming inlet where bleachers have been poured in concrete around a patch of still water. A striking sculpture sit here in these waters, four horses mounted by riders, knee deep in the sheltered cove. Upon closer inspection, the horses have oil pump jacks as heads; a quick look at oil pump patent diagrams reveals that this part of the pump is literally called a ‘horsehead’. These horses were installed by a local artist as commentary on the expansion of industry in this place that has otherwise persisted without it for so long. Not much further south of Haugesund, the city of Stavanger has become the hub for companies like Equinor to headquarter their operations, sending vessels out into the North Sea for extraction and exploration. The industry has transformed the fabric of that city, much the same as it continues to do here in smaller towns like Haugesund.
I close out the evening discussing my travel with Kristine and her partner Søren. Søren has been to Svalbard before, and tells me about a three week trip he took there a few years ago. Upon mentioning my interest with the mining infrastructure on the island, and the circular reuse of building stock there, he mentions a small Swedish village, Kiruna, that sits close to Norway’s border in the northern region of the country. Also established on the basis of mining, the town has shifted its entire footprint over time through the transplant and reuse of buildings. In the case of Kiruna, relocation had to occur due to instability in the ground caused by mining activity itself; some of the original buildings weren’t relocated, and the old town center sits as a sparsely populated ghost town to this day.
I should mention that visiting Haugesund was a spontaneous decision. I was supposed to drive from Bergen to Ålesund today, but was able to connect with Kristine once I arrived in Norway and decided to make the trip down. I will resume planned travel tomorrow, but for now I’m very happy with the detour I’ve made and extremely grateful to have been able to share the outset of my travel with such generous and welcoming hosts.
location: bergen + haugesund, vestland (NO)
ext air temp: 65 F
relative humidity: 46.2%
dew point: 43.1 F
wet bulb: 52.3 F
ground temp: n/a