Hey everyone, so I'm excited for this one!
We recently did a Geograbee in Oslo, Norway,
and I had the honor to meet many of you guys, the Norwegian geograpeeps in your own country.
It was amazing!
Norway is a country
everyone has kind of heard about.
Something about snow, ice, Vikings, skiing, I think trolls.
But Norway is also a land of highly compounded history, tradition,
post-modernism and above all landscape and people.
And black metal!
Yes. Keith is really excited for this episode
*cue the Geography Now music*
Hi everyone! I'm your host Barbs.
We've done Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and now the fourth Nordic sister Norway.
Now in the Nordic countries
Norway would kind of be like the one that everyone either tries to call their best friend or date.
She smiles at the ground, pulls her hair behind her ear,
and looks up with those sky-blue doe eyes that sparkle and says:
*voice like a metal singer* Welcome to Norway!
*transition music*
Norway plays a huge role in what it means to be Northern European.
And when you look at it on the map, you'll see that it's fascinating
how well they've developed a civil infrastructure from a rugged half-frozen peninsula.
Oh, and there's a town called Hell!
First of all the country which kind of looks like the shape of a spoon is located in northern Europe
in the region known as Scandinavia,
just above the North Sea,
bordering mostly Sweden to the east, Finland in the far north,
and even a small sliver of Russia at the very end.
This effectively means that Norway goes even further east than Finland
and gets the entire Arctic coast from their neighbours sharing the Barents Sea with Russia.
Apart from that Norway has some overseas territories as well.
Two of which are in the Arctic Circle:
the Svalbard archipelago with only about 3,000 people,
mostly in the largest town Longyearbyen and the uninhabited Jan Mayen island.
Which was actually kind of traded with the UK for these Islands in Canada
in like 1930 when Canada was still British.
Weird trade off...
But okay...
After that, they have two dependent territories:
the Antarctic areas of Peter the first island and Bouvet Island,
way down south.
Neither of which are permanently inhabited and they also claim a portion of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land.
Going back to the mainland though.
The country is currently as of 2019 divided into 17 counties or Fylker.
Plus the unincorporated area of Svalbard,
which by the way holds the northernmost permanently inhabited settlement in the world
with a population around 40 in the winter and 120 in the summer.
The thing is, in 2020,
the country will merge some of these counties into 11 regions.
Already, north and south Trøndelag log have merged.
And the final result in 2020 will look like this.
The country's largest city and capital is Oslo,
located in the southeast, which also holds the largest airport
Oslo Lufthavn International
as well as Oslo shipping port, the busiest shipping port in the country.
A skip to the west, you find the second largest city Bergen
with, of course, the second largest airport Bergen International.
It is said that almost around 80% of the country lives within 10 kilometres of the ocean
and despite the rugged mountainous terrain,
the nation has an extensive network of roads, bridges, and trains
that cross virtually every region of the nation, including the Lærdal tunnel,
the world's longest road tunnel that stretches 24 kilometres long cutting through a mountain
and also the famous Atlantic road
that hops from island to island in the Møre og Romsdal county.
Now what's really fascinating
is that Norway kind of went from this to this.
And for a nation that has never surpassed five and a half million in population.
It's pretty impressive.
How did this happen, though?
Well as the legend goes in the 60s Denmark was like:
D: "Hey Norway, you are just the best!
I love you, man. And you know just to prove it. I'm gonna give you all this ocean water stuff!"
N: "Wow, really?"
D: "Yeaaaaah, just take it."
N: "Thanks!"
N: "Whoa, there's like a ton of oil here. Thanks Denmark!"
Actually, it was the Geneva Convention like ten years prior to that
But that story's kind of boring.
Now as you can clearly tell
Norway has lots of access to the ocean.
Due to all the serrated inlets and fjords plus islands,
they had the seventh largest coastline in the world.
This also means that roads and bridges can only take you so far.
In order to get around in Norway's west coast,
you'll see a lot, and I mean a lot, of ferries and ships.
And what's cool is that
like some of their neighbours, Norway has a free roaming law
in which you can pretty much camp out anywhere in nature
as long as it is not on private property.
We all know some towns in Norway are situated in the most picturesque locations.
Some, like this town, have no direct sunlight for six months because of the mountains
so they built giant mirrors to illuminate them.
Fun fact:
Longyearbyen is known for being both the brightest and darkest place on earth.
Because of its location on the Arctic Circle,
It gets 110 continuous days of no sunshine and 95 days of no night.
Also
they have an emergency seed bank with over a million specimens built into the side of a mountain
In case of the apocalypse and all plant life dies out on earth.
Also, technically it's illegal to die in Svalbard because of the permafrost, bodies do not decompose.
So you must either ship out your body or cremate it.
Not sure how to segue out of that.
But let's talk about cool places.
Now, I asked some of you guys in Norwegian geograpeeps
what's some of the top places to visit in Norway are
and here are some of the suggestions you gave:
Nordkapp, the Viking ship museum, Nidaros Cathedral, the dock of Bergen, the King's castle, Altas igloo hotel,
Frogner Park and
Vigeland sculpture park.
Try to find the one with the dude fighting the babies.
This fortress, this Iron Age farm,
the world's largest moose sculpture,
this whaling museum, the Roald Amundsen and Edward Munch monuments and grave,
the Kon Tiki museum,
the Polaria Aquarium,
the Æger viking-style brewery, the three swords monument,
so many traditional stave churches.
But this one is probably the most famous one.
I mean, there's like a billion rocks named after body parts of trolls.
There's that weird boulder jammed between two cliffs,
a mountain with a hole in it
so it looks like it got shot by a gun,
so many ice caves,
the world's strongest whirlpool,
so many fjords like
Geirangenfjord, Nordfjord, Hardangerfjord, Trollfjord, Harrison Fjord.
They were even supposed to give Finland the peak of Mount Halti for their 100th birthday.
But then it was kind of like
N: "Happy 100th birthday, Finland!"
F: " Thanks Norway, so I heard that you're thinking of finally giving me the peak to my tallest mountain!"
N: "Oh yeah, sure, why not!"
F: "Awesome! Well then, let me have it."
N: "Oh see, there's this thing in my constitution called article 1 which states
that the kingdom of Norway is indivisible so
here's a taco!"
Yeah, Norwegians actually really love tacos!
Which makes the perfect opportunity to transition into...
Now if you know anything about Norway's land, you'll know this one word:
fjords, fjords, fjords.
The word is even Norwegian
and it's interesting how it became that way.
Basically,
like many other areas in the North, the country is a post-glacial peninsula
with over 50 thousand islands that at one point was completely covered in ice.
Over time the ice melted, eroding the rock beneath,
creating the incredibly indented coastline of
steep jagged cliffs and fjords.
Off the coast, the largest and deepest fjord is Sognefjord
and it is the third largest in the world
extending over 200 kilometres inland.
This means that much of the country is divided into regions of choppy fjords stuff to the west
and the connected hilly and valley stuff to the south and southeast.
Everything pretty much falls either within the alpine boreal climate
or further up north, Arctic.
Keep in mind that due to Svalbard and Jan Mayen,
the Norwegian Economic Zone
extends to the majority of the Norwegian see and much of the Barents as well as the North Sea to the south.
This is called the NCS or Norwegian continental shelf.
Here, the largest deposit of underwater oil is found
that supplies Norway with much of its wealth.
A skip to the east, you find the largest lake: Lake Mjosa,
which is just parallel to the longest river in the country: the Glomma,
which drains all the way into the North Sea in the south
and has a drainage basin that covers about 13% of the country's land.
A little skip to the west, in the centre you find the longest and most dominant mountain chain:
The Scandinavian Mountains, where you can find the tallest peak: Galdhøpiggen,
which is also the tallest in all of the Nordics.
If we are discussing the overseas territories
then Svalbard is pretty much an Arctic Archipelago of glaciers.
This one being the largest in all of Europe and the rest are mostly just cold valleys.
Jan Mayen island is the only place with an active volcano in Norway,
the Beerenberg peak last erupted in 1980.
Otherwise if we skip all the way south to the Antarctic: Bouvet and Peter the first islands are dormant volcanic islands.
Bouvet considered the most remote island in the world
and both of which are nearly completely covered in ice and only inhabited by seals and birds.
Now, keep in mind about the oil thing, though
Although they export lots of it,
gas is actually still super expensive.
According to Globalpetrolprices.com as of 2019,
it is just over 17.2 Krone per litre,
making it one of the most expensive places to get gas in the world.
Macau: "I don't want to talk about it."
This is partially because, in 1990, they initiated the government pension fund global.
This is a national wealth fund run by the government to subsidize pensions
when oil dependence runs dry.
Now Norway has lots of natural resources and clever ways of managing them
making them somewhat of a paragon for development,
few other nations can compare with.
Switzerland: "Challenge accepted!"
But for what it's worth
They have a unique system locked and loaded.
And now it is time for my triple shot of espresso break
Usually this is the part where Noah comes in, but Noah is out of town. So let's give this to Keith
Now everyone knows that Norway is quite a prosperous nation. But just how prosperous is it?
Let's just put it this way:
They export more than they import.
And not just in petroleum products.
Fish alone makes up about 10 percent of their exports
and they are the highest exporter of salmon out of any other country in the world.
Woman: "I just love Voss water. It's expensive and it's Norwegian.
So, you know, it probably came from like a mystical glacier or something."
N.: "Yeah. No, that's basically just our tap water
I wash my dishes with that stuff every day."
Woman: "But it's expensive and Norwegian!"
N.: "And you fell for it!"
Ah y'all just got tricked!
Otherwise the majority of the energy in Norway comes from hydroelectric power
Norway became one of the first countries to adopt a carbon tax back in 1991
Although cutting down trees is still done on a smaller scale. They were the first country to ban deforestation
They have Europe's largest herd of reindeer
They have lots of birds like puffins. Whales and orcas love swimming off the coast.
In the Arctic,
you can find polar bears and walruses.
And now, food.
Norwegian food is known for being either really nice, warm, and cozy or straight up disgusting.
They love their fish!
You have some interesting fish dishes like lutefisk and rakfisk.
Some other dishes include things like various types of porridge, pickled herring,
Kumla, reindeer made in various ways,
meatballs in brown sauce, Krumkake, brown cheese,
these Christmas dishes, and the national dish: Fårikål.
However, if you ask a Norwegian, they might tell you the new national dish of Norway is tacos
They might have some questionable ingredients on the table for you to add
like mayonnaise or cucumbers and I mean
Come on, Mexico,
even you break your own rules all the time and mix things up in your own country
So let the Norwegians have their fun and speaking of Norwegians. Have fun.
And speaking of Norwegians having fun.
Thank You Keith!
Norwegians have a saying "They are born with skis".
The word even comes from the ancient Norse word:
"Skið"
Which means "split wood".
If there was any kind of apex cold winter type of people on Earth,
Norwegians would take the gold
and they literally do take the gold like they have more Winter Olympics gold medals than any other country.
First of all, the country has about 5.3 million people
and as of 2018 has the highest Human Development Index out of any country in the world.
At about 84% the country is made up primarily of people that identify as ethnically Norwegian
including about 60,000 indigenous Sami people,
about 8.3 percent of the population is other European descent,
mostly Western Europe,
and the remaining population is made up of other people groups
from outside of Europe, from various regions of Africa,
Asia, mostly from countries like Pakistan, Somalia, Morocco, Iraq, and Kurdish people.
They use the Norwegian krone as their currency.
They use the type C&F plug outlets and they drive on the right side of the road.
Interesting to note that they are not part of the EU but part of the European Economic Area and Free Trade Association.
In fact Norway is a Kingdom currently under the headship of King Harald V.
However, his role is mostly representative and ceremonial.
His executive powers are limited and most government is ruled by the Parliament.
Essentially though,
although some would argue Vikings kind of started in Denmark. It really kicked off in Norway.
Norwegian Vikings did kind of all the exploring and colonizing and raiding and killing.
You know Viking stuff, and no they did not wear helmets with horns.
Language-wise, Norway actually has two official languages:
Norwegian and Sami,
the language of the minority northern indigenous peoples that have lived in the frigid regions for millennia.
The Norwegian language,
however, is kind of confusing though because it kind of has two different writing systems
that everybody must learn in school: new Nynorsk and Bokmål.
What exactly are they? Well, it kind of goes like this:
"- Hey, we've been in a union with the Danish for centuries and now they are gone!
We can speak our own language freely!"
- Woohoo! But we've been writing our language in the Danish style for so long.
I mean, what do we do? Do we change it?"
Hi I'm Ivar Aasen and I say Yes
I'm going to listen to all the dialects of Norwegian and come up with a weird fusion thing that can work for everyone
I'll call it Nynorsk. We can teach it in schools and everyone can be free of Danish influence.
And today the Danish-style Bokmål is still used by about 85% of the population.
Weird side note the word "Ha" can mean almost anything in Norway.
For example, Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Speaking of which, like many of their other neighbours, Norwegians have 13 years of school,
graduating at age 19
and when Norwegians are just about ready to take their final exams
they go on a three-week party called Russ.
Hmm, just look it up.
Norway has lots of different dialects here are some of you guys,
Norwegian Geograpeeps explaining:
Hey, my name is Polina in standard Norwegian, you might say "Våres",
but in Egersund area, you say "Okkas".
In the West, you could say "Jysla løje då!"
and in the north maybe "Kor artig!"
In Oslo, you would say something along the lines of "Det er ikke lett skjøner du"
In Trøndelag county: "D e iti lætt sjø."
So in standard Norwegian, you would say "Søppel", but in Bergen, we say "Boss".
Thank you!
Otherwise,
there are so many other things you guys the Norwegian geograpeeps wanted us to talk about
in terms of your culture and here is random Hannah with culture stuff.
Norway, it's a land loaded with tradition and folklore.
Many of you have already heard of things like trolls and elves, but there's also
scary beings like the Huldra, Nattmara, and the Nøkken.
Pretty much all Norwegians are outdoorsy people.
Hiking and cross-country skiing are national pastimes, hands down.
Almost everyone owns some kind of Mari sweater made of wool with
traditional patterns knitted onto the upper parts
usually in the national colours of red white and blue.
Many Norwegians own small cabins in the woods
and they actually like to brag about how bad their cabins can be
as in how technologically disconnected they are with the least amenities.
No Wi-Fi. No electricity. No plumbing.
You're hardcore.
Speaking of bragging in Norway,
it's considered super cool to come back from vacation
and show off your tan because it's kind of hard to get a tan in Norway.
The Nobel Peace Prize is also awarded in Oslo every year.
In Norway, everyone's income and wealth is on public record.
Mostly. But for what it's worth the nation does this to help prevent tax evasion.
And finally, we cannot skip the bunads.
These are traditional costumes of Norway that come in so many different varieties
based on the region and town you are from.
They are mostly worn for special occasions,
especially for May 17, the country's national day for they marched to the castle in Oslo.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Get out of here
I want to talk about music.
Traditionally, Norwegians have their own regional folk music and dance. It's called Bygdedans.
Traditional instruments include things like dulcimers, goat horn, willow flute.
The traditional folk music eventually found a way to fuse with one of the most popular genres of Norway today:
Metal, or specifically
Norwegian folk metal bands.
Not only that, but black metal was started supposedly in Norway,
and it has since been a domineering genre. Many people have been playing for decades. That's it for me.
*metal music playing*
Thank you again Keith.
Anyway, we gotta move on history in the quickest way I can put it:
Viking Age,
this dude unites Norway into one Kingdom,
Vikings invade and take over a ton of other places like England.
Christianity, Old Kingdom, Black Plague, union of Kalmar, Denmark takes over,
Lutheranism, Sweden takes over, constitution established, first wave of immigrants to America,
they finally leave Sweden, World War One = neutral, women suffrage, World War two neutral again
But Germany doesn't care, joins NATO and European free trade association, Oil boom,
they vote and reject EU membership, hosting Winter Olympics in Lillehammer,
largest underwater gas pipeline in the world open,
Oslo grows and more immigrants come in and here we are today.
I asked you Norwegian geograpeeps for some notable people from
Norway or of Norwegian descent and here are some of the ones you suggested we put in this video:
Erik the red,
so many past Vikings and kings, lalala, Edvard Grieg, Edvard Munch, these writers,
these cross-country skiers,
Roald Amundsen, Magnus Carlsen, Max Magnus, Thor Heyerdahl, Fridtjof Nansen,
so many musicians like these people as well as actors like these people
and of course the Royal family.
Seriously though, did you guys watch the movie Kon Tiki?
It's pretty good.
I mean his migration theory was still kind of mostly wrong, but eh, you did a cool thing man.
And that's the thing about Norwegians. They're so globally intrepid
They reach out to the far corners and with that they've also made a lot of friends which brings us to
*little music*
Now Norwegians are known for being very level-headed and nice
but they do know who they support and stand by no matter what.
First of all,
Switzerland is kind of like their weird alternate parallel universe twin that shares a lot in common with them
They both are not part of the EU
they both are very financially stable yet expensive to live in,
they both have mountains and snow and they both have similar values in general affairs.
They get along pretty well and enjoy sharing the ski stories.
The UK is a very close friend, especially Scotland due to their shared Viking history
They even give them a Christmas tree every year to say:
"Thanks for helping in World War Two."
When their king and government were taken in from exile as the Germans tried to invade.
Nepal has close ties as another mountain nation,
they've taken much interest and send much aid to their programs
High-profile politicians have visited in the past like their Minister of environmental development, Eric Solheim,
and the prime minister of Nepal visited Norway as well.
For the USA,
they have a very close connection not only in diplomacy,
government, and business.
But specifically to the diaspora living in the USA, and specifically the state of Minnesota.
Nearly a million Norwegian Americans live in this one state alone.
The USA holds more people of Norwegian heritage than any other country outside of Norway
with almost as many as there are in Norway.
They even have a game show called "Alt for Norge" in which Norwegian Americans see the homeland of their ancestors.
They cry and act way too dramatic which is entertaining.
The winner gets to meet their Norwegian relatives and the losers get a book telling them information
But they don't get to meet their relatives which is kind of messed up, but it's a game show,
what do you expect?
Anyway when it comes to their best friends pretty much what I've heard is a mix between all the Nordics but
specifically Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden.
Iceland is like their party friend
They love to go on adventures with. They are also kind of like the preserved Norse nation
that their ancestors colonized which holds a dear spot in their hearts.
Today, they have a defence agreement that allows Norwegian Air Force to survey and patrol the Icelandic airspace as well.
Denmark and Sweden*, however, are always kind of fighting for Norway's affection.
Both these nations in the past have fought each other and ruled over Norway under separate kingdoms.
All three countries were at one point part of the Kalmar Union.
They can relatively understand each other when they talk.
Swedish is closer to Norwegian though.
They are all part of NATO, the Council of Europe,
and many people from each of these nations end up marrying and having families together.
In conclusion, Norway's prosperity doesn't stop with their will for gritty cold adventure
They've scaled the South Pole, the icebergs, the glaciers, and the tundra.
It's almost as if the ice keeps them warm!
Stay tuned, Oman is coming up next.
*outro music*