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I take students from Prescott College to Norway every two years for a class: Explorations of Norway, Nature and Culture. We study how landscape influences culture and how culture as a result of its unique history, including mythology, folklore and traditions, influences the cultural landscape and cultural perspectives toward nature that is evident today. We visit cultural sites, schools and natural areas with an emphasis on experiential education as a means of learning about and experiencing the culture and landscape.

 

I have a chapter in a book, Nature First, Edited by Bob Henderson and Nils Vikander, that focuses on ideas of Scandinavian Friluftsliv.

 

In August of 2007, I was one of 10 people asked to present my paper invited at a conference in Norway, entitled Being in Nature. I am attaching the chapter that I have published in this book. The conclusion of my essay is about being on Litle Faerøy and includes a shot description of Roar.

 

For more information please contact Professor Douglas Hulmes at (928) 778-4167 or email Dhulmes@cableone.net.  Or to schedule a presentation contact Jillellyn@jillellyn.com.

 

My name is Douglas Hulmes, I am a professor of
Environmental Studies and Education at Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona. I have extensive experience teaching in Norway. I taught for 6 months at Olavskulen Folkehøgskule on the island of Bømlo with a Friluftsliv program in 1991. In 1996 - 97 I was a guest professor at Telemark College, in one of Norway's first interdisciplinary environmental studies programs for international students. I take students from Prescott College to Norway every two years for a class: Explorations of Norway, Nature and Culture.  We study how landscape influences culture and how culture as a result of its unique history, including mythology, folklore and traditions, influences the cultural landscape and cultural perspectives toward nature that is evident today. We visit cultural sites, schools and natural areas with an emphasis on experiential education as a means of learning about and experiencing the culture and landscape. I have a chapter in a book, Nature First, Edited by Bob Henderson and Nils Vikander, that focuses on ideas of Scandinavian Friluftsliv. In August of 2007, I was one of 10 people asked to present my paper invited at a conference in Norway, entitled Being in Nature. I am attaching the chapter that I have published in this book. The conclusion of my essay is about being on Litle Faerøy and includes a shot description of Roar. You are welcome to quote any part of my chapter that you feel may be relevant.

I first met Roar when I worked at Olavskolen, when he taught Friluftsliv at the Foss Folkehøgskule. Since 2003, I have visited Litle Faerøy with 12 students every two years for approximately 5 days.

I selected Litle Faerøy because this remote island at the mouth of Sognefjord gives my students an opportunity to experience the traditional West Coast fishing culture. We are given the opportunity to sail traditional wooden boats, and learn techniques of fishing and preparing traditional foods as well as gain perspectives of the long history of fishing and trade that has occurred on the west coast of Norway. This opportunity gives my students a meaningful way to understand cultural traditions, and the challenges of surviving on a small island that is buffeted by storms off the Norwegian Sea and North Atlantic.

Roar is a quiet self reliant man who incorporates direct experience into his teaching style. He has studied under Nils Faarlund, one of Norway's top Friluftsliv vegleders (sp?) (leaders of the way). Roar decided to commit his life to a simple life style based on the deep cultural traditions of the Norwegian west coast fishermen and farmers. His work with young people demonstrates, through example, the philosophical values of Deep Ecology, and the need for cultural wisdom to be retained in a modern world that cannot continue at the present level of consumption. My students recognized the incredible value of experience and through discussions with Roar, they gained a perspective of the depth and commitment of his philosophy and chosen life style. Several of my students have been profoundly impacted by their experience on Litle Faerøy and are continuing to reflect on ways to simplify their own lives and incorporate some of their understanding of Friluftsliv into their personal and professional lives.

When I see Gudrun, tears come to my eyes. She reminds me so much of my Swedish mormor, grandmother. She is clearly a dominant force to be reconned with on Litle Faerøy, and she keeps me and my students busy with her tasks for preparing traditional Norwegian meals from the fish and crabs that we have harvested from the sea. It is apparent that her strength and character has been
molded from the icy grey waters that lash the coast, and she has kept us entertained late into the evenings with stories of rescuing a cow that had fallen into the sea or the time that she has had to swim to shore with the boat in tow with a rope after being smashed onto a submerged rock.

There was Steiner, and eccentric plumber, who has restored an old trawler that docked at Litle Faerøy, and kept us entertained for an evening last September, with stories of his personal research into the possible relationship of the idsappearance of the West Greenland Colony described in Jared Diamond's book, Collapse. Steiner believes that some of the colony may have sailed to Hudson
Bay, in 1352, up a river to Lake Winnipeg, and from there sailed up the Red River into Minnesota. The famed Kensington Stone, found in 1898 by a Swedish American farmer, and thought by most to be a hoax, Steiner believes to be a credible record of the lost colony from Greenland. He has found "mooring holes" along the route that could have been drilled in the old Viking tradition, as a technique to tie boats to land, while allowing for a rapid release incase of
attack. Ten of the members of the group, according to the translation of the runic description on the rock were evidently killed by local indians. He informed us that a film crew from Bergen was planning to travel to Minnesota and investigate a location where he believed the bodies may have been buried. When I returned to Prescott at the end of September, I coincidentally, met a couple of young people from Wilmar, Minnesota, who had heard about a Norwegian that had been in the area last summer, investigating the legend. They knew of the "mooring holes", and the woman said that her brother had found one on their farm....

Litle Faerøy, which I believe is Ny Norsk dialect of little sheep island, is a glaciated granite rock encrusted with patches of heather, (lyng). In late August and September, the heather blooms, and the island glows with purple and pink in the twilight of the late summer evenings. When not buffeted by storms off the North Atlantic, the island is a beautiful hidden retreat, far from the destinations of tourists and the crazy realities of the modern world. Litle Faerøy, Roar, and Gudrun are authentic Norwegian landscape and culture as you can ever hope to meet. There is nothing comfortable about being on the island. If it is not windy
in August, the midges are constantly biting and swarming around your face. One evening, when I and my 11 students were huddled in the yurt, listening to a presentation by one of my students on Norwegian fairytales, the rain pelting on the canvass, a sudden especially strong gust blasted the tent, and it came collapsing down around us. Four of the students kept the canvass from
touching the glowing wood stove, while I ran to the house for Roar. We held the tent up, while students pulled out all of our sleeping bags and packs. Roar, with huge insulated mitts, pulled the stove and chimney out from under the flapping canvass. Within a half hour, the tent was fixed, and though soaked to the skin, we resumed our positions in sleeping bags around a roaring fire, and fell asleep, listening to the wind and rain. I could never give my students a lecture on the strength, tenacity, and acceptance of a hard life that epitomizes the west coast peasant/fishing culture, but we experienced a glimpse of it, that will forever be remembered by me and my students. Life takes on a different meaning entirely
from what most Americans experience today. On Litle Faerøy, you work to live. You connect with the land, the sea, the weather, and the people in a way that is honest, genuine, and meaningful. I can't wait to return.

American culture has become a simulation of life, where communication is primarily done through cell phones, text messages, computers, and television. I work with 90 fifth grade students every year in an 8 week creeks and watershed program. Most of the kids have never put their feet in a stream, or climbed a tree, or a mountain. Last year, 12 out of 30 students in one class had
parents who were in jail, most because of meth, or domestic violence. And I live in Prescott, Arizona, a nice town that is recognized as one of the best places to live in America!  Richard's Louve's book, The Last Child of the Woods, is an accurate description of an entire generation of children suffering from what
he describes as "nature deficit disorder". It is real, and it is a huge problem throughout the modern world cultures. Environmental Education is often being reduced to another attempt to satisfy state standards on tests, and if it occurs at all, is often filled with facts and information to support testing, and the information rarely questions the direction of progress or sustainability in our
culture, or considers how our ancestors survived in the past. It occurs in the middle of the day, for an hour or two, and maybe a three day residential camp during a child's 12 years of education. Roar Moe is one man, living on a small island off the west coast of Norway, who recognizes that the direction we are going in modern culture cannot continue without serious and perhaps devastating consequences to life as we know it. On Litle Faerøy, one can experience a life that is simple, real, connected with the landscape, and one learns humility, ooperation, and experiences a sense of the wisdom from past traditions that have nearly been lost. Roar has an important message, and we should all pay attention..

For more information please contact Professor Douglas Hulmes at (928) 778-4167 or email Dhulmes@cableone.net.  Or to schedule a presentation contact Jillellyn@jillellyn.com.  E-mail: Dhulmes@cableone.net