Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The Big Day, and some bunad photos.

 

@brittarnhild

Sunday, and  confirmation day in Borge church in Lofoten, where my brother Frode is the pastor, and our niece Kamilla one of the confirmants.

 

In the Church of Norway you have your confirmation, which today is a blessing seremony, after a winter of learning more about christianity, the year you turn 16. In Iceland they are one year younger, so this spring we went to Iceland in April for Embla´s confirmation, and this last weekend to Lofoten to take part in Kamilla´s celebration.

My oldest brother, Frode, has been the pastor in Borge church for 20 years, and during this period he has baptised his youngest daughter Kamilla, and confirmated all his three children, Mathias, Gunhild and Kamilla.

 

A confirmation is a family celebration, and a perfect opportunity to use our traditional costumes, the bunads. 

There are different bunads from different areas in Norway. Mine is a trønderbunad from the area around Trondheim. Usually girls are given their first adult bunad for their confirmation. I got mine from Terje when we got married. Buying a bunad is quite an investment. It is all handmade, and decorated with heavy silver. The different bunads have different costs, but it is not unusal to spend about 6500+ dollars on one!

 

During the church seremony the confirmants wear white coats, but at the party afterwards many of them wear their bunads for the first time.

A bouquet of women in bunads. 

Kamilla with her four grandparents.

 

Beautiful Kamilla.

Lofoten for artists

 

@brittarnhild

 

The Lofoten islands is a perfect place for artists.
Beauty is to be found everywhere, and artists are busy painting.

 

I walk around, wishing that I was a painter.

Then I realize, my camera is my easel, my canvas and my brushes.

The colour palette is here already

 

Stockfish

 

@brittarnhild

 

We slept with an open window, the midnight sun shining in through the night, and with it a smell I know from nowhere else. The smell of dried cod, of stockfish from Lofoten.

 

 

To dry the fish is the oldest method of preserving the fish. It has been done for more than a thousands years, and we know that stockfish has been exported from Norway ever since before the Viking Age.

 

 

I have eaten Norwegian stockfish in Italy, in Spain and in Portugal. I make bacalao at home or with friends at their cabin. But no place does it taste as good as in Lofoten.

 

 

Stoccafisso was the first word I learned in Norwegian. Anne-Cath Westly, a  late Norwegian author has written dozens of books for children. Among her most well known figures are the siblings, Aurora and Sokrates. In of the the books they live in Lofoten for a year. Little Sokrates finds a dried stockfish which he playes with, and being told about the export of dried cod to Italy, he names his fish Stoccafisso.

 

 

Dried stockfish can be eaten as snack, but if you want to make a meal out of it, you need to water the fish for several days.

 

 

Then it is ready to be cooked, baked, grilled…….you name it. In Mosjøen I had baked stockfish for dinner. My sister in law served is stockfish directly from their bbq-grill.  When driving home, we have frozen stockfish and a book with stockfish recipes in the car.

 

A piece of Lofoten brought home.

 

Lunch Time

 

@brittarnhild

We are in Lofoten because of our niece Kamilla´s confirmation.
Coming a few days early, we are  staying in a cabin own by my brother´s parents in law, which is situated near Reine, one of many fishing villages. 

Lofoten is a busy tourist region, but still it is early in the season.

We have no set plans,
just driving around.

Stopping for photos here,
for coffee there......

Enjoying our days and each other.

If you ever plan to come to Norway, make sure to put Lofoten on your list.

 

The Midnight Sun

 

@brittarnhild

My brother Frode and his family live in Borge in Lofoten.
From their livingroom window they can see the midnight sun. From one of the last days in May and for almost two months.

We came there late at night. Were served fish soup, my brother´s specialty, and were ready for the midnight sun.

A night with midnight sun is not for sleeping.

By the way - once upon a time a tourist came to Norway to see The Midnight Sun. He went back home disappointed....."this is the same sun as shines on the rest of the world"

More from Lofoten

I have promised to post more photos from our trip to Lofoten, and here are a few.

We started from Trondheim after lunch on Thursday. To reach the Lofoten islands we have to drive about 850 kilometers, and then there is a two hours drive. So on Thursday we slept over at a hotel in Fauske. And then the next day we only had a couple of hours to drive to reach Hammarøy, the island where Knut Hamsund lived as a small boy, and the ferry.

The weather was quite nice. A little cold, but sunny and no wind, so the ferry trip was a pleasure. We spent alot of it out on the deck . Since Lofoten are islands you have to come there by sea, and therefore you also can see the beautiful Lofoten Wall as the mountains are called. It as an amazing sight when the weather is nice, though I find the ferry trip quite terrible when the wind is bad :-(

My brother and his family live in Lofoten, and this time we went there because of the confirmation of my niece Gunhild. She was confirmanted in Borge church, where my brother si the pastor.

The old Borge church burnt down in the 80ies and a new, modern church was built. Unfortunately the weather was grey on Sunday, the day of the confirmation, and therefore you cannot see how the church is build in the form of the mountain behind.

For important days, as confirmations, we often use "bunad" - regional outfits. Her e is Marta and Ingrid with their cousins Gunhild and Kamilla, all four in different bunader. Ingrid has one from Rogaland, south west in Norway, Marta has inherited a very old one from Nordfjord, west in Norway (it originally belonged to a late aunt of my father), Gunhild has inherited from her grandmother one from North-Norway, and Kamilla has one from Lofoten.

My mother and I also have bunader. My mother got hers, made by her sister, when she was 17, I got mine from Terje as a present the day (night) after our wedding, 25 years ago.

The last photo today is from inside Borge church, mu brother Frode and all the lovely young confirmants dressed in their best clothes.

Midnight Sun

I have finished my exams for this year, and we have been up to Lofoten Island for a family event - confirmation. Not much time for blogging right now, but at least I can give you a few photos of the midnight sun. And then come back sson with a more updated version of my last weeks. The two first photos are from Eggum in Vestvågøy in Lofoten.

I am standing near a statue called The Face.  

The third photo is taken from my brother's house the last night we were there, at around 00.30am.