A Collection of Collections

Pieces of the only surviving gown belonging to Marie Antoinette.  A u-boat reconnaissance helicopter. Four hedgerow mazes. A museum dedicated to old groceries.  Another museum of Falck rescue vehicles, another of dolls, a barn of old farm equipment, more than a hundred motorcycles, planes, Parisian dresses, American cars, African shields, scent gardens, comic strips, folding campers, novelty bicycles, rare stamps, Japanese lanterns, chicken coops, treetop walkways, license plates, hotdog stands, cursed figures, impala heads... even Dracula's crypt!  It's all at Egeskov Slot, one of the most interesting and strange places we've ever walked around.  Containing no less than eight on-site museums, this is a castle experience that only just begins with bricks and arrow slits.

Egeskov castle lies at the end of a long, treelined allé in the flat countryside of Funen Island.  It's an interesting structure (billed as "Europe's best preserved renaissance water castle") that we'd come to for a castle-hunting post.  The sky was grey, though, and the light was too flat for good pictures. Funen - sometime's called "Denmark's larder" - is a low, central isle covered in beet fields and dotted with beef cows.  We passed thatched roofs and half-timbered houses on our way to the castle, all cloaked with fog and buffeted by the damp sea-wind.
If the weather was disappointing, what we found wasn't.  Let's put it this way: we arrived at Egeskov a few minutes before the gates opened at 10:00.  We left at three-thirty, half an hour before closing.  And there was still more to see.  Here, a remote-controlled, steam-powered toy boat splashes and puffs its way around the castle lake.  It let out intermittent whistles and made a delightfully self-important gurgling, chugging sound.

The name Egeskov means "oak forest," which refers to the one thousand oak pilings that the castle is built on.  Originally constructed in 1554, the fortifications are actually on the surface of the water - surprisingly, it hasn't sunk much in the centuries since.  The sight is staggering even in dim conditions - it's the kind of place one assumes couldn't really exist.*
The castle's biggest enthusiast, probably, is the current owner and inhabitant, Count Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille.  He appears on the castle website, in the brochures and in several on-site videos.  His exploits are told and retold on different info-boards: he rescued an ancient Harley Davidson from a recluse's garage, he built the world's biggest maze, he "thoroughly explored" the castle moat (Michael's a "keen diver") and dredged up old plates and canons.  We laughed when we read this bit of pomp on the official website: "Legend has it that, in the mid 1960s, a boy was born to the name Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille. Today he is the Count at Egeskov and lives in Egeskov itself."

*Not only does it exist - there are TWO Egeskov's.  A one-to-one replica was built as part of the Hokkaido Aquarium, in Japan, which is truly bizarre.  

We laughed again when we read about the count's very own suit of armor (the same one he wears on the website).  An information board tells how having the armor made fulfilled "a childhood dream" for the count.  Supposedly, it's an exact replica of the suit worn by a distant ancestor, Frands Brockenhuus - we're betting that old Frands also had a taste for the dramatic, because the piece was absolutely festooned with weaponry and covered in gold details.
Egeskov - the building - is packed to the rafters with bits and pieces from several lifetimes of collecting. The bottom floor is given over, in large part, to hunting trophies from the current count's grandfather.  Under the eaves is a strange array of windup toys and an impressive model train.  There's victorian cookware, furniture from the court of Louis XVI, old paintings, several pianos, aspic molds, rare books, metal chests, family trees and louche knick-knacks. The staff does an admirable job of dusting, but the place still feels a bit like an overcrowded antiques shop.

Fittingly, the prize attraction at Egeskov is another overstuffed house... this time in miniature.  Titania's palace is advertised as "probably the most fairytale dolls' house in the world," which is actually a bit of an understatement.  Dreamed up and built by the Englishman Sir Nevile Wilkinson for his daughter, Gwendolyn, the palace is crammed with minuscule artifacts collected over fifteen years.  The world's smallest working church organ, for example, and several dozen rare, coin-sized books.  In all, there are over three thousand pieces in the doll house.  Tiny photographs, little snowshoes, mahogany furniture, bathtubs, teddybears the size of ladybugs, porcelain figurines and potted plants fill the 18 rooms.  The decorative style is pure victorian overstuff.  It draws a crowd.

Count Michael's parents had already opened up the family home to paying visitors in the 1980's, and one has to assume that the 200,000 annual visitors are let in to pay for upkeep - it's not a cheap ticket, castles (especially ones built on the water) are expensive to maintain.  We couldn't help but wonder, though, if our host didn't relish the attention.
For all his boasting, Michael has made his home really fun.  A birdsong walk snakes through the treetops (like a small-scale baumkronenpfad), there are stilts to use, a maze to explore and, of course, Dracula's crypt... which could never be adequately explained.  The exhibits are so diverse that it would be impossible to visit and not find something of interest.  If motorcycles aren't your thing, you might like the French fashion magazine illustrations or the old harvesting machines.

The end of October is a slow time in Denmark.  The country's tourist attractions are winding up their summer hours, the days are getting dark and short, the country roads are nearly deserted.  We toured Egeskov on the last day of autumn break, before all the schoolchildren headed back to their desks and their parents went back to work.  It was Egeskov's last day open until spring.  A few special exhibitions were going on - in the Falck museum, some remote-controlled truck devotees were driving and talking about their semis.  In the main barn, where the bulk of the airplanes and cars are kept, a model steam and gas engine show was happening.  Stacks of Popular Mechanic lay on the tables next to working airplane miniatures and chuffing steam cranks.
The cars were an eclectic mix of Detroit (lots of Cadillacs and Fords), Germany (especially Mercedes) and some more exotic brands (Ferrari, Morgan, a schoolbus-sized Rolls Royce, electric one-seaters, Danish bubble cars).  Overhead hung an ultralight and a few small airplanes, a float helicopter sat on the mezzanine, rickshaws and camper vans crowded into the corners.

Such is the breadth of Egeskov's collections that some pretty serious contrasts happen in the spaces where two museums collide.  Troll dolls rub up against bicycles, kitchen pots are hung next to spring-powered monkeys, hunting trophies bristle on the same wall as collectable postage.  There are even little mini-collections that seemingly have no real place, and so are stashed away in some incongruous spot.  In the middle of the motorcycles, for example, we found a display of wooden farm animals.  Here, plastic dolls surround one of half a dozen campers.

What do you do when you inherit a family castle, your parents collections, your grandparents cars, ancestral hedgerows and formal gardens?  It must, in some ways, be tempting to sell the whole thing and walk away from the junk and the cobwebs, the headache of keeping everything dry and upright.  Or, as many European castle owners do, rent the pile out to vacationing oligarchs and live somewhere else. Count Michael seems like a different sort, though. He's not only embraced the chaos, he's added to it - particularly in the motorcycle department.
When we caught the bus back to our seaside rooming house, we wondered what the place is like in the offseason.  Egeskov is technically closed from now until April, but it's still a home.  We pictured the count (and countess, Michael is married) roaming the hallways, dreaming up new exhibits and scarier touches for his crypt, starting up his motorcycles and sitting in the old cars.  We wondered if he skated on the frozen moat or ate dinner in the big feasting hall.  It must feel very empty once all the tourists have left and the staff's gone home.  When you live in a museum, do you prefer to have it full of people or all to yourself?

On Dasher...

Never ask a Sámi person how many reindeer they have.  We couldn't help but wonder, though, as we stayed on a reindeer farm in Sevettijärvi, would we get to see any?  How many are there around?  There were droppings on the property, confirming their existence and Merlin could tell that they were fresh enough to signal close reindeer proximity.  Those are true country boy skills right there.  But a reindeer 'farm' is very different than the name implies.  These are wild animals, only partially domesticated.  To keep your reindeer is to follow them, gather them, mark them, not confine them.  So, did we see any reindeer?  We sure did.  This is the land of the reindeer, far above the Arctic Circle and even mating season (which it was while we were in Lapland) couldn't keep the reindeer completely out of sight. 

To ask about the number in someone's herd would be like saying, "hey, how much money have you got in the bank?"  Until very recently, reindeer husbandry was the core of the Sámi economy.  The animals were a currency.  In fact, when we asked one of the older schoolchildren in Sevettijärvi why the language textbook they'd sweetly presented us with had a picture of small reindeer bones on the cover, we were told that those were game pieces.  "It is a Skolt game," the thirteen year old explained.  You throw them on the ground and whichever ones land a certain way are reindeer.  "Whoever has the most reindeer wins."  So, basically, it's a very ancient version of Monopoly.  Until the 1600s, Sámi people lived as nomads, following reindeer as they migrated.  These journeys brought them over borders, being defined at that time as Russia, Sweden and Denmark.  The governments of each (and sometimes all three) began to tax the Sámi people and, with no hard currency, they paid with hides and meat.  The need to generate more income in order to pay taxes led to over-hunting and a sharp decrease in the number of reindeer.  There was a threat of extinction.

Many Sámi chose to settle along fjords and switch mainly to fishing.  Others decided to employ the same methods they'd seen Scandinavian shepherds use with their flocks of sheep.  The men began taming small groups of reindeer and herding them from place to place as needed.  The women made clothing and blankets from the fur, boots from the skins, tools from antlers and even cheese from the reindeer's milk.  These reindeer herders, though a minority, became what is now seen as the 'archetypical' Sámi.  As systematic (and sometimes sadistic - in cases of female sterilization) assimilation measures were taken by Scandinavian and Russian governments, the communities most reliant on reindeer husbandry were the ones who held on most tightly to their culture.  There's a direct correlation between the survival of Sámi dialects and traditions and the importance of herding in those communities.  You can pretty much safely put the reindeer at the center of modern Sámi identity. 

Of course, they also ate the meat.  While you'd probably be hard pressed to find any reindeer milk products around Lapland, reindeer meat is very common.  Most often, it is sauteed, resembling beef stir fry or cheese steak shavings, served with lingonberries and potatoes.  For some reason that we can't figure out, the reindeer in Lapland tastes much more like beefsteak than venison.  There is no gaminess and the flesh is tender enough to not necessitate it being cooked super rare.  Other common preparations are dried and cured sausages, sliced thin and eaten as a breakfast and lunch meat.  Reindeer soup made some appearances as well.  Canned reindeer stew, reindeer chunks and reindeer meatballs showed up all around Finland - not just Lapland.  It has grown from being a local delicacy to a national culinary tradition, as Sámi culture has become more widely accepted and respected in recent decades.

Above, a particularly delicious baked reindeer steak with rye and thyme crumble, forest mushrooms and artichoke puree.  This was at Ravintola Aanaar in Inari.  The town is considered the center of Sami culture in Finland.  Merlin ate this (and I had Lake Inari whitefish) in a small dining room adjacent to the main banquet hall.  A group of around 50 people had been filing in all evening and now sat enjoying a meal and some live, traditional music.  "Is it a wedding?" we asked.  "Oh, no.  Just a gathering of Sámi people."  Many had arrived in traditional costume, some wore name tags.  "It happens all the time."   Inari is also home to Siida, a really wonderful museum dedicated to Sámi culture and the nature of Northern Lapland.  Siida is a North Sámi word for a reindeer village and much of the permanent exhibition, naturally, was dedicated to herding and husbandry. 

This old record book shows a series of earmarks and the families and family members they represent.  Every summer, the calves that are born the spring before are rounded up and small cuts and patterns are made in their ears.  This marks ownership.  Thousands of earmarks exist, children have different ones than their parents, siblings and so on.  The best herders earn the most intricate patterns, Natalia explained to us.  "Mine was one no one wanted."  She owned some reindeer (of course, we didn't ask how many) at one point.  Her earmark pattern was simple enough that it could easily be turned into another.  So, one by one, her reindeer began to disappear.  Finally, she sold them off before she had none left.  "I knew who it was and was mad for a while.  But it is all a part of it."  She told us of the skill involved with knowing exactly where to find every one of your reindeer depending on the wind, the surface of the snow, how old they are.  The Sámi have hundreds of words for 'reindeer,' including one for each year of a reindeer's life.

Only around 10% of today's Sámi count reindeer husbandry as their primary source of income.  That doesn't make the animals any less important, though.  Tourism in Lapland depends a lot on people wanting to come up and see Dasher and Dancer et al.  At our homestay, Natalia told us about Spaniards zipping around on snowmobiles they'd never ridden before, trying to find some reindeer.  "I was running around with a first aid kit."  Other guests think that going right up to one and petting it is a good idea.  "They even think they can ride them!"  Most tourist material for the area involves snowmobile and dog-sled tours to go out and spot some reindeer.  Thankfully, absolutely nowhere is there the opportunity to go out on a hunt.  I was happy to see some of the beautiful animals, even if they were just fleeting glances.  And, at night, I even dreamed of reindeer (though our pillowcases may have had something to do with that).

Skolt's Honor

It's not that often that you're hostess catches, guts and cooks your dinner over an open flame, but that's just what happened at our homestay in Sevettijärvi.  Natalia, who did most of this with her handful of a 10 month old daughter balanced on her hip, was tickled with the catch.  "I didn't actually expect to get a fish!" she laughed, struggling to remove her hook from the beautiful lake trout's mouth.  Ice-fishing is second nature to her, but this was her very first big non-icy catch.  "I have to show my sisters!"  she giggled shooting off a picture text on her phone.  Her older sister, who is a member of Sámi parliament and the preeminent Skolt Sámi rock musician ceded the title of "family rock star" for the day.  Her younger sister asked her to save the skin.  "She wants it for her handicrafts - to make a purse, probably," Natalia explained.  "Skolt Sámi use every part of the fish."

Skolt Sámi are the indigenous people of the area at which Finland, Norway and Russia meet.  There are around 1250 ethnic Skolts in the world today.  About 700 live in Finland and 315 of them reside right here in Sevettijärvi, a village just south of the northernmost border between Norway and Finland.  We stayed on Natalia's family reindeer farm in Sevettijärvi for two nights and couldn't have been given better insight into Skolt Sámi culture.  Natalia's knack for storytelling was keen, her laughter infectious.  She told us about meeting her husband at Sevetin Baari, the local bar.  "I was the only single girl for 100 kilometers!"  And about being the only female in her elementary school class, "I've seen it all."  She spoke of her grandfather, a reindeer herder, who was famous for tea that could wake the dead, and her grandmother, who was tiny but fierce.

"Skolt Sámi are short, but she was the shortest," Natalia said of her grandmother who stood only one meter tall, but commandeered big dogs and reindeer like a general.  "If she wasn't good with humans, she was excellent with animals."  Grandma had seven children, one of which was birthed during a routine reindeer feeding in the dead of winter.  Out in the snowy woods, Domna tied her skirt together at the bottom and skied home.  Stricken with dementia at the end of her nearly 100 year long life (by the family's best guess), grandma began to show some vulnerability.  "Take me home," she'd plead, referring to Petsamo on what is referred to locally as "the lost arm" of Finland.
51 Skolt Sámi families were forced to resettle here after their home was signed over to Russia at the end of the 1940s.  She'd pull her grandmother around on a sled attached to the back of a snowmobile.  Up and over and down and back they'd loop to her house, which Domna no longer recognized.  "Here you are! Home!"  Natalia would cheerfully announce and grandma would thank her for returning her to the lost arm. 

Sevettijärvi has only been accessible by car since 1970.  Before then, Skolts got around by snowmobile, reindeer, skis and boat.  "Mostly, we just stayed here," a teacher at the local school told us with humorous bluntness.  The new road brought ease of access and it also brought Toini, Natalia's mother, who met and married a Skolt Sámi man and had two daughters and one on the way when he died of cancer.   Not Sámi herself, she still chose to remain in Sevettijärvi, raising her daughters with a deep sense of their Sámi identity and eventually becoming principle of the local Skolt school.  For income, she turned her home into a campsite and travelers inn with the help of the local women's community.  "The cabin you're sleeping in was built by five grandmothers," Natalia laughed, but also said with pride.  Sámi women are strong - and (honorary Skolt) Toini, and the women she's raised are some of the strongest.

While we were there, a new barbecue house was being delivered.  Our freshly caught dinner was prepared in the older, bigger one, an octagonal log building with a fire pit with chimney at the center.  Groups come here throughout the high season, from April until September.  Snowmobilers that make too much noise, hikers that routinely get lost, bachelor parties that trash the place.  Tourism is a tricky thing and it's an ongoing struggle to gauge how much is worth it or not.  The Skolt Sámi depend a lot on tourism.  Aside from reindeer herding, it is their livelihood.  But this is also a people who are very in tune with nature, who want to continue to strike the right balance with their animals and their environment.  More than anything, the people here want to make sure their culture and traditions don't die out.

Of course, this has the most to do with future generations.  We were invited to visit the local school and meet the students, numbering only 9 at the moment.  When Natalia was in school, there were 100.  There is a gap in school aged children right now.  The district covers such a long area that two children actually live 100 kilometers apart from one another.  "Must make birthday parties difficult," Merlin quipped.  We were sung a traditional Skolt song and then Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Skolt Sámi, Swedish and Finnish.  When we left, we were presented a Skolt Sámi language text book, signed by all the children.  It is the first book of its kind, published only two years ago and worked on by one of the teachers at the school.  Until 1977, Finnish law forbade the teaching of Sámi language in school.

Across from the school is The Church of St. Tryphon of Pechenga and its cemetery, which the teachers implored as to go visit.  "There is a very special moss."  The Orthodox cemetery is the only spot in Sevettijärvi that has always been fenced off.  So, the beautiful white moss has been protected from nibbling reindeer for decades.  It has been growing and flourishing.  Skolt Sámi is an endangered language.  Only around 400 of the 1250 ethnic Skolts in the world can speak Skolt Sámi, most of whom live in Sevettijärvi.  So, what happens here is important.  This is the spot where it can grow and flourish.  Natalia hopes that there will be a generational shift, a renewed appreciation in language as part of Skolt tradition.

For her part, Natalia is working on a children's book in the language.  One doesn't currently exist for her daughter or that age range.  It is about a bird who overhears her parents talking every night about flying back home to a home that is lost.  "And all the bird can think is this is our home."
Our dinner trout, with flesh as pink as salmon, was caught in an undisclosed location.  There is an unspoken Skolt Sámi law that if you have a building on a lake, that body of water is 'yours.'  But, still, you don't want everyone knowing that your lake is stocked with big, beautiful trout.  "It is a well kept secret," Natalia told us. 

Dairy Cows and Medieval Sheep, the Beauty of Alfta

The Swedish countryside is beautiful, and at the very start of Autumn, almost achingly so.  As we entered Jämtland, we drove along the sparkling Lake Oldsjön.  Still and clear, it was like a mirror that had been taken down from the wall to be cleaned.  78% of Sweden is forested, so the lakes invariably come with a reflection of trees built right in.  We began to talk about where we'd just been, Hälsingland, where a whopping 85% of land is covered in woods.  We stayed in Alfta for two days, visiting the Hälsingegården.  And while the painted farms are unique in the world, we were also able to see something there that is becoming rarer and rarer in Sweden - working farms.  Agriculture dates back to the Stone Age in Hälsingland, with proof of barley, wheat, millet and flax cultivation.  And while it has dropped off precipitously in recent decades, there is a tradition of farming that still holds strong.

"It's great that you got to see that.  It is more and more rare,"  Magnus Nilsson told us when we recounted an anecdote about visiting a dairy farm in Alfta just as a milk tank was arriving to pick up (or pump out) an order.  More surprising was that we'd just wandered into the backyard, trying to figure out where the advertised ostkiosken (cheese kiosk) was, and there was our host mother, Kersti Hisvid carrying a huge turkey!  A column of smoke rose up nearby, where they'd just flash-boiled the birds for plucking.  "We're feathering turkeys today!" Kersti declared as husband Ivar came up behind her with two more.  They didn't seem surprised at all to have run into us like this, almost twenty minute's drive from their own farm.  It is a small world, after all.  The couple they were helping out for the day - Susann and Astid Wedin - weighed the birds, 15 of them, and dealt with the milk truck's arrival.  Busy day on Jan-Hans farm.

"You can buy their milk at the grocery store here," Olav, the younger Hisved son, told us over coffee, well aware of how special that was.  He's been seeing things change throughout his life.  Some things have stayed the same, though.  "My parents do the turkeys with them every year.  Then, they all go out to a nice meal or down to the theatre in Stockholm.  It's a tradition."  The Hisveds used to have dairy cows of their own, but now just a few meat ones for themselves and neighbors, along with pigs and hens for ham and eggs.  The animals are mostly there, though, to keep the farm a farm, the fields open and the barns used.  We'd hear Ivar rouse early and go out to feed the animals in the morning, we'd put our muddy boots next to theirs when we came home. 

That's been the trend in Sweden.  Dairy to meat, both on farms and in stomachs.  Swedes have actually consumed 25% less dairy in the last two decades than the ones before and 33% more meat.  (The percentage of potato consumption has stayed the same for 30 years.  Go figure.)  Dairy had become the big cheese of farming industries in the latter part of the 1800s with more land devoted to cows than grain (and more grain devoted to cows than exportation).  The growth was steady and by the turn of the century, around 20,000 tons of butter were being exported annually.   Basically, mechanical milking machines put the farmers out of work, starting in the 1940s.  A full 60% of the agricultural workforce of Sweden was cut between 1945 and 1970.  Nowadays, the shrunken agro industry has gone back to cereals.

Olav and Per Hisved, the sons, both work for businesses in Alfta town proper.   Their parents open their doors to farmstay guests and Kersti sells truly delicious crispbread made in their centuries old bread oven.  This is the case with most family farms in Sweden.  Its owners may raise some animals or do some farming, but they make their living through other means.  It's called 'combined enterprise,' and in Hälsingland, where the farms are big and historic, this is usually accomplished through on-site cafes and B&Bs.  Even Jan-Hans, which stands out as a successful farming business,  has available rooms for rent in the summertime.  They do warn, though, that while breakfast is provided (including homemade cheese, of course) you'll have to go to the fridge and get it yourself because "this is a working farm." 

Then, you have a place like Lamm Katadrelan (Lamb Cathedral).  Also in Alfta, this farm is not only preserving a lifestyle endangered since the late 19th century, but also the animal breeds that were casualties of the same time.  Ancient breeds of cows, sheep, hens, pigs and even rabbits are kept on the farm, a number of which are highly endangered.  They were either interbred with other breeds with more uniform skins for leathers and wool - or abandoned all together for bigger breeds that could produce more milk and meat.  The Swedish Montane cows, smaller than your average cow, needs much less grain and has milk with a much higher fat content, but since you get less milk from them, they fell out of favor during the dairy boom.  There are 1.7 million pigs in Sweden, but Lamm Katadrelan has 2 of 300 landrace ones.  Their Hedemora chickens are descendants of a few renegade hens, found and saved by Viola Forsberg just when all the last ones were being crossbred with värphybrider in the 1970s.   Their lamb breeds date back to 500AD.  Traces of their wool have been found in Medieval church tissues.  This is some very cool life's work.

Of course, we didn't know any of this when we approached the farmhand, Ervin, hoping to get a glimpse of Lamm Katadrelan's painted interiors.  The house and cafe were closed for the season, but he welcomed us right in to the barn.  Inside, was another sort of historic breed altogether, a BM 230 Victor tractor from the 1950s (right before Bolinder-Munktel was bought by Volvo).  Ervin hopped right in and started it up, which it did easily and with a healthy roar.  Then, he brought us into the stables to meet Wilma.  Pretty much the antithesis to all her farm-mates, Wilma was a Haflinger, an Austrian draft horse.  She was that beautiful foreign luxury car parked in the garage.

I love looking out the window of a car and seeing unspoiled countryside, endless green and jewel-toned autumnal forests.  But rusted equipment, electric fences, barns, sheds, plastic wrapped hay bails only make me love rural landscapes more.  The smell of manure.  It's becoming more and more difficult to sustain a small farm lifestyle, all around the world.  Luckily, the people of Hälsingland have always been good at protecting and preserving what is most unique about their farmsteads.  From historic painted rooms to medieval lamb breeds, from keeping the farm in the family to making traditional bread and small batch cheese.  We were lucky to have found Alfta and meet its farmers. 

The Painted Farms of Hälsingland

The man with the sword, to the left to the door, is the Guardian.  A quote above him states that he was there to protect anyone that entered, but also reserved the right to kick you out of it you got too drunk.  In the panel closest to the fireplace, the Fiddler laments his role as maître d'.  He is there to wrangle people, entertain, keep order.  He is harassed by a rowdy bunch whose job it is to make his job difficult, hiding in barns, boozing it up.  On the opposite wall, Sophia promises her unending love in a wedding ceremony and a man with a horse spins a tale about a buzzy political topic of the day, To Eat or Not to Eat horse meat.  This is the festivities room at Ol-Anders farm, one of the decorated Hälsingegården (farmsteads of Hälsingland).  These painted rooms are one part of what make the Hälsingegården unique to Sweden and the world. 

 In the 19th century, a boom occurred in Hälsingland.  It was a perfect storm of events for the region with a farming tradition dating back to the year 200.  Things that the farmers of Hälsingland had done for centuries suddenly became big business.  This is flax country and flax makes linen.  So, when a British man with know-how and his team of women who could spin with both hands simultaneously came into town, Hälsingland became Sweden's linen capital.  (The only linen mill still in Scandinavia exists here, today).  Then, when cotton began to usurp linen, in the mid 1800s, fortune struck again.
Agricultural reform gave farmers large swaths of forest they had little-to-no interest in.  But just about at the same time, industrialization started, railways were built and selling off land and felling rights became a goldmine.  Add to all of this a doubling of the population (thanks to peace and the smallpox vaccine) and the lack of a noble class and the farmers of  Hälsingland soared. "Cash in their pocket," Gun-Marie Swessar explained to us at Ol-Anders, something incredibly new for a population of people traded goods amongst themselves.  This is what they chose to do with it.

"That which... in Hälsingland, immediately arouses an outsider's attention are the magnificent and imposing buildings."  Elementary School Textbook, 1878.  Not much has changed since then.  As we drove to Alfta, where we'd booked a farmstay with the Hisved family, we kept noticing these enormous barns and houses.  Estates, really, grand in stature, but with an overwhelming sense of functionality.  Some people call the Hälsingegården, Hälsingland farmsteads, 'log castles,' and their layouts are pretty fortress-like.  Above, you can see the traditional form.  A fourth building used to be right where we're standing, completing the square.  The winter house is at the top, facing south for optimum sunshine.  The cow stables are to its left and the festivities and summer house is to its right.
This farm, Ol-Anders, was originally down in Alfta's town center.  However, after a 1793 fire destroyed almost all the buildings, the Anderssons and other families, moved their farms up onto hills, out of close proximity to neighbors.  For extra protection, they set them up like mini fortresses.  After the blaze, came the boom and what started as one story - two windowed buildings expanded upward and outward.  

Then came the decorative touches.  In parts of the region that were connected more closely to city, via trade routes or proximity, elaborate doors, detailed woodwork and pastels were the design of choice.  That's what the urban folk were doing, after all.  In places like Alfta and Långhed, porches were the style.  It's impossible not to notice them, some baroque, some rococo, some faux Greek temple.  "It took about 25 - 50 years for the fashions of the mainland [Europe] to get to this part of Sweden," Gun-Marie said, laughing.  Whether with a porch or not, the entrance to the home was considered the true sign of status.  Amazingly, though, even when the authorities actually began to complain that they were building on too large a scale and 'being too extravagant with wood,' the farmers of Hälsingland were never trying to outdo one another.  It was more like they were all deciding upon a local folk art, using most of the same builders and artists.

The painters mainly came from Dalarna, south of Hälsingland.  They would come on foot, with no job opportunities in their own neck of the woods, knowing that there was some wealth to go around up north.  Offering to paint for a few nights room and board, the artists began to adorn the festivities rooms.  Then, one room after another became canvases.  As the buildings grew, there was more wallspace to adorn.  With international styles beginning to come into vogue, farmers asked their painters to create the look and feel of expensive materials that would never be available to them.  Paint was used to create the illusion of oak and mahogany, Italian marble and French silk.  Always practical, the most intricate art was left for the rooms used only now and then.  More durable wall treatments, like stenciling and splatter painting, were used in entrance halls, sleeping rooms.  Because the fanciest murals were done in rooms that got use maybe a few times per generation and were not exposed to smoke or grease, they were able to remain intact.

Before we met with Gun-Marie at Ol-Anders, we didn't quite know how we'd be able to get a look at some of the famous interiors.  "Perhaps I can call my friend," Kersti Hisved told us when we asked about it.  We stayed with her and her husband, Ivor, in the hamlet of Långhed.  "Or, you can just come upstairs and look at ours!"  Ivor remembers touching the wall paintings as a child.  The paint used to come off on his fingers, he recalled.  Amazingly, with windows all around, it shows no signs of fading.  They've turned the festivities room into a kitchen, removing the wall panels temporarily to add insulation and having a restorer add a protective sealant before beginning any construction work.  "He told me to clean the walls with bread," said Kersti, "that's how they do all the old churches.  Lots of bread."  She dabbed at the wood with an imaginary chunk of baguette.
"In the 50s and 60s, everyone wanted everything new."  All across Hälsingland, some design elements became casualties of modernity.  But the festivities rooms, with their lack of insulation, were often the last things to get touched.  "She did not have the money to renovate this whole, big house," Ivor said of his grandmother.

Although the buildings on Kersti and Ivor's farm date back to 1845, they have only been in the Hisved family for four generations.  Some Hälsingegården have been in the same family for 400 years.  A strict code of inheritance governed the land here, where there was no aristocracy to clamor for real estate.  Father to son and if you had a daughter, it was customary to marry her off to a close neighbor.  Ironically, though, right after all these big houses were built in the mid 1800s, 10 - 30% of the people in this area emigrated to America.  They were following Erik Jansson, a preacher whose love of book burning got him run out of town and whom they promptly shot in Bishop Hill, Illinois after discovering that - prophet or not - he was an egomaniacal control freak.  Anyway, lots of houses were left empty.

While driving along in Edsbyn, we spotted Panesgården, a Halsingegården-turned-garden shop.  A warm welcome was given by Rosemarie and Rolf, who'd bought the building under a year ago.  Rosemarie had a flower shop in town, but fell in love with the historic farm, which wasn't being put to any use.  The ceiling had been newly touched up, the old faded painting could still be seen.  As we gawked at it, Rosemarie came up beside us.  "Want to see the upstairs?" she asked almost mischievously.  The impossibly narrow spiral staircase was unroped for us.  "You do this at your risk," she said before telling us to duck.  "I'm not allowed to let customers up here."

Upstairs, we emerged into a huge, bright room with some of the prettiest painting we'd seen.  She would like to turn the space into a cafe, if she can figure out the dangerous staircase situation.  Of the 1,000 Hälsingland farms, around 50 of them can be visited.  Many have been turned into B&Bs.  I think it was most fun to have just stumbled upon some.
What I love most about these farmers' mansions is the clear idea you get of what was truly valued by the people who built them.  Even as the farms grew almost ludicrously large, entire families would still sleep in a single room.  Why heat more than one?  They remained self-sufficient, continuing to spin, weave, slaughter, build, brew, bake... and all those big buildings gave them space to do it.  On most grand estates, the space is filled with stuff.  Here, they were filled with tools.  On most, fashion trumps function, wallpaper and furnishings are switched out for newer styles.  On these walls, art was made to last. 

Seljord Dyrsku’n Days

In the granite mountains in the heart of Norway, where the fields are rocky and the pine trees grow thick, we wandered for hours among antique tractors and penned sheep.  We ate heavy food, breathed in country air, listened to the music and voices of tradition.
Festivals and country fairs are a traveler's holy grails.  There is always a lot to see, there's always plenty of "culture," there are opportunities for photos and good food, strange happenings and chances to really get at a country's soul.  So we made sure to make it to the Seljord Dyrsku’n, the largest farm festival in Norway and a perfect way to begin the Autumn.

In a beautiful courtyard, with the red, blue and white Norwegian flag flapping overhead, proud farmers showed off their husbandry, their animals, their brocaded skirts and cowboy hats.  The stables on three sides were purpose built for the fair, and were full of animals.  The heifers were buffed and brushed to a high gloss, the horses were groomed until they shone.
The Dyrsku’n began in 1856, as a simple cattle show put on by the local Telemark government.  The event has grown to include show-goats, horses, sheep and even - in the exhibition barn - pigs and llamas.  The animals are shown in some obscure set of categories, with age and breed seeming to play a part.  This young agriculturalist and his charge were enviably calm.

Watching the cows being judged was a bemusing and somewhat silly experience.  It's difficult to get a group of bovines to do exactly what they're told, especially with a crowd and strange sounds booming around them.  There was a lot of milling around and frightened lowing.  The owners tried to keep things as calm as possible, but it wasn't easy.  We're not sure if temperament was factored into the judging or not, but the more phlegmatic animals seemed to score the highest.  A young girl in traditional dress was enlisted to hand out ribbons and diplomas, which she did shyly but with great accuracy - only a few times did she bestow a prize upon an undeserving farmer.

Of course, like fairs anywhere, there are spinning attractions and fried foods at the Dyrsku’n.  Unlike fairs in other places, though, the noise and chaos are kept to a minimum.  There are no barkers and the rides and pop-shot booths don't play music.  And through it all, surrounded by green mountains and under September sun, there is a parade of heifers and fiddles.  For a few moments on the midway, as the cows go past, it feels as much like the 19th century as the 21st.  Everyone stops and claps, a few young animals kick up their heels.  There are top hats and black vests, young men in sneakers.  The audience holds paper plates loaded with waffles and sausages.  The Dyrsku’n is a celebratory festival, not really a carnival.

There are two distinct parts to the fair, and each side is kept somewhat separate from the other.  There is the country fair exhibition, where the pigs are shown and flowers are worn in the hair.  There's also the trade show, where excavators gleam and chainsaws rev.  If the first part of the fair is laden with nostalgia and pancake batter, the second is very of the moment.  Old men in rubber boots get excited over brochures, young men climb into tractor cabs and kick at snowblower screws.

We ate pancakes with sweet applesauce, baked potatoes and lamb sausage.  We basked in the autumnal sun.  We listened to a band play their string instruments and watched a young couple dance. There's something pleasing about spending the day around people who've dressed up.  In the hazy spirit of Thomas Hardy, the fair had us dreaming of yesteryear. Because nobody spoke in English, it was almost believable - as though maybe Seljord really was a forgotten place, where young maids walked with their goats and old women made cauldrons of mushroom soup.

In some ways, the Dyrsku’n trade show is more for the Telemark farmers than the competitions are.  The fair's website proclaims that one can "find almost anything that money can buy – from the very latest in agricultural machinery to old clocks, sports gear and ecological food."  There are almost six hundred exhibitors.  Even local car salesmen have booths.  We saw a man selling herring in a sea captains cap and Finnish saunas lined up alongside pellet stoves.  Cherry pickers loomed over it all like giant cattails.

Tens of thousands of fairgoers descend upon Seljord every year, and a lot of them stay the night.  In nearby fields, scores of RV's were camped with lawn-chairs and barbeques arranged messily between them.  It looked like a happening scene.  Most of the vehicles had Norwegian license plates.  The town - not a big place - was overrun.  Men in bright yellow vests and mittens tried to keep the traffic flowing, but it was difficult.  We imagined what it must be like at night, with music wafting in the darkness and meals cooked under the stars.

When we arrived at the Dyrsku’n, the sky was dark and there was a fine drizzle in the air.  We had blue skies and bright sun after half an hour.  It was cold again by the time we were leaving, with a fine-edged September wind.  As we drove east, back towards Oslo, it felt as though the fall had found us there in the mountains.  When we arrived in the city that night, Seljord felt very far away, as though it was something we were remembering from childhood or a book.