The Norsemen

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

As I sat in my chair, gazing out at the vista, it was as though centuries rolled away. It wasn’t 1985, it was 985, and the sound of Viking horns were drifting over Hafrsfjord. A flotilla of ships with red-and-white striped sails were heading out to sea on their way to Britain.

Next to me, my brother Doug also seemed lost in thought. He sensed me looking at him and he turned.

“Man,” he said. Then he turned and resumed his reverie.

That pretty much summed it up.

My dad’s side of the family is Norwegian and that cultural influence was woven into our lives. His parents left Norway to pursue a life in America, but they never forgot their homeland and customs.

That, of course, influenced my dad who continued the family pride and traditions. He taught Doug and I to speak some Norwegian. We observed Syttende mai (“Seventeenth of May”), Norway’s Constitution Day.

Christmases included Norwegian foods and scratchy LPs with Christmas carols sung by Norwegian choirs. The entire family gathered at my grandparent’s farm on Christmas Eve. I can still recall my grandfather and Pop smoking their pipes in front of a roaring fire as me and Doug and our sugared-up cousins ran around wildly.

Many years later, Pop decided to organize a family trip to Norway…not an easy task because by now, Doug was married, we were both in our twenties, and we were all working. But Pop persevered and with the help of a very patient travel agent, finally ushered us all onto a 747 bound for Oslo.

My first view of Pop’s cousin Gunnar made me think Viking. He spent a lot of time outdoors in the summer and his windburned red cheeks and thick blonde hair made him a natural for MGM central casting. He grinned, shook our hands and welcomed us.

He lived on the western coast of Norway, in Stavanger; and like most Norwegians, he owned a nearby summer cottage. We paused on the front porch and he gestured with a sweeping motion. “That is Hafrsfjord,” he said in slightly accented English. Then he opened the door with a flourish. Everybody trooped in, but I lingered. I suddenly got it, the whole Norwegian thing.

What he so casually described left me gawping. From left to to right, indigo water sparkled in the afternoon sun. Beyond it, maybe a mile away, lay farms and fields; farther yet, forests; and in the distance, snow-capped mountains. It was breathtaking.

Gunnar appointed himself as our personal tour guide and the next week was a whirlwind of activity. We met the extended family; we explored the harbor area with its shops and restaurants; we drove along the winding coast road, the sea on one side, farms and apple trees in riotous bloom on the other.

One morning, Gunnar showed up, grinning. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a surprise for you.” He had rented a boat; his wife and three daughters were already aboard with thermoses of coffee and a picnic basket.

As the diesel engine slowly lub-dubbed us up the glassy waters of Lysefjorden, Gunnar took his hands off the controls long enough to roll himself a gullsnit, the local brand of tobacco. Cigarette between his fingers, he pointed at the top of the towering mountains on both sides. “You see how high they are?” he asked. He looked me, then pointed ahead. “The water is just as deep.” He inhaled, blew a cloud away from me, then drank some coffee. He whistled contentedly.

It suddenly hit me that Gunnar was one of the coolest guys I’d ever met. He made his own wine and plied us with this and that until everything was uproariously funny. He played the piano. He had two dogs he had trained; he didn’t even need to speak, the slightest nod or hand gesture was enough to get them to do an astonishing number of things.

He looked at me. “Would you like to steer?” he asked. I didn’t need to be asked twice and when Doug came back a little while later to see what we were doing, I tried not to look smug as I sipped my coffee, steered the boat, and conversed with The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Twenty-five years passed, and I was once again sitting alone with my brother. Only this time, it wasn’t by a fjord, it was a beach in North Carolina. As we drank our beers, the conversation turned to our long-ago trip to Norway.

“You know,” I said. “We oughta try to get our bunch to take a trip together.”

Doug sipped his beer and thought. Between us, our wives, six kids and two SILs, we totaled 12. Coordinating all those work schedules, school and budgets would be a Herculean task. But as the family patriarchs, it was up to us. “I’m thinking a cruise,” he finally said.

“Sounds good,” I said. “To Pop.”

“To Pop,” he answered. We clinked our bottles together, then pointed them to the northeast, towards faraway Norway.

Six months later, Christmas week, we stood in line at the gangplank, waiting to board the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship Pearl. Not quite Norway, but close enough. I could see the captain shaking passengers hands as they came aboard.

As he welcomed us aboard, I greeted him in Norwegian, remarking on the elegance of his 93M ton ship and wishing him a merry Christmas. I had started to move past him, but I felt his grip tighten. I stopped.

“Er du Norsk?” he asked.

“Ja, min far.”

The line stopped as he briefly spoke to me. He asked if I would be interested in a tour of the ship’s bridge the following morning. Ja, sure, you betcha as they say in Minnesota.

I knocked on the door at 0900 and Captain Amund himself answered. He smiled and shook each of our hands.

“Good morning,” he said. “Would you please follow me?”

He first showed us his apartment located just aft of the bridge; it was a spacious affair that spanned the entire beam of the ship. He introduced us to his wife and children. His wife trailed behind as he escorted us onto the bridge.

I had no idea what to expect, but whatever it was, it was vastly exceeded. A small army of uniformed ship’s officers weaved their way between blinking equipment, flipping switches, typing on keyboards, and speaking into microphones in Norwegian.

“So,” he said. “This is it. And I have the most important job on the ship.” He winked and walked over to the coffee pot. We each filled a paper cup and then followed him as he took us on a tour, explaining the function of each piece of equipment. I thought about Gunnar, his gullsnit and coffee all those years ago.

As we toured, he asked about our family, where in Norway we lived, our ancestry. He was an engaging host, mixing technological information with stories of his own life. We posed for a group picture.

A senior crewman called to him in Norwegian and he checked his wristwatch. Suddenly, he became all business. “You’ll have to excuse me now,” he said, beckoning to his wife; Please show these folks out. “I need to take us out of port.” He walked away, calling out orders and checking things.

Late that afternoon, Doug and I sat on the stern of the promenade deck, watching the sun set to our left and the wake that extended a mile behind us.

“Well,” I said. “It wasn’t easy—”

“—but we did it.” he finished. We clinked our beer bottles and sat in silence as the engines rumbled beneath us, eight decks down.

I thought about our trip to Norway 25 years ago…and the voyages of our ancestors 1,000 years before that.

About how their blood, their spirit, still ran through people like Gunnar and Captain Amund, be it in a tiny diesel boat or a behemoth that rivaled an aircraft carrier.

About Pop, whose cardinal rule was that the family, above all else, came first.

If Gunnar and Pop were watching, I hope they were proud.

The flame still burns 😎