The name’s Olsen, O-L-S-E-N. So yes, you might have guessed that my forebears come from Scandinavian lands. Indeed
they do. Yet while I have seen every continent except Australia, and lived in a couple of other countries, I have never
been to Scandinavia. Needless to say, this is a HUGE goal, up there high on the life list. And while I will be making a
trip to the “homeland” at some point over the next few years, for now I suppose I have to content myself with articles
like this one in the New York Times about the glories of Norway.
As you probably know, Norway is UP THERE. It is at the same latitudes as Alaska, Greenland and Siberia. So it can get
cold (hence my inclination to walk outside in the dead of New York winter without a coat). But the Norwegians still get
out a lot and explore their country. As the article says, they are avid walkers, and spend many hours and many calories
hiking through the country. And it’s fairly BIG country at that. The national park mentioned in the piece,
Hardangervidda, makes up one-third of the
Hardanger plateau, a 3,860- square-mile wilderness that is four-fifths the size of Connecticut. And the place is
teeming with wild reindeer. One of the beauties of these place where people have been hiking for years is there
are vast networks of mountain cabins where you can crash after a long day. Norway is no exception.
So even before reading this piece I was ready to go to Norway. But as a big outdoors buff, thanks to the article, I
now have a couple of places in mind I’d want to go. A place where I can just walk and keep on walking.