Autumn has come to Northern-Norway
The Forrests and mountains is full of berries and mushroom. The trees are also preparing for winter. They are now pulling their precious green sunpower molecule – Chlorophyll – from the leafs and sending it down to the roots for winter storage. That leaves another set of “cheap” pigments in the leaves, that the trees don’t need to store but can gracefully shed – covering the forrest floor – namely the carotenoids – wich – like in carrot is orange. There are yellow carotenoids as well. These pigments are there during the growth season, but the chlorophyll is in such an abundanse, that you cannot see the yellow, orange and red pigments – the carotenoids.
This birch in it’s autumn shroud shone through my lens and onto the chip in my camera on Thursday up on the Herjangen Mountain. Beautiful – isn’t it?
Ordinary Norwegian Birch (Betula pubescens) in it's autumns colours
Busy day in the harbour
"Maria Laura Prem" is being tuged to Pier 5 by the 3 tugboats from the left "Rallaren", "Anna Rebecka" and
Narvik Harbor right now
Bahamas registered, Polish Bulk Carrier Mazowsze, weighing in at "only" 37695 DWT is loading Iron Ore and will carry it to Bremen, Germany.
New Hotel in Narvik – Beautiful Design
I am not a big fan of glass and concrete buildings. Usually they amount to an arcitectual statement that is one of megalomania and usually the facades are cold and dull. But I must admit that the new Rica Hotel being built in Narvik (expected finished February 2012) is one of beautiful deisgn. It has a shape that associates with beauty in mathematics or even an organic form. This picture was taken today, and it is starting to look like “something now”!
The new Rica Hotel being built in Narvik
Beautiful mountains and a tree species from 10 000 years ago!
From left to right: Teppekiltinden (665 m), Buskardet, Rundtinden (798 m), Valletindan and Breiskardtinden (883 m) with Efjord in the foreground. To the right is a Norwegian-Russian Scotts Pine (Pinus sylvestris) - a species of trees that has been here since the last ice age about 10.000 years ago.
What is this!? (Delicious!)
Delicious traditional North-Norwegian summer-meal fresh pollock (saithe) - It tastes heavenly! Extremely rich in proteins, healthy brown fat and minerals! This particular meal was just a few hours from the fjord to the dinner table! Fresh as it gets ;o)
...and delicately prepared pollock liver - and NO! It's got nothing to do with horrid cod liver oil...!
Another issue of INARVIK out on the street tomorrow
Yet another brilliant issue of the magazine INARVIK hits the streets tomorrow. As usual it is a brilliant magazine the small – but highly talented staff has put together – made with love and passion for “happy journalism”! That is their trademark. You actually feel happy after having browsed through this magazine!
Enjoy by clicking on the front cover! The text is in Norwegian – but there are plenty of photos there to please your eyes!
Front cover of I NARVIK 03 2011 (Please, Click the front cover to read the magazine)
5 dies in horrific mass-accident
Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa - Minister of Transportation (photo: Jarle Vines Jarvin)
A young boy and his father and three health-workers from the local hospital here in Narvik died in a road accident Friday between Tromsø and Narvik involving two buses and car. 6 more are in intensive care at the University Hospital in Tromsø. People die all the time along the roads in Norway. Politicians are more interested in building “systems” to secure their power-base. The minister of Transportation and Communication, Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa, is such an incompetent politician.
This part of the accident-proned road between Narvik and Tromsø should have been secured with spacers between the lanes – but quite incompetently nothing is being done other than hiring more government officials and spending taxpayers money on more laws and regulations.
The Accident Investigators are inspecting the scene and the cars involved. Friday’s Accident seems to have been worse than necessary because several of the passengers failing to use seat belt in the mini-bus involved. Seat belts actually improves your risk of survival by 200% It also decreases your risk of serious injuries just as much. I for one – would not have been here to write these lines to you – if it weren’t for seat belts! Use Seat Belts – Someone Loves You!
Stupid, ignorant, nepotistic politicians and seat belts aside – with this we let our warmest sympathies and heartfelt condolences go out to those who have lost their dear, to those who are struggling for life in the hospital while at the same time coping with the loss of their dear son and father/husband and to the hospital staff who found three of their employees dead in this horrific accident just minutes after meeting them at the hospital.
-The Heroes come from the North! Another Airplane Hijack stopped lats night by North-Norwegian!
TV2 News about the Kato Air hijacking and Heroes from Northern Norway
Last night a passenger (Turkish Airways) plane from Oslo, Norway to Istanbul, Turkey was hijacked by an expelled asylumseeker. A man from Northern Norway – 54 year old Dag Gjerstad from Kvænangen in Troms attacked the hijacker and held him down until the plane landed in Istanbul and the Turkish Police could evacuate the plane and arrest the hijacker.
Muslim terrorist almost killed the Captain and 1st Officer of Kato Air Flight
In 2004 a plane from this city, Narvik enroute to Bodø was hijacked by a muslim terrorist who almost killed the pilots with an axe. The Captain and 1st Officer both sustained serious head injuries and was blinded by blood and partially paralyzed by the violent muslim terrorist. The plane went into a death-dive, and calculations show that the pilot regained control and avoided crashing by some 20 meters… Trond Frantzen and Odd Eriksen – both North-Norwegians attacked the hijacker and battled with him until they managed to free the restrained pilots from their attacker. They almost strangled the hijacker to death until he gave up fighting.
Odd Eriksen broke his back in the following crash landing at the airport in Bodø. The Police couldn’t understand how the pilots managed to land the plane. They both sustained serious head injuries and wounds to their bodies and were partly blinded by blood. The cockpit instruments were soaked in blood. All four heroes, the Captain, 1st Officer, Trond Frantzen and Odd Eriksen and all the passengers survived.
Simple Explanation
Professor in Crisis Psychiatry Lars Weisæth believes the reason why men and women from Northern-Norway are so capable of acting in serious crisis, is because the live in a part of Norway where it is necessary to be able to take Care of yourself. In Northern Norway there is a – at times – violent climate and nature, there is often a long way to the nearest police- and firebrigade-station and the nearest doctor or hospital. Thus forcing us to be able to cope in serious crisis-situations.
-Witness Passivity – a problem
Professor Weisæth says witness passivity is a problem in dramatic events. If the 2004-hijacking had taken place between Oslo and Stockholm chances are the passengers would have been seated, doing nothing, waiting for someone to take action, according to a SAS – Scandinavian Airlines Captain. So being from a city lessens the chance of being a hero.
Some of the best know hero-headlines from Norway the past few years
- Rescued three children from the lit caravan
- Rescued elderly from fire inferno
- 12-year old girl saved three girls from drowning
- 15-year old rescued fisherman from sinking boat
- Tried saving drowned
- Rescued elderly woman from burning house
- Dived deep into capsized “Rocknes” to save seamen
- Busdriver stabbed
Read more in this article from NRK (Norwegian)
Further reading: The Norway Post – Norwegian stops highjacker
As light as it gets
We are so far north here, so this is as light as it gets this time of year. Apart from these few hours of dusky daylight, it’s pitch black the rest of the day. But the sun has eventually turned, and in a few months time the forrest will explode in a bonanza in green an birdsong and the sun will shine 24 hours a day. Welcome to the land of Contrasts – Welcome to Northern-Norway.
This is the most we get from daylight this far north - just a few hours - then pitch black darkness (apart from the stars, moon and occasional Northern Lights)
Dear Reader – This is a Christmas Present for you!
For many of us this will be a special Christmas. We have lost someone very dear to us and there is an empty space in the otherwise festive occasions.
This beautiful song was presented to me by my friend Amethyste (who is Amethyste? Read a previous article on Northern Blogosphere to find out!) for free to share with all of my readers. Thank so you very much Amethyste.
The song “Leaving in a Touch of Silence” is a song to commemorate those dear friends and family that are no longer with us. Don’t miss out on this breathtakingly beautiful song from Amethyste!
Merry Christmas from The Northern Blogosphere and Amethyste Lyne Langdeau-Spardel!
Christmas Present for the Readers of Northern Blogosphere (please click the image to open).
LKAB celebrates 120 years with gigantic firework
The iron ore company LKAB which founded the city of Narvik (1903) celebrates 120 years and displayed a gigantic firework from the center of the city yesterday:
The iron ore company LKAB celebrates 120 years of business
劉曉波 – Liu Xiaobo – A very dangerous criminal
Liu Xiaobo - Nobel Peace Price Laureate 2010
Well, that’s what the Chinese governtment thinks. They locked this gentle man for 11 years. His crime? He only wants democracy for his people and the great nation of China to prosper. But his vision of prosperity is obviously not what the Communist Party in China envisions as prosperity.
The Nobel Peace Price committee announced on the 8th of October 2010 that this years laureate was Liu Xiaobo. The Chinese government locked his wife up in house arrest, and has since detained all Xiaobo’s relatives. That means his chair at the ceremony today is going to be empty. The last time this happened was when Nazi Germany send Carl von Ossietzky into concentration camp in 1935.
So why is Liu Xiaobo such a “dangerous criminal”. He is a poet by trade, but he has uttered his ideas about a federal state system, with Tibet and Taiwan as free associated states in this union. That is nothing less than blasphemous words in the ears of the Chinese Communist Party.
Read more about Liu Xiaobo by clicking here.
維基百科的文章關於 2010年諾貝爾和平獎得主中劉曉波中文。 An article in chinese can be found here.
Nobel Medal
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