THE MANITOU MESSENGER. 265

The following members of the class of 1911 have been recent St. Olaf visitors: Amanda Fjelstad, Edwin Roe, Alexander Tjornhom, Olin Reigstad. Dr. Leonard Larson, 'ox, who has been practicing medicine at Montevideo, Minn., has made definite arrangements for return­ ing to Northfield to open a practice. Herman Graff, '05, principal oof the public schools at Fallon, Montana, was recently called to Northfield by the news of his mother's death. Peter Skartvedt, '06, has returned to St. Olaf to enter upon post-graduate work. Among Thanksgiving visitors were the following alumni: Grace Morris, To, Christine Anderson, To, Henry Lysne, '06, Thorstein Rovelstad, '09. John Kildahl, To, has begun the study of theology at the United Church Seminary. Sigurd Bergh, '08, visited St. Olaf friends recently. Rev. H. M. Thompson, '03, spent a few days with St. Olaf and Northfield friends. Mr. S. T. Reinertson, Ti, writes that he is enjoying his work in the high school of Anaconda, Mont. Victor Skyberg, Tx, finds his surroundings congenial at Gal- laudet College, Washington, D. C. The following experiences of a St. Olaf crowd in Norway will undoubtedly interest many alumni readers: "Dear Editress:— It would be interesting to write something about the comings and goings of all the St. Olafites (not "Oles") who were in Nor­ way this last summer. As you know, for you were one of them, 266 THE MANITOU MESSENGER. there were a goodly number, undoubtedly more than in any pre­ vious year since the ever-memorable summer of 1906 when the band was there. But to save space I shall confine myself to the doings of seven who were together in Romsdalen nearly two weeks last August. If I were a Homer I might begin by saying: I write of St. Olafites and Romsdal, of bunke and grod made of rdmme; Of szeterj enter and sseters, of mountain climbing and orret, and then go on and invite the muse to help out this undertaking with the gift of a little inspiration. But though there comes over me, as there seems to have come over him, a sense of inability to do justice to a great subject (four of the seven were 'ogers), especially in prose, yet I hesitate to call upon the muse because her capacity must be severely taxed now when there are so many of us, and then there is always the possibility of not getting it even if I ask; so on the whole it will be best to plod along as well as may be without the help of this potent but ethereal and elusive influence. To begin with, then, I am not going to tire you and others with an introduction about how Jorgen Thompson and Harry Tosdal came respectfully from St. Olaf and Esterville and picked me up at Oxford and Ingvoldstad at Kristiania—our idea being to assist one another in seeing something of Norway—and how we went from Kristiania up through the beautiful Mjdsen coun­ try, over the rugged Dover mountains to Throndhjem, and from there up into the weird and wonderful country of Nordland where we saw the 11 o'clock sun (approximately); from Throndhjem again up into the charming Indherred, and then down along the coast to Molde and Romsdalen, where we made our most extend­ ed stay; nor about our travels from there down the rough and rocky coast to moist and merry Bergen, in through "underdeilige Hardanger," and over Bergensbanen between glistening glaciers and wild vastnesses, fertile fields and fragrant forests back to Kristiania no, I am not going to mention any of that, inter­ esting as it might be, but shall plunge right in medias res, i. e. Romsdalsfjord. As before mentioned {vide supra) we were seven. Three had THE MANITOU MESSENGER. 267

their homes near Void: Rev. Eric Sovik, '02, just come home from China with his wife and two little children who under­ stood Chinese better than anything else; Edw. Sovik, Ti, at home for the summer; and Hovde, '09, theological student at the uni­ versity but also home during vacation. Ed. Sovik had know­ ledge of the fact that some of us intended to travel in Norway during the summer and so he wrote to Thompson inviting him to come with his party and visit at his home. We came with the expectation of staying only two or three days, but when we heard the strenuous objections of our hosts to making our stay so short, and when we saw the beautiful valley in which they lived, and the lofty, snow flecked mountains round about, all previous in­ tentions and all future plans vanished, and in Peter's frame of mind we only asked how long we might remain. Plans were made for mountain trips, sseterturer, and fishing expeditions, and already within the first 24 hours we started out on a fjeldtur, Hr. Sovik courageously deciding to be one of the party. On this trip we visited four saeters, at two of which we slept. This latter experience was not an unmixed pleasure, for if Norwegian beds of the old style are short and narrow, those at saeters are especially so. The first night Ingvoldstad and I, being the tallest two in the party, happened of course to get the shortest and narrowest bed. Perhaps it may on the surface seem that the narrowness should not have mattered so much as far as our tallness was concerned, but just as surely as a crooked line drawn between two points is longer than a straight one, just so surely it also occupies more space sidewise. Whenever we straightened out to ease the strain at the knees we reached a foot and a half—or rather, we each reached two feet a foot and a half beyond the footboard, which was neither padded nor upholstered, on the whole the arrangement was not conducive to sound sleep But if there was less of sleep there was more of food. Much or little may be said on this subject, depending upon one's gastro­ nomic enthusiasms, but I cannot forbear making mention of one dish, viz. "bunke." Of the various kinds of food to be gotten at a sseter this is undoubtedly the delicatesse, that is when one comes unexpectedly so there has been no time to prepare rommegrod. A bunke is a wooden vessel, but the name is also applied to its contents when milk has been allowed to stand in it until both 268 THE MANITOU MESSENGER.

cream and milk have become thick. A full-grown one is about six inches high and about eighteen to twenty-four inches in diam­ eter. Sugar is strewn over the top of the cream and one eats with a spoon, preferably a large one. The idea, of course, is to get as much cream and as little milk in each spoonful as possible. I fully realize what an inadequate description this is, but it must suffice for those who have not been initiated and have not the opportunity of speaking with one who has. I should advise those who. can to see Ingvaldstad about it for he ought to be the best authority of our party. For the first hour or two after starting we were not inclined to make much speed, for the very good reason that the way led through a veritable garden of blueberries, and indeed on the whole trip the unusual abundance of this luscious fruit caused us to linger now and again. Blueberries may not leave such a poetical color on the lips as strawberries, but from the standpoint of the inner man are eminently satisfactory. There was also abundance of opportunity to indulge our less material propensities. After a climb of about two hours our guide, Rev. Sdvik, suddenly brought us to the edge of the mountain which formed the eastern wall of the valley out of which we had just come. The sight that burst upon us was like a picture. There lay the Sovik and Hovde gaards just below us, having the appearance of an exact reproduction in miniature of a larger work, excepting that the little hills and valleys had dis­ appeared. Off on the left was Void, where the churchspire could easily be seen, and beyond the village were mountains dotted with snow, looking refreshingly cool in this, for Norway, unusually warm weather. Across the fjord on the right was Ondalsnes, where a number of large vessels could be seen—German battle­ ships and foreign steamers bringing tourists to see the famous Romsdal. Between us and Ondalsnes, just below the mountain on which we were standing, the Romsdal-fjord sent out a nar- now arm called Indfjord, and if one were to take the road that follows this around the base of the mountain he would soon come to a gaard called Stokke. This is the home of Missionary Stokke. Across the fjord again, more nearly in front of us the home "bygd" of Missionary Torvik could be seen. Finally, di­ rectly in front of us the fjord gleamed here and there between THE MANITOU MESSENGER. 269

mountains and islands, one of which—Saskken—hid Molde, twenty-one miles away,from our sight, while beyond Molde the sea, ordinarily visible on a clear day, was just hidden from view by a fine haze. After observing as much as possible of the beauty of this scene we continued our tramp and an hour's walk brought us to the Sovik sseter. It was small but typical, and very picturesquely sit­ uated. After Ingvolstad had rather unsuccessfully tried to make friends with the bell cows we were invited into a tiny stue where a table was fairly groaning under the weight of a huge bunke and many other good things. Long before we finished its groan­ ing had ceased. But there was a considerable distance to go be­ fore night and the Jewish day was already over, so we were obliged to cut short our visit there. In the evening of the long summer day we crossed the height into another valley and there a new world opened up before us. In front of us there loomed up three mountain peaks. The central one of these and the high­ est was Middagstind, and this we intended to ascend the following day. It seemed only a short distance away but we knew from experience that mountains have a way of deceiving, and in fact it took us the next day more than three hours to reach the place from which we started the ascent. Far below us we could see a little group of gray log huts which the Romsdal natives declared to be Indsaetern, our destination for the day. When we finally arrived there the Soviks found that one of the sseter girls was a niece of Missionary Stokke and a good friend of theirs, so we were all made welcome. This was the first night at saeter for most of us and it was here that Ingvoldstad and I had the experience described above. We were therefore not feeling especially fresh when we set out next morning, but this feeling was soon forgotten. The four girls at the saeter joined our party armed with a coffee pot, for they also wished to see the top of Middagstind. How refreshing, not to say uplifting, it was as we proceeded up that momtain valley, to feel that we were away from tourist routes, away from towns, roads and even farmhouses, surrounded only by the big, towering mountains and hearing only the sound of falls and cataracts— the offering of snows that never disappear, and the unlimited quantity of pure air that wr.- almost fragrant in its freshness, 270 THE MANITOU MESSENGER.

together with the sunshine which itself seemed purer there—it was all so good for the souls within us, for they tried to expand and include the whole glory of it if possible. It was not a difficult feat of mountain climbing which we had set out to accomplish, for it was chiefly a matter of strenuous ex­ ertion with the brunt of the trouble falling on the shoes and the knee joints, but the peak was interesting in itself, for the top half looked like a huge pile of rough boulders rising steeply to a sharp point. This was on one side; the other side seemed to have been bodily torn out as if by some giant hand which had after­ wards crushed the mass of granite and thrown the pieces up over the precipice thus formed. Practically the only difficulty lay in the danger of those foremost stepping upon loose boulders and dislodging them and themselves upon those below, but fortun­ ately this did not happen. The space on top would not accomodate many more than a dozen persons but it was large enough for our party. A magnificent panorama was here spread out before us: sharp, rugged peaks on nearly every side, rising one behind the other in a succession reaching far beyond the limits of vision—- such a bewildering array of them that one could in a short time get only a more or less confused impression of the whole. The descent was accomplished without serious mishaps, though not in the same time by all, which does not necessarily mean that those of the weaker sex were last. One of the girls especially seemed fairly to fly down the steep incline, leaping from rock to rock like some wild thing. Tosdal's shoes were almost gone; Ingvoldstad had raised a luxuriant crop of blisters on his feet; and we were all rather weak at the knees, but otherwise quite whole. Rev. and Edw. Sdvik, being already veterans, stood it the best. The most pressing need, after we had somewhat fortified ourselves gastronomically, was to reach the next sseter before the "shades of night closed down upon us." We could see it— Bosaetern—looking like a tiny village off in the valley at least a thousand feet below us. But though the distance was not small we were able in this clear mountain air to make ourselves heard by a united effort, in which the characteristic shrill call of the saetergirls was most effective. Soon we could see the girls come THE MANITOU MESSENGER. 271 out of their little huts and their reply came faintly to our ears. We then said good-bye to the girls who had been with us and started down into the valley. The sseter, which was reached in due time, but not without a good deal of sliding and scrambling and struggling through underbrush, was an unusually large one, having thirteen saeter girls. Hovde found that one of them was his second cousin or something more remote, and Ed. Sovik, although he did not exactly find any relatives, still he discovered that most of them were relatives of somebody, and so we were the more hospitably received. The girls got together and played some of their national games and most of our party also took part ofter a while with more or less success. It was a late hour when we retired and when we rose next morning the sun was already high and most of the saeter girls long since departed with the lowing kine for grassy pastures. After breakfast we started homeward down the valley, accompan­ ied by two of the girls as far as their home in the main valley, to which this one led. We thanked them and bade them farewell. We now followed the road around the base of the mountain across which we had come. It was a long tramp and the day was warm, so we were glad to reach home in the evening, having then been away something over two days. This was the most important of our trips but not the last. Al­ ready the next day we started out with packs on our backs for a two-day fishing trip—only the men this time, however. We were going to fish for trout in Maanvandet, a beautiful lake high up among the mountains. Most of the drret very foolishly re­ fused all that we offered them of bait, flies, etc., but with the expectation that a pure fish diet might grow monotonous we had taken with us enough food to avoid starvation, and then there was a saster conveniently near at hand. I should have liked to go more into detail about this trip and about a visit to another saeter where, having been invited we were feasted on rommegrod, et cetera ; and also about a bicycle trip up through Romsdal itself, past the lofty and inspiring Roms- dalshorn, the weird and fantastic crags of Troldtinderrne, up along the river whose waters reminded of the description of the River of Life, and which drew its supply from the never-failing THE MANITOU MESSENGER. snows above. I should have liked to relate these events in de­ tail, but words would fail me in trying to tell of the beauty and grandeur of Romsdal, and this letter is too long for the rest. If I have already taken too much space or if I have bored anyone I am sorry. In conclusion I will say that though there may be many other St. Olaf alumni visiting Romsdalen in the future, there will prob­ ably not be seven together under such circumstances, and certain­ ly they will not have a more enjoyable time than the seven who were together there during nearly two weeks last summer. With greetings to all fellow-alumni, I remain Faithfully and fraternally yours,

Pembroke College, Oxford, JOE TETLIE, 'OG. Nov. 3, 1911.