SNIPPETS FROM A STUDENT JOURNAL

By Annika Svorkdal
Student 2017/2018

MONDAY. With all my belongings in tow, I navigated my way through Trondheim. And, as I was crossing the street a girl with dirt under her fingernails and the distinct look of someone who had been working hard, smiled broadly at me.

When on the bus some hours later, we stopped to pick up more passengers and the same girl, hopped on and sat beside me. "Fosen?" she asked. And when I said yes, she looked so excited she could burst.

Julia was the first person I met from Fosen, she is a second year from Denmark who knows a Fosen student when she sees one. Her warm welcome was consistent with each and every person I met today.

After just an hour of being here, I already felt settled. The hallways are filled with the sounds of fiddle, guitar, and accordion.

The knot in my stomach is already starting to untangle. This evening we kicked off the year with folk dancing and catching up on the last 20 years of our lives.

TUESDAY. We came down for breakfast and piled into the dining room. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I navigated the buffet of unfamiliar foods and sat down with a boisterous crowd of Danes who had already been for a morning swim in the lake.

I followed the flow of the group up to the assembly room and then around the school grounds for orientation. We toured the sauna, the apple trees, the workshops and then through the town and down to Nøst.

Nøst is our small farm, near the shores of Botn. It has  fields of barley, hay, and rye, potatoes as far as the eye can see, families of pigs and ducks, rows of vegetables, and a small house with a wood stove.

My farming class will be spending most of our time at Nøst, bringing the land through its seasonal rotations from sowing to harvest. We will also go beyond our own fences and visit local farms with traditional techniques.

After we were acquainted with the farm, a group of us decided to take a closer look at the lake. We stripped down and jumped in to wash away the layer of sweat and stress from traveling. It was exactly what I needed. I think we will make it a daily routine.

This evening we are sitting around a fire. Some people are knitting and others carving. Beside me, Amalie is receiving a funky new haircut. There is a buzz from our chatting and a crackle from the fire.

THURSDAY. Woke up, already satisfyingly sore from the farm work, and fuelled up for another big day. We learned to scythe and dry the hay using a traditional technique, where poles are driven into the ground with wire strung between them (essentially like a low and layered clothes line). Then the hay is folded over the line so that the rain will only fall on the top layer, but the wind can blow throughout and dry the hay thoroughly.

We learned that the direction of the lines is extremely important. The hay should not face south, because it would be exposed to too much sun and thus loose its essential nutrients and it should be parallel to the local wind direction to optimize drying conditions.

After a day on the farm, we came back to a hearty meal and a fashion show consisting of clothes left behind by last year’s students. Reduce, reuse, recycle! I can tell there are some good stories behind these sweaters that smell like campfires and tar.

I snagged a raincoat after realizing my Gortex shell is no match for Trøndersk weather. It has been a cold summer here in Rissa, the crops have suffered due to a wet July. The air does not feel like the August air I am used to. It rains several times every day, so I have quickly learned to always be prepared! And, I have a new blossoming romance with wool sweaters.

FRIDAY. We packed our gear and set out by bike, foot, and wooden row boat to Lefætten, the cabin in the hills. We hiked up through the woods and I took of my shoes to let the mud squish between my toes. It was quite the climb with a loaded pack, but we paused at the stream to fill our water bottles and look out over Trondheim’s fjord.

As the woods became denser we reached the cabin. It sat comfortably in a little clearing. There was already a hive of activity. We got working chopping, sawing, and stacking wood. I started today feeling like a bit of a newbie with an axe, but I am already feeling more familiar with the swish and swing motions.

We set up a lean-to and light a fire. Jeppe roasted wild mushrooms he had collected on the hike. This evening we are sitting under the shelter, the rain is drumming on the tarp, Kenneth is strumming his guitar and Will reads poems.

SATURDAY. We awoke to the sound of Kenneth singing and the smell of campfire coffee. We did a little dance to warm our toes and then got back to work! The wood stores for the winter are starting to fill up and we scythed the land to keep the forest from encroaching on the grazing space.

We ate lunch around the fire and then dawned our hiking boots and trudged back down the hill. But, instead of traveling home on foot, I hopped in the wooden boat and we rowed across the lake.

After we warmed up and dried off, we all huddled in the living room with craft projects, card games, and books while the accordion played down the hall. Then we ate (another!) meal and had barely enough time to digest before more dancing.

We danced Scottish tunes, a polka, and a Trøndersk tune until we couldn't feel our feet, and then we danced some more! I had no idea what I was doing, or which steps came next, but helpful hands spun me around and guided me when I was dizzy.

MONDAY. I began the week by watching the sun rise over dew-covered fields.

I am starting to get used to eating breakfast with sixty other people. It is hard to find time to be alone. I get energy from being around people, but this ‘school’ is a highly social place and one must be intentional with taking a break when necessary. It is all about finding balance.

Today, the whole school armed with buckets, climbed into the hills to collect berries. Some people took this chance to seek some space from the crowds. And the rest of us chatted as we separated blueberries from blackcurrants.

By the end of the day, we had collected enough blueberries, black currants and red currants to last us a year. We were covered head-to-toe with bright berry juice. Then, right on cue the local weather let loose a little rainstorm that washed away the sticky evidence of a successful berry harvest.

TUESDAY. The school is a frenzy of pack-sacs and mat-paks. Each class was getting ready for a week away. The boat builders are heading into the forest to fell trees for their projects, the sailors are going to catch the wind out past Trondheim’s Fjord, and the self-sufficiency group are hiking north to fish and stay in a Sami gamma.

My class is heading down to the farm, Nøst. A week feels like a long time to be away from our friends in other groups, but it will be a good opportunity to settle into a rhythm with my own classmates.

WEDNESDAY. I woke up with the sun and started the day with barn duty. Barn duty involves:
feeding, mucking out, watering and checking over every animal on the farm. It is a bit of a slog, but it gives us an incredible feeling of responsibility and pride in the farm.

Over the week, the animals became comfortable with our visits (three times every day), and we started to feel much more at home on the farm. It also brought our class closer - nothing fosters a friendship like scooping poop together.

We finished the day by thinning the carrot patch, and using the extras in a veggie curry - which we ate in the evening sun beside the horses, who were also enjoying their dinner.

THURSDAY. Up early for barn duty with Amalie! Then we ate oat porridge for breakfast, a Fosen classic. We loaded our packs with equipment and then cycled around the lake and up into the hills.

As we hiked the path to the cabin, we listened to the clang of cow bells and the babbling of the stream. The day was spent creating fence poles from young birch trees and fencing in the grazing paddock around the cabin.

Mikala picked herbs for tea and we ate wild blueberries as our sandwiches toasted over the fire.