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Day 7: Tromsø
Oct. 30th, 2004 12:47 amThe further north in Norway you travel, the more and more things you encounter which are the northernmost of their kind. The northernmost town, village, stone church, wooden church, cathedral, chapel, medical school, university, mine, reindeer herder… The list seems endless. In some cases, these are the northernmost in the world; sometimes, Europe; sometimes, just Norway. To be fair, mind, the three categories overlap hugely.
Tromsø either is or has quite a few of these. It's the northernmost city, it has the northernmost cathedral, the northernmost university and the northernmost medical school. By southern standards, it's a small town, really, of around 60,000 people, but it's a busy one. It is split between the mainland and a large island, Tromsøy; the soaring vertigo-inducing bridge between the two parts probably deserves some such accolade. What it is not, in all fairness, is pretty. The medical school is a complex of large modern buildings which can most charitably be called "plain", their main point of interest being trilingual signage: Norwegian, English and Sami.
The Sami actually speak a whole range of dialects, some of them quite mutually unintelligible, but the Norwegian national government takes a pragmatic attitude to this: the Sami can nominate a prevalent dialect and that one is the one that will be used, at least in that area. Up here in the north of Norway, called the Nordlands, the Sami are widespread, though a minority today. This area was once called Finnmark, the realm of the Finns – just one early name for these people. A section of this is now a Norwegian county of the same name. (Incidentally, I am unsure of the ethnic relationship between the modern Finns and the Sami, but they're certainly not the same.) They were once known as Lapps, but today the Sami reject this name as being pejorative – as did the Inuit, the one-time "Eskimo" or "Esquimaux" - although the Norse reaction to this judgement seems to be bemusement. They were once nomadic reindeer-herders, with a distinctive language and culture, from clothing to a rich oral folklore. After years of little to no recognition as a separate group, things have changed significantly now: they have their own governing body and are recognised in law. However, modern Norwegian policy is integration and assimilation: whereas schools teach in the Sami language, they are expected to speak Norwegian and are encouraged to settle down in fixed homes. The few I met, in a small tourist concession, all have Norwegian names such as Nils-Oscar, and our tour guide cheerfully remark that you really can't tell the difference any more: they look and sound the same as anybody else.
And so another unique human culture dies out. I think it's a damn shame, myself.
( Read more... )
Tromsø either is or has quite a few of these. It's the northernmost city, it has the northernmost cathedral, the northernmost university and the northernmost medical school. By southern standards, it's a small town, really, of around 60,000 people, but it's a busy one. It is split between the mainland and a large island, Tromsøy; the soaring vertigo-inducing bridge between the two parts probably deserves some such accolade. What it is not, in all fairness, is pretty. The medical school is a complex of large modern buildings which can most charitably be called "plain", their main point of interest being trilingual signage: Norwegian, English and Sami.
The Sami actually speak a whole range of dialects, some of them quite mutually unintelligible, but the Norwegian national government takes a pragmatic attitude to this: the Sami can nominate a prevalent dialect and that one is the one that will be used, at least in that area. Up here in the north of Norway, called the Nordlands, the Sami are widespread, though a minority today. This area was once called Finnmark, the realm of the Finns – just one early name for these people. A section of this is now a Norwegian county of the same name. (Incidentally, I am unsure of the ethnic relationship between the modern Finns and the Sami, but they're certainly not the same.) They were once known as Lapps, but today the Sami reject this name as being pejorative – as did the Inuit, the one-time "Eskimo" or "Esquimaux" - although the Norse reaction to this judgement seems to be bemusement. They were once nomadic reindeer-herders, with a distinctive language and culture, from clothing to a rich oral folklore. After years of little to no recognition as a separate group, things have changed significantly now: they have their own governing body and are recognised in law. However, modern Norwegian policy is integration and assimilation: whereas schools teach in the Sami language, they are expected to speak Norwegian and are encouraged to settle down in fixed homes. The few I met, in a small tourist concession, all have Norwegian names such as Nils-Oscar, and our tour guide cheerfully remark that you really can't tell the difference any more: they look and sound the same as anybody else.
And so another unique human culture dies out. I think it's a damn shame, myself.
( Read more... )
