Field Trips to the End of the World, etc.
I recently attended a lecture about economics in the Anthropocene which brought up the “pathology of people making free and individual decisions”. One person making a free and individual decision to go on an adventure might look like this:
Source: Pinterest
However, “a free and infinite individual in a world of other free and infinite individuals” looks like this:
Source: ZME Science
Which pretty much sums up my contempt towards tourism.
On the other hand, while WWOOFing, we had the opportunity to engage in activities that would not have otherwise been accessible to us on free time!
So, this is a little photo diary of what some WWOOFers did on their days off.
Field Trip #1: The Skumbags of Skumsjøen
The reason we could to on this field trip is because Norway has a great public service / volunteering culture. Our hosts had told us they can rely on the government for the fundamentals (like healthcare and education), while a lot of the other “common good” infrastructure are established/maintained by volunteers. Almost every Norwegian has some volunteering commitment outside of their work. That said, the government has little involvement in infrastructure projects like maintaining hiking trails.
Reliable volunteers implicates we can trust that the hiking trails that aren’t, you know, made from the half-assery that comes from volunteers who feel entitled to be flaky just because they aren’t getting paid for their work . A reliable volunteering base implicates that people, like our host, can make a living off coordinating these volunteer trail-makers … apparently she’s the only person who gets paid over a fairly large region … which means that even “middle-management” is volunteer-based?!
One day for work, our host had to drive to a cafe located by a trail southwest of Gjøvik. Since she’s going to be there for a couple hours anyway, she suggested that we take a day off, catch a ride with her, and hike while she did what she had to do there!
Where we ended up: Skumsjøen
We were told that we had 2 hours to hike here … and that it’s probably not enough time to hike around the whole lake. Yet, as if we took it as a challenge, somewhere around point 2, we decided we would hike around the whole thing.
Between point #3 and point #4, we realized how royally screwed we were for time. The trail had taken us further from the lake than we expected … and it was going further still. Also none of our phones were operational enough to call our host. Actually, we didn’t even know her number.
We ended on this hill that overlooked the lake at #4 … which would had been nice had we not felt so horrible about being so late. At this point, I think we turned on data to send a “WE’RE STILL ALIVE. JUST REALLY, REALLY LATE.” email.
We ended up being, if I recall, 2 hours late. I think I ran the last leg of the trail (read: the last 10 meters) … half hopelessly apologetic and half hoping that the car would be there at all. Indeed our host was there waiting for us in her car. She was so chill, as if she’d only been waiting 5 minutes. She wasn’t even slightly concerned or angry. I don’t even know if she saw our email.
I remember the ride back being kind of quiet. We were tired and hungry. Or was there passive-aggression in the air? I mean, probably not? Still, I couldn’t help but feel like we were the skumbags of Skumsjøen.
Field Trip #2: Mild-Mannered Mjøsa
When I decided to go to Norway, I definitely did not know to take The Big July Shutdown into considerations. The entire country is pretty much off work for the entire month because the weather is finally good, and it’s practically day … all day!
In July, Eastern Norwegians go to their “summer homes” in the west and Western Norwegians go to their “summer homes” in the east. Basically, everyone’s gone. Since our hosts were going on all sorts of vacations themselves they left us to our own devices … with a GARAGE FULL OF HARD-CORE GOODIES.
We decided we had to take advantage of this opportunity and take their two canoes out to Mjøsa. Problem: these were foldable canoes that needed to be assembled … kind of like a tent.
We were hoping to figure it out at the farm, disassemble it, bring it to the lake, and then reassemble it again. But the “figuring out” part took us hours. It’s not even too theoretically difficult … it was more like, “how much can we stretch this material?”–we knew it had to be taut for us to survive on water but is it possible to make it so taut that we’ve damage our hosts’ property??
At last, we finished assembling the first canoe … and it looked alright. It wasn’t until we poured out the pieces of the second canoe that we found the ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS illustrated with IKEA-level clarity. *facepalm*. Also we never thought to search up videos like this …. *facepalm* *facepalm*. Luckily they way we built it was right–take that, instructions!
Needless to say, by the end of that process, we could not bear to disassemble the canoes only to reassemble 2km away by the lake … so the four of us walked them down the lake.
Left: how the canoes were supposed to be carried. Right: how we actually carried them.
We are at the lake, finally. Since our hosts had to take their adult life jackets on their own kayaking trip, we were left to see if the kiddie ones would fit us. They did not. We ask the campgrounds we would start canoeing if they had some to borrow/rent. They did not. There’s something that screams “stupid” when you’re about to canoe across one of the deepest lakes in Europe in canoes that you assembled yourself without instructions without life jackets. But, when you’ve figured out how to assemble a canoe by yourself without instructions and carried it some 2km to the lake, you want to use the damn canoe. So we did.
This was where we went:
By canoeing across Mjøsa, we left the Oppland (where we were) and entered a new land called Hedmark. Our hosts had always told us that the people on the are side of the lake were … different. Of course, on the little island we ended up on (and had all to ourselves!), we never met these “Hedmark” people … but we wondered if Mjøsa knew these political and cultural boundaries. Perhaps the Mild-Mannered Mjøsa we knew from Oppland is not the manner of Mjøsa known to Hedmarkians…
After an afternoon of napping and reflecting and generally relaxed enough to feel like we could stay there forever … the blue skies turned grey and the wind picked up. Immediately the four of us found each other; we knew were being summoned back to Oppland.
As we paddled, the wind picked up, it was getting hard to steer the canoes. The skies blackened, it would rain anytime. At one point, the droplets in the sky cradled a rainbow across the lake. I really wanted to take a picture but we needed all paddlers to paddle against the wind … “I will not be found dead holding a smartphone, that’s for sure”, I decided. The rainbow was a gift for our eyes at that place and at that time only; any violation of this would be an act of irreverence punishable by death.
Thankfully, both of our boats made it back to the land of our hosts. Mjøsa immediately seemed to friendly again once we set foot on its Oppland banks. History is biased towards voices of those who are/stayed alive. The experience of canoeing without life jackets and “living to tell the tale” fallaciously perpetuates my assumptions of invincibility. Afterall,
“The observed … apocalypses in our past (zero) tells us nothing about their future likelihood. Our forecasts about the future could be blinded by our necessarily lucky past. …We live in a world newly endowed with the capacity to end itself. … But somehow it never has. If it had, you wouldn’t be reading this article.” — The Atlantic
Field Trip #3: The Ferry to the End of the Earth
Fast forward a week or two and we’re in Tønsberg. We sound-boarded our ideas and our hosts and eventually we decided that we were going to Verdens Ende, “The World’s End” at the southern tip of Tjøme. To be completely honest, probably 80% of the reason I wanted to go was because of the name. Marketing – 1, Debbie – 0.
As for going there, we did some research and found a ferry that takes you to Verdens Ende from Tønsberg. And as for coming back, our hosts suggested that we borrow their (childrens’) bikes and bike back!
The process of buying the ferry tickets was a little sketchy. Their online site neither looked like a legit tourist site nor had an English language option. I actually walked quite far to find a physical tourist info center to check if the ferry is actually a thing, but this info center was also never open. Our hosts also never heard of the ferry option. But whatever, we bought the tickets through the website thanks to Google Translate and we were told on the website to meet the ferry at a certain dock in Tønsberg at a certain time. To compound the sketchiness, both our phones were broken at this time, so I used my camera to take screenshots of our purchase receipt since there was no other indication of how to prove payment.
On the day of, we arrive at that dock location … and the only physical evidence of the ferry was a little stand-up sign by the dock. No one else was waiting there and there was no ferry. Eventually another couple came (they were from the West visiting the East) as well as the captain and his helper. We all boarded the little ferry and zipped away. They never once asked for “proof of payment”.
The actual ferry ride was fantastic. The captain would tell us stories and eccentricities of the islands we were passing and he would translate them to English for Tim and I. He told us stories of his own, what it’s like in winter, etc. We even passed the summer home of the King of Norway (and apparently one knows he is in town because the flag is up at his summer home!). In the silences, I thought of how this reminds me of C.S Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader. By the time we were approaching Verdens Ende, I imagined that the captain was Charon bringing me to Hades…… not sure what kind of psychoanalytic diagnosis this elicits.
Verdens Ende itself ended up being a tourist destination. I mean, of course, we humans would monetize the World’s End if/when found.
We explored a bit while we were there and then started the bike ride back. One thing you have to know about these bikes… They are built for GIANTS (read: Norwegians). We were taking our hosts’ childrens’ bikes (who are on the order of 10 years old!) … and STILL our feet could barely touch the ground. But we made it back anyway :).
We were stupid and didn’t pack a lunch so we were FAMISHED. We tried to do some dumpster diving without success (all the trashcans were locked!) … so we bought some ice cream instead …
As you can see, we finished it all.