Norway

NORWAY, THE COUNTRY

Norway occupies the western part of the Scandanavian peninsula and shares borders with Sweden, Finland and Russia. Shaped like the rind on the bacon rasher of Scandanavia, Norway has a long coastline pierced by fjords, and a mountainous interior that is blanketed by some of Europe’s largest glaciers. Only 3% of Norway is arable. Some 27% remains forested, though acid rain, caused by pollution from Western Europe, is causing much damage. Fauna includes reindeer, wolves and lemmings, and many of Norway’s 30,000 Lapps live a nomadic life in the far north, herding reindeer. The paucity of productive farmland has focused Norwegian attention on the sea, and commercial fishing plays an important role both in the economy and the social fabric of the nation.

Over 500 sq km of Norway lies north of the Arctic Circle, but the country’s western coast remains ice-free year-round, and enjoys a surprisingly temperate climate, thanks to the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Mountainous inland regions experience more extreme ranges of temperature, and the northern highlands suffer Arctic conditions. The country is at its best and brightest from May to September, and its worst between November and March, when average temperatures are below freezing. Midnight-sun days, when the sun never drops below the horizon, extend from 14 May to 30 July in the far north. Even southern Norway, has daylight from 4 am to 11 pm, in midsummer.

The country is divided into nineteen counties (fylker, or amts-old style). Each county consists of local administrative units called 'kommune', of which there are a total of 440. Norway also has a state church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, for which a similar administrative structure exists. The diocese (bispedømme) is roughly equivalent to the county, although there are only ten dioceses. The diocese consists of parishes (prestegjelder), equivalent to the kommuner, and sub-parishes called (sogn) where more than one church exists in a parish. These clerical districts are primary sources of family history records, and important divisions of census data.. Since Ole Hendrickson Fadness, and his brothers, emigrated from the prestegjeld/sogn of Voss, which is in the county of Hordaland (once Søndre Bergenhuus), I will focus on these areas. However, my mothers parents emigrated from Kviteside parish in the county of Telemark, and Audreys ancestors came from the parish of Hafslo, in the county of Sogn Og Fjordane.