-Funding for this series has been provided in part by the following.
-The Stavanger region -- adventurous shores, deep fjords, lively towns, and the iconic Preikestolen.
The Edge of Norway.
-Norwegian Alpinco -- connecting mountain spots, steep slopes, alpine villages, and outdoor activities all year round.
-In Sigdal, Norway, where mountains rise and forests whisper, Anne-Line and Courtney create Norwegian gifts so you can bring a piece of Norway with you.
Nordic Box -- memories from Norway.
- Oh, take me home, take me home where I belong -VGAN Chocolate, Norwegian flavor.
- I can't take it anymore [ Jet engine roaring ] -We're going to explore here and move further inland.
What are your expectations?
-We're far out on the coast, so hopefully some good seafood.
-What do you think will happen?
-I think we will experience a lot of weather, wild nature, and some Vikings.
-Welcome to "People of the North."
Join me on a journey where we will meet people who live, work, and enjoy life right here in the Far North.
[ Laughter ] I'm taking you to meet the fantastic people of the North.
We are in the heart of where the Norwegian Viking kings ruled.
The biggest of them all had his farm right here.
Tim, this strait, Karmsundet, has a very important historical value for us Norwegians.
-Yes, in fact, it has one of the most important values.
It's, in fact, where the name Norway has its origin.
Because the old Vikings in their time would call this Norovegr on this strait.
And this is the most southern gate where you can take your ships from here on in, on the fjords, on the inland, so to speak, all the way to Siberia, which was quite important for trade.
-So by controlling this trade and the western part of Norway, you are actually controlling the whole country.
-Yes.
In fact, you controlled all trade that was going on as this was the main trade route.
-And then the finance minister of King Harald, he would be in a small row boat out here sitting, collecting tax on ships passing by.
-Yes, more or less.
In fact, the job of most of the farmers out here on Karmoy was actually to work for the king, collecting taxes for all these traders and trade vessels that would pass through here.
And if the person doesn't want to give it, then of course we'll just take it because the king needs to have his taxes.
[ Laughter ] -Tim, Avaldsnes is the home of our most famous king from this era, Harald Fairhair.
Why is he so important?
-I would say he's the first king to, uh -- to establish the thought of a united Norway and the united people in what we call today Norway.
-This is how we think a normal Viking house was.
Why is it constructed like this?
It looks like a boat.
-This is really the style that we see most houses and building types in southwestern Norway were made and constructed as.
But of course, buildings could vary quite a lot due to regional differences.
Here we have usually lots of storms every year and you need very good aerodynamical houses so your house won't break when you get the wind into the side of it.
-But what were the Vikings?
Were they villains?
Conquerors?
Farmers?
Traders?
-Yes.
[ Laughter ] I want to say yes to all.
Simply because the Vikings, they were just people trying to get by.
Now, most of these people, they were craftsmen, fishermen, and just regular farmers.
But everybody was supposed to know how to handle weapons.
And when the king calls to arms, instead of trying to get your hands on the sword, which would cost you roughly 12 cows back in the day, this was something everybody had and everybody was trained in using as well.
-The army was farmers.
Lots of farmers.
-The army was farmers, yes.
-We board the Helgoy shuttleboat, which is the link between the communities in these fjords.
-Now we are on board the Helgoy Express.
This is the public transport between all these islands.
And no problems with bad weather or...?
That's Norway.
-For inspiration and more, visit our website peopleofthenorth.net Between the steep mountains in the Josenfjord, a couple of million halibuts have their home.
Manager Trond Sandvik is there to receive us.
-Stig, this is where the halibut comes from.
Sterling white halibut.
Hallo!
-Hallo!
Welcome in!
[ Laughter ] -Hei.
-Hei.
-Hei.
-Hallo, hallo.
-Look at this.
-This is an excellent halibut.
This is a four kilo.
Totally, on this location, we have 271,500 halibut.
-[ Laughs ] -So there's a -- There's a pretty much.
-The halibut here has sort of like shelves.
-Yes, the shelves are in, uh, 20 floors.
And, uh, what's special for halibut, the penthouse are not on the top, but it's to the bottom.
[ Laughter ] -We have taken the local ferry to Norway's smallest municipality, Utsira.
Why they are waiving with flags is not that it's the national holiday, it's because of a new record.
Hei, hei, hei.
Quite a reception.
It's a big day.
Eh, not exactly for Norway, but for me, because I have now been in all the 358 municipalities in Norway.
-Congratulations.
-Thank you.
[ Laughs ] We have 358 municipalities, and finally, I have visited all of them.
This is about half of the people who live at Utsira, I think.
all here for this memorable day.
Moving moment.
We have so many of the small municipalities, so it takes some years to visit all of them.
Hei!
This was a very important woman for the society.
-Her name was Aasa Helgesen, and she was the first female mayor in not only in Norway, but also in Europe.
-Yeah, and the municipality council, at the time, they were only 12 people.
-And 11 of them were women.
So it's quite special.
And, well, it's girl power in the early stages.
-100 years ago, but it still is.
-It still is.
They have a female mayor and female deputy mayor today.
-It's a special society, an island where women are strong.
The Dutch couple, Daniella and Hans runs a cozy restaurant in the old-school dahmsgard.
-[Indistinct] with Dublin prawns and a fresh sauce for you.
Then I have for you... This is hake with a Mediterranean sauce.
Also vegetables and herbs from our own garden.
-Thank you.
-Hallo.
-Hei.
-Oh, thank you for the food.
It was amazing.
-Thank you.
All the colors, and knowing that this is local food.
How did you come here in the first place?
-Well, we found this place on Google, took a little holiday and fell in love with the place and decided to move here.
When you move to a place like this, you know there are not plenty of jobs.
So you have to do something else.
And we had a seaweed catering and seafood catering in the Netherlands, so it was quite logical to start a little restaurant here.
It's the best island in the world to live on.
-Wonderful.
Thank you.
-Thank you.
-Utsira is a unique place filled with peace and friendly people.
It is really a worthy place to be the last on our municipalities I have conquered.
Stig finds botanicals everywhere.
Perfect for a little celebration.
-Whoo!
-Perfect.
[ Laughter ] -To Utsira.
-I will start to -- to make a cocktail.
I don't think we have done anything with champagne so far.
-We haven't.
-This is one of the very, very classics.
It's called French 75, and it's named after a machine gun.
-Wow.
-I would garnish them with these flowers.
There is this song about Utsira where they sing about this.
The recipe is very simple.
It's gin, lemon juice, and sugar.
And top it off with champagne.
-Okay.
-That's it.
-So what you have actually made now is sweet lemon juice.
-Yeah.
Shake it, baby.
-[ Laughs ] -Got it.
And since we have this garnish it's -- it's our take on a French 75.
-A local daisy.
-The daisy will actually top it off.
-Then you can top it off till here.
It's kind of social media friendly I would say.
-I would say so.
This is for Utsira.
Cheers.
-Cheers.
-It's fresh.
-Super fresh.
It also has this sweet-- -Mm!
-Sweetness in the background.
-We say goodbye to Utsira and take the ferry to Haugesund, the herring capital of Norway, where the annual Herring Jazz Festival takes place.
I assume you have seen this before.
There is actually a connection between the Statue of Liberty and this place just outside Haugesund.
Late 1800s, this was a thriving mining society.
3,000 people lived here and it was the biggest workplace in Norway.
Here they found copper.
And the copper was shipped and put on the Statue of Liberty.
My able guide is our good friend, Chef Ina Lindvik.
She has a herring surprise.
This looks delicious, Ina.
-Yes.
We have to eat herring when it's Sildajazz.
-Sildajazz actually means herring jazz.
-Yes.
-It's a festival.
-Yes, it's a festival.
-Jazz and herring.
-Yes.
Let's dig in.
-Mmm.
We're going to Roevaer.
-Are we going on an island?
-Mm-hmm.
-Okay.
And what's on Roevaer?
-It's komlejazz.
-Oh, the potato ball.
-Yes.
-One of my favorites.
-Me too.
-And jazz.
-Yes.
-I like jazz, too.
That's going to be exciting.
Cheers.
-Cheers.
-Potato ball jazz.
-Yes.
-I'm looking forward to that.
For more inspiration, visit our website... So we are back on one of the many coastal routes and on to a new island for jazz and food.
So it's the potato balls first, and then jazz.
-Yes.
Let's go inside and see how they make it.
-Yeah.
This is potato ball.
-Yes.
-How is it made?
-It's made potato, flour and salt.
-Inside usually some meat.
-Yes.
-So when people come here for potato ball jazz, this is the dish they get?
-Yes.
-As they say in New Orleans, this is groovy.
-[ Laughs ] -Why do you like this so much?
-Everything.
It's, hmm, childhood.
-It doesn't look very fancy.
And maybe that's why it's actually so modern.
-Yes.
-It does not look like fine dining, but is hearty farm food which Norwegians have survived on for generations.
But there is no time to miss.
We have to grab a taxi to the prior house for the jazz.
Taxi, lady.
Special price for you.
-[ Laughing ] -Special price for you.
-Thank you.
-Oi.
-One komle.
[ Speaks Norwegian ] Taxi.
VIP.
-[ Singing indistinctly ] [ Jazz music playing ] [ Cheers and applause ] -Full of potato balls and jazz, we find a very special accommodation on the brink of the ocean.
Welcome to the Panorama Cabins on the edge of the North Atlantic.
Stig and I had a wonderful night here.
Sigrid had her own cabin over there.
Have a look.
I got a good seat on my ticket.
-Yeah.
Me too.
-And it's incredible in good weather and incredible in bad weather.
-But I think here especially, there is a lot of weather.
-I think that's the whole point.
It's a bit difficult to jump in the sea here.
-Then you end up in Shetland before you... -Yeah, before you know it.
-[ Both laugh ] Our journey takes us to Hjelmeland, where the growing conditions are perfect for juicy apples.
-Here is a beautiful green and luscious spot between steep mountains, and I'm going to check out what they produce from their apples.
Hi, Andreas.
-Hi.
-Hi.
Nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you, too.
-It's a very special place you have with these steep mountains here.
-It is because the steep mountains that help us with a couple of degrees Celsius every summer.
Extra.
So that's very good for the orchards.
-Wonderful.
May I taste?
-Yes.
You can.
No problem.
Come on.
-Wonderful.
Fairly new building.
-Yes, it was built.
New building in 2020.
And before here at the farm, we had a lot of pigs and actually a pig house that was here that we tear down and started building the cider.
-You grew up on this farm?
-I grew up here, yeah, I did.
-What do you have here?
-I have oak barrels where we have matured cider since September 2022.
And you'll have to taste it.
-I would love to.
Straight out of the barrels.
-Straight out.
-Oy.
Mmm.
Smells and tastes of sun and autumn and apples.
Very good.
-Thank you.
-On an island in the same fjord, it's also perfect for savory fruits.
-We are here at Helgoy, and they are famous for their sweet cherries.
Goril, is that so?
-Yes.
That's so.
They're very good.
-Can I have a taste?
-Of course you can.
-Oh.
Oh, they are good.
-Thank you.
-Very good.
So, um, tell me, what is special with this place?
-It's a small island.
It's a family island.
-A family island.
What does that mean?
-Everybody, 45 people, except one, is related to each other.
-Is it true?
-Yes.
-How does it go with that one person?
-Oh.
-Do you treat him well?
-Yes.
We treat him very well.
-And why does things grow so well here?
-It's the place on the island.
We got reflection from the sea that surround the island.
But it can come some rain.
So we have plastic over the tunnel.
-Yeah.
So it's good conditions.
And you make the conditions even better.
-Yes.
-For more inspiration, visit our website... The Unique Energy Hotel in Suldal is actually a well-preserved part of a power plant from the '60s, with iconic furniture and incredible design, demonstrating the wealth and importance of this era in our history.
-We go back to the early 1900s, the way Norway moved from a relatively poor country to a medium, well-off country in the '50s, '60s.
The transition from coal to hydropower was an extremely important part.
When we get to the '60s, like, style-wise, brutalism, functionalism and minimalism is a key words.
And a quite well-known Norwegian architect called Geir Grung was given the assignment to design everything here.
So it's a -- it's a totality that's quite rare in Norway, especially in the countryside in the middle of nowhere.
So we see a lot of people coming to -- to experience, learn about the hydropower and just -- just visit.
-An exciting activity is to let oneself drift downstream the river Suldalslagen on a swim with salmon at Mo Salmon Farm.
Bjorn Moe and his able team takes good care of us.
Salmon Safari.
What's important for us to think about?
-Well, uh, you should just relax as soon as you come into the river, and hopefully we will see some salmon.
-[ Laughs ] -We got a little view into the salmon's kingdom.
How it lives, how it swims.
-It was extremely hard to cross this river.
It was just magical.
-Mm.
-Sig Hansen is a well-known fisherman as a star captain in "Deadliest Catch."
His father emigrated to the U.S.
in the 1950s.
So his roots are here at Akrehamn.
-Sig, how did you end up with this factory?
-There was a picture for sale.
A painting that my wife was so in love with in this building, and it was called "The Herring Woman."
And it represents the women of the time that were working in this facility.
Hard-working women.
My grandmother used to be one of them.
My wife always loved that picture.
And she said, "You're buying it."
"Okay, I'll buy it."
We bought that painting, and next thing you know, I heard they were selling the place a couple of thirds, and I just went for it.
-Wow.
But now you're rebuilding this facility.
What's the plan?
What kind of concept are you developing here?
-I definitely want to try tourism.
That is a plan.
As long as we can get, uh, you know, new toilets put in and a decent, uh, kitchen and do it right.
This is the only sildesalteri, the only building of its kind still standing in Norway today.
This is a true representation of what it was back then.
-I would say that time has stood still here in a way.
If you hadn't taken care of it, this could have been gone in a couple of years.
-Oh, it would have collapsed, for sure.
-Yeah.
-We went through great lengths to preserve it.
We've got the new roof put on, but you had to put it over the older one because you can't change these old buildings.
-It's understandable that they want to preserve it, because this is from a time where the craftsmanship was amazing.
You can look at the building.
It's quite solid.
-That's when, uh, men were made out of steel and boats were made out of wood.
Not the other way around.
Men were at sea fishing and then most of the women were here.
You had to have someone processing the fish.
I think back then, 80% of this whole town was working in the herring industry.
-Yeah.
-80% of the people.
-I think the best way to preserve history, like the herring history of this area, is by taking it into some kind of use where they can come, eat and drink, eat herring, of course.
They can really live in the history for a few hours.
-Exactly.
And you can learn something along the way, you know?
-If I come back here, I will find you behind the bar?
-As a bartender?
-Yeah.
-I said I wanted to make money, didn't I?
I can't -- I can't drink my profits here.
Come on.
But for you, I'll serve you a drink on the house.
-Thank you very much.
-Traveling in Ryfylke holds so many cool places to stay.
The Bolder living up to its name as one-of-a-kind, architecturally stunning lodges near the famous Lysefjord.
Welcome to the Grand Lodge.
-Thank you very much.
-This is crazy.
What a view.
Well planned to have a little relaxation in between all the hard work we do.
-It's always 80% enjoyment.
-Yeah, 20% hard work.
-Yes.
-[ Chuckles ] Sigrid is in Hjelmeland and has got a lot of help in serving a feast of what she has found.
-Madeleine, we made it!
-Yeah.
-We are ready to serve wonderful food from local producers.
And we have potato, cabbage.
We have halibut, we have Angus meat, we have salmon, we have cheese, we have fruit and cream and wonderful drinks to go with all of this.
Are you sure people will like it?
-I'm sure.
-I'm sure too.
Well done.
-Yeah.
-The island and fjords of Ryfylke and Haugesund on southwestern Norway is a goodie bag of variety and adventurous food and great people.
For more inspiration, visit our website... -Funding for this series has been provided in part by the following.
-The Stavanger region -- adventurous shores, deep fjords, lively towns, and the iconic Preikestolen.
The Edge of Norway.
-Norwegian Alpinco -- connecting mountain spots, steep slopes, alpine villages, and outdoor activities all year round.
-In Sigdal, Norway, where mountains rise and forests whisper, Anne-Line and Courtney create Norwegian gifts so you can bring a piece of Norway with you.
Nordic Box -- memories from Norway.
- Oh, take me home, take me home where I belong -VGAN Chocolate, Norwegian flavor.
- I can't take it anymore [ Jet engine roaring ]
Passport
Follow Us