These first photos were taken on the island of Vestågøy where my father's mother lived before coming to the USA to visit her brother, who had emigrated to Minnesota and grown homesick. He sent her a ticket to come visit him. Little did she know that she would meet my grandfather, who was from Støren, Norway, in the USA , and never return to her native homeland. The other photos are taken in various places in Norway, as noted under the photo.
Just a quick hello before we get started :-) Bare en kjapp hei på DEG før vi begynner :-)
Stamsund on the island of Vestvågøy
This is the town closest to where my grandmother lived. She lived on a small island called Sandøy, which can be seen in the background and is located 3 km. from Stamsund.
Helly Hansen and Dave in Stamsund. No, actually, that is my wife, Mary :-)
Rugged mountains and the familiar fisherman cottages welcome the approaching fishermen.
Looking down from our rurbu to see the busy harbor.
You will find 2 colors of fishermen cabins (rorbuer) on the islands: yellow and red. the white buildings are not robuer. Notice the drying racks for the fish. As you can see, they are empty, which means the fish season is over and the fish have been dried and put away.
Here is a shot of both colors of rorbuer or fisherman cabins.
One of the exciting things for me was to be able to visit the homeplace where my grandmother grew up. All that remains is part of the foundation, which you can see a little bit of in front of me. That's me with the cap
Here are two of our Norwegian friends getting our bonfire ready for St. Hanskveld or "midsummer night" on June 23.
What a way to end a beautiful day! The midnight sun was gorgeous as we viewed her majesty at 1:00 in the morning. It was broad daylight, but the sun tricked the camera lens to make it look like there was more darkness than there actually was.
May, 2004, I thought I'd give the Captain a hand steering this sightseeing ship through the fjords of Bergen, but he relegated me to keeping an eye out for interesting women.
