Posts Tagged Winter
Kjerringåsen, Sarpsborg
Can’t wait to go skiing again? Kjerringåsen in Sarpsborg opens for the season this weekend. This is the largest of only two Alpine ski centres in Østfold, best suited for beginners or intermediate skiers. There are three ski lifts, and five downhill slopes (the longest 650m), including one kids’ slope. Open 10am-9pm Mon-Fri, until 7pm at the weekend (see opening times for the Christmas holiday under ‘comments’). Day pass 260kr (210kr for kids up to 15 years). Morning, afternoon and evening passes also available. Cafe and equipment hire on site (220kr per day for a complete Alpine set).
You can also go cross-country skiing here, as there are several tracks nearby, some of them floodlit in the evening. There is no charge for cross-country skiing.
Alpinveien 109, Sarpsborg (off the Rv114 between Sarpsborg and Nordby). Tel: 69 14 81 85, www.kjerringaasen.no (Norwegian only).
A few facts about ski jumping
- Olaf Rye, an officer in the Dano-Norwegian army, was the first known ski jumper. In 1809, he hopped 9.5m in front of fellow soldiers in Morgedal, Norway – the first ski jump ever recorded.
- The first international ski jumping competition was held in Husebyrennene, Oslo in 1879, with another Norwegian, Olaf Haugann, setting the first world record for the longest ski jump at 20m.
- The annual event was moved to Holmenkollen, Oslo, in 1892. The first competition there drew a crowd of 10,000, and was won by Svein Sollid from Morgedal in Telemark, Norway, with a 21.5m jump. Holmenkollen has remained the pinnacle of ski jumping venues ever since.
- Ski jumping has been an Olympic discipline since the first Winter Games in Chamonix Mont-Blanc in 1924. The Large Hill competition was included on the Olympic programme for the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck.
- The winner in a ski jumping competition is decided on a scoring system based on distance, style, in-run length and wind conditions. In the individual event, the scores from a skier’s two jumps are combined to determine the winner.
- The first official jumper at the new Holmenkollen ski jump was Norway’s best woman ski jumper, 25-year-old Anette Sagen, who inaugurated the jump on 3 March 2010 with a 106.5m jump.
- The Holmenkolldagen Annual International Ski Jumping Competition, held in March each year, is also known as Norway’s second National Day, and draws tens of thousands to the hills above Oslo, where the ski jump is located. It is the world’s second oldest ski jump competition still in existence.
- The new Holmenkollen ski jump, designed by JDS Architects, cost 1 billion Norwegian kroner to build. The world’s most modern ski jump, it is completely built of steel, and lit up at night by powerful floodlights, hence its nickname, the Holmenkollen Fyr (Holmenkollen Lighthouse). The start house tower, 60m above the ground, affords great views of the Oslofjord in the background (Holmenkollen is located 375m above sea level).
- Ski jumping is a popular sport in Scandinavia and Central Europe (almost all world-class ski jumpers come from those regions, or from Japan), and during the season many events are broadcast live on Norwegian TV.
- The fact that ski jumping is the only sport where women are not allowed in the Olympic Games has become a major bone of contention as the field of elite female competitors has grown.
- Ski flying is an extreme version of ski jumping. The events take place in big hills with a K-spot of at least 185m (607 ft). It’s possible to fly over 200m (660 ft) in all the ski flying hills, and the current world record, set by Norwegian Bjørn Einar Romøren at Planica, Slovenia, in 2005, is 239m (784 ft).
- 145 years after the first ever ski jump took place in Norway, Oslo remains the undisputed capital of ski jumping, and Holmenkollen has become a national icon – over the years the arena has hosted nine different nordic skiing and biathlon world championships, including the 1952 Winter Olympics. The World Ski Championships will take place here in 2011.
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Want to try the Holmenkollen ski jump for yourself? Yes you can… Check this link out www.visitnorway.com/holmenkollen/
Norway: Europe’s winter wonderland
Posted by admin in Nature and the great outdoors, Photos and videos on March 3, 2010
Did you know? A few facts about snow
Posted by admin in Nature and the great outdoors on March 3, 2010
Seen a fair amount of snow this winter? We certainly have here in Norway. Yes, more than usual. This winter has been the coldest for the past 20 years, and many places, including Østfold, have seen record amounts of snow (well over 100cm in several places) for the past two decades. Here are a few snow facts for you:
- Snow flakes are ice crystals joined together. Each snowflake is made up of between 2 and 200 separate crystals. As snow falls, snowflakes connect to make bigger snowflakes. Snow flakes are always hexagonal (6 sides), but they are rarely perfectly symmetrical. No two snowflakes ever have the same shape. The average snowflake has a top speed of 1.7m per second.
- It can get too cold for it to snow! Because snow is basically frozen water, if there is not enough moisture in the air, it won’t snow. This is usually the case when temperatures drop below -30C.
- Many people think of snow as being white, but it is actually transparent. Snow appears white because almost all of the visible light striking its surface is reflected back, without any preference for a single colour within the colour spectrum. Depending on where you find the snow, it can actually appear red, blue, green, pink, yellow, grey or even black.
- Layers of snow accumulated on the ground act like a layer of insulation. In winter, snow keeps plants insulated from sub-zero freezing temperatures.
- The fear of snow is called chionophobia.
- Oslo this year also experienced its worst snowfall since 1987. A record 180 municipal employees have been working round the clock to clear the city streets clogged with snow and snowed-down cars. There was so much of it that dumping grounds were quickly overfilled, and snow had to be dumped into the harbour.
- Not surprisingly maybe, the English words ’ski’ and ’slalom’ both come from Norwegian, where they mean… well yes, ski and slalom (slalåm) 
Poached skrei, traditional style
Posted by admin in Food and drink, Photos and videos on February 24, 2010
For more info on skrei, including recipes, see www.seafoodfromnorway.com
Skrei, or Arctic cod
Posted by admin in Food and drink on February 24, 2010
The arrival of the skrei, or Arctic cod, in the Lofoten Islands every winter is a big event, and one eagerly awaited by gourmets all around Norway. Skrei (and Old Norse word meaning ‘wanderer’) is much prized for its lean, firm white flesh, and the unique flavour of its tongue, liver and roe, all of which are delicacies much loved by Norwegians. It doesn’t just taste good – it’s also an extremely healthy food, low in fat and a rich source of vitamin D in the sunless winter months. And because it’s only fished seasonally, it’s also a sustainable species.
More good news? Now is the time to try skrei! The spawning season, which lasts from January to March, has started, and skrei has as a result started to appear on menus in restaurants up and down the country. Do give it a go – you won’t be disappointed.
If you’d rather try skrei at home, do as the Norwegians do (they cook skrei in very much the same way they cook cod): bring a pan of water to the boil, slice the fish into thick slices, then remove the pan from the hob and let the fish stand in the just-boiled water for about 10 minutes. You’ll know the fish is ready when the flesh starts to come off the bone.
Skrei is usually served with boiled potatoes and melted butter, sometimes with hard-cooked eggs. Its mild and delicate flesh is also used in gratin and fish balls, although I personally think this is a bit of a waste… such gorgeous fish is best eaten on its own, to reveal all its flavour.
Read more about skrei here www.seafoodfromnorway.com/News/News/View+media+article?key=23066 and www.seafoodfromnorway.com/Fishlovers/News/View+article?key=23067
Birkebeinerne, by Knud Bergslien (1869)
Posted by admin in History and architecture, Sport on February 22, 2010
Norway and the Winter Olympics
Posted by admin in History and architecture, Sport on February 22, 2010
Day 11 of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and so far 5 gold medals, 3 silver and 4 bronze. It hasn’t been such a bad year for Norway after all, although some of the big favourites, Petter Northug among them, haven’t scored so well.
Here are, however, a few hugely impressive facts to ponder. It might be small (just about 4.7 million inhabitants), but Norway is the country that has won the most medals in the history of the Winter Olympics. A whopping 290 medals to date (and counting!), well ahead of the US in second position with 237, and the former Soviet Union with 217. So far Norway has won 103 gold medals in the Winter Olympics, again, well ahead of the US and the former Soviet Union (84 and 87 respectively). Well, they do say that Norwegians are ‘born with skis on their feet’… but still!
In terms of gold medals, the best games so far for Norway were Salt Lake City in 2002, when Norway scooped an unbelievable 13 gold medals (out of 25 medals they brought home). But the most successful games overall were the Lillehammer games in 1994, when Norway, which was competing on home turf, beat all other participating countries and topped the table with an impressive 26 medals, of which 10 gold!