Maud's Coming Home!

It’s official: Norway can bring home the 'Maud', although some people in Cambridge Bay may miss the familiar sight of a famous tourist attraction in Canada..

Canada’s cultural property export review board, which met March 15 in Ottawa, has directed the Border Services Agency to issue an export permit to the Norwegian group that’s eager to bring the ship once sailed by polar explorer Roald Amundsen back to Norway. Roald Amundsen, who was born 16 July 1872 and died 18 June 1928, was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. Amundsen, the fourth son in the Jens Amundsen family, was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge, located between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg, Norway. His mother urged him to stay out of the maritime industry and strongly urged him to become a doctor, a promise that Roald kept until his mother died when he was 21 years old, whereupon he left his university studies for a life at sea. --------------------------------------------------------------- He led the Antarctic expedition in 1910 to discover the South Pole and became the first expedition leader to reach the South Pole. Amundsen had been inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888 and the doomed Franklin expedition. As a result, he decided on a life of intense exploration. Nansen had sailed as far into the Arctic ice flow as possible before becoming ice-bound. At that time, it was believed that the ice drift would carry them very close to their polar destination, where they would finish their journey by dog-sled and skis.

-------------------

Amundsen would become famous for his polar expeditions. Roald’s new ship, called Maud, was built for Amundsen in Asker, Norway. He had the ship named after Norway’s Queen Maud, who was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and reigned in 1906. During this era, a northwest passage was desired as a shorter sailing voyage instead of sailing through the Suez Canal, and Amundsen wished to explore the route. In 1918, Amundsen began an expedition with his new ship Maud, sailing west to east through the northeast passage, now called the Northern Route.

-----------------------------

However, the expedition did not go as planned and this journey took six years from 1918 to 1924. The Maud ended up in Nome, Alaska, and was later sold in 1925 by Amundsen’s creditors. The Hudson Bay Company purchased the ship to be used as a supply vessel for the company’s outpost in Canada’s western Arctic, and renamed it the Baymaud. The ship became later anchored near the shore and used for various purposes including the first ever radio weather reports from the Arctic coast. The ship was frozen in the ice ending up in Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, the least populous and the largest in geography of the provinces and territories of Northern Canada.

--------------------

In 1930 the ship sank and, although some material was removed at the time, the ship is still visible. A great tourist attraction as being skippered by Roald Amundsen in his explorations. The Norwegians wanted to have the ship returned to Norway, but Canada enjoyed the tourist attraction and refused to sell.

---------------------

Finally, Canadian officials granted the Norwegian delegation the rights to remove the ship to Norway.The ship, now little more than timbers, is reported to be in “in good shape” for having spent the past 80 years half-immersed in water and ice.The Norwegian investors want to raise the Maud with balloons, drag the hulk over to a barge and then tow it from Nunavut back to Norway — a 7,000-kilometre journey.There, the Maud would be exhibited at a futuristic museum in Asker, a suburb of Oslo — where anything to do with Amundsen remains a huge draw.

-----------------------

Amundsen disappeared in June, 1928 while taking part in a rescue mission involving an air-ship returning from a voyage. Neither ship returned.

" 'Xcusa'. U.S. Dollar OK?"

While serving as a US GI back in the 50's, I was stationed in Germany for two years and took every opportunity to visit as many countries as I could. Every country had it's own currency which resulted in "left-over" coins of lira, pounds ,pesetas, francs, marks, etc. A fist-ful of unusable pieces when arriving back in "The States". The money-exchange of each country created confusion, and efforts to unify the different monetary standards have been made. January 1, 2002 began the dawn of a new era opening a new chapter in European history as twelve of the countries in the European Union issued their new banknotes and coins they called the EURO. It took six years of planning and designing before the various countries agreed on the new 14 billion euro banknotes and 50 billion euro coins to be minted, printed and distributed. A huge undertaking! Around ten billion banknotes were put into circulation immediately, replacing each country’s national banknotes, while the rest were held in reserve to replenish stocks

----------------------

The symbol chosen for the new currency (€) was inspired by the Greek letter "epsilon", which is the first letter of the word Europe (ancient Greek name found in Greek mythology). The two parallel lines indicate euro's stability. The official abbreviation for the new currency, which has also been registered with the International Standards Organization is EUR and can be used in financial, commercial and business activities.

--------------------

The eight euro coins vary in size, weight, material, color and thickness to facilitate recognition by the blind and the partially sighted. Each coin has a common design, while the flip side represents a country’s design. Currently, seventeen countries have adopted the Euro, but two Scandinavian countries are keeping their national currency, that being Norway, Sweden and the famous kroner. The idea of a unified currency is having a rocky record, and there are changes still developing.

------------------------------

While the US Dollar still ranks supreme, the Euro is rated as #2..The Norse and Swede Kroner come in farther down the popularity list.

---Check out Sweden!---

Sweden is moving towards a cashless economy! Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it's come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them. In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether."There are towns where it isn't at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash," complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden's National Pensioners' Organization. Even in houses of worship, like the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, Vicar Johan Tyrberg, is pictured here standing next to a recently installed card reader that makes it easier for worshippers to make offerings at their services.

-------------------

The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 . There's no money in the bank!?

--------------------

Of course, there are opponents of the trend. Hanna Celik, whose family owns a newspaper kiosk in a Stockholm shopping mall, says the digital economy is all about banks seeking bigger earnings. The banks charge about 5 Swedish kronor ($0.80) for every credit card transaction, and a law passed by the Swedish Parliament prevents him from passing on that charge to consumers. "For them (the banks), this is a very good way to earn a lot of money, that's what it's all about. They make huge profits."

Credit cards seem to be a very hard item to receive, making it difficult for the elderly due to lack of credit, ID, etc. Perhaps the US Credit Cards will become the future currency of choice!......... A new Swedish billfold..

March 17...St Patrick's Day!

WHY ST. PATRICK’S DAY IS CELEBRATED EACH YEAR IN AMERICA

(according to Norwegians)

The real reason the Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day is because this is when St. Patrick drove the Norwegians out of Ireland .

It seems that some centuries ago, many Norwegians came to Ireland to escape the bitterness of the Norwegian winter. Ireland was having a famine at the time, and food was scarce. The Norwegians were eating almost all the fish caught in the area, leaving the Irish with nothing to eat but potatoes.St. Patrick, taking matters into his own hands, as most Irishmen do, decided the Norwegians had to go. Secretly, he organized the Irish IRATRION (Irish Republican Army to Rid Ireland of Norwegians) Irish members of IRATRION passed a law in Ireland that prohibited merchants from selling ice boxes or ice to the Norwegians, in hopes that their fish would spoil. This would force the Norwegians to flee to a colder climate where their fish would keep. Well, the fish spoiled, all right, but the Norwegians, as every one knows today, thrive on spoiled fish. So, faced with failure, the desperate Irishmen sneaked into the Norwegian fish storage caves in the dead of night and sprinkled the rotten fish with lye, hoping to poison the Norwegian invaders. But, as everyone knows, the Norwegians thought this only added to the flavor of the fish, and they liked it so much they decided to call it “Lutefisk”, which is Norwegian for “luscious fish”. Matters became even worse for the Irishmen when the Norwegians started taking over the Irish potato crop and making something called ”Lefse”. Poor St. Patrick was at his wit’s end, and finally on March17th, he blew his top and told all the Norwegians to “GO TO ..WHO CARES?”.

-------------------------

So they all got in their boats and emigrated to Minnesota or Wisconsin —— the only other paradise on earth where smelly fish, old potatoes and plenty of cold weather can be found in abundance.

But, seriously, folks....

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and the Irish. He was born about 389 A.D. in Northern Wales, which at that time may have been part of England or Scotland.

Saint Patrick had an adventurous life. He was captured by pirates at the age of 16. The Irish pirates brought him to Ireland to tend the flocks of a chieftain in Ulster. Six years of slavery made him a devoted Christian. He escaped to France and became a monk. In 432, a vision led him to return to Ireland as a missionary bishop. He brought Christianity to Ireland and taught there for 29 years. He used the shamrock, a 3 leaf clover, (Ireland's national flower) to explain the Blessed Trinity. St. Patrick founded 365 churches, baptized over 120,000 people and consecrated 450 bishops. According to some Irish writings, St. Patrick died on March 17, 461 A.D. The anniversary of his death is celebrated as St. Patrick's Day. It's interesting to note that the shamrock clover flowers around that time of year. ------------------ Happy St. Patrick's Day!!-------------------

How do you say."Giddy-up" in Norwegian?

Everyone expects stories about Vikings to be associated with ships as they sail from one conquest to another. Little thought has been given to Vikings traveling on-land, outside of simply walking. While battling their enemies on land , the Vikings had a super weapon, a war-horse. Vikings bred one of the world's oldest and purest breed of war-horse domesticated over 4,000 years ago. Horses were known to exist in Norway at the end of the last ice age, and are believed to be the ancestor of the modern Norwegian horse we know today as the Fjord horse. The Fjord horse is strong enough for heavy work plowing fields, pulling lumber, yet light and agile enough to be a fine gentle riding and driving horse. They have an extremely mild temperament, even used in therapeutic schools, suitable for children and disabled individuals.

-----------------------------

Fjords are buckskin colored ( Norwegians refer to them as 'brown duns') with a dark dorsal stripe from their mane, down their back, and all the way to the end of their tail. The inside of the adult mane is black while the outside hair is white. They are a little horse with big heart and friendly as a puppy!

---------------------------

While visiting our relatives in Northwest Wisconsin, we learned about a herd of Fjord horses on a farm nearby and decided to check it out. The Clifton Nesseth family of Cameron, Wisconsin has been involved in breeding and raising Fjord horses for some time. Their daughter Kristen had been studying at Saint Olaf College, and being the main groomer, when time permited came home to care, train and groom and ride the friendly horses. We were quite taken by the calmness and friendly nature of the horses as they gathered around us, nuzzling for attention. The young Fjords didn't have their traditional black stripe that will develope , but surely had the mild temperament.

-----------------------------

Another Wisconsin well-known breeder of Fjord horses lives in Barronett, Wisconsin. This breeder is well-known for raising, training and selling quality Fjord horses that are known as Odden's Registered Norwegian Fjord Horses. Phillip Odden and his wife Else are even better known as the owners of Norsk Wood Works in Barronett, a location of excellent Norwegian woodcarvings. After moving his studio to a nearby farm, they began their development of a quality fjord horse business that is active to this day, having traveled to Norway to study the horse in its natural country resulting in a herd of gentle, athletic fjord horses. Phillip Odden states: " To us, the fjord horse is folk art". ---------------------- If you happen to be near St. Paul, Minnesota March 17-18th, the NFHR will be holding their annual meeting and forum. This is the Norwegian Fjord Horse Registry organization held at the Leatherdale Center at the University of Minnesota Equine Center. ( All Fjords are invited). When you get to meet a Fjord horse, you will be seeing a little horse with a big heart, who will be happy to be your best friend!