Viking Magazine - April 2012 - 38

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The average new cabin
in Norway measures
around 1,000 square feet,
more than 60 percent
bigger than it was a generation
ago in 1986. Kaltenborn
says that in the
mid-2000s, for the first
time ever in Norway's
census data, the average
size of newly built cabins
surpassed the size of new
primary homes. Granted,
he says, many of those
homes are compact apartments
and condominiums
in Norway's major cities.
" But it's still interesting,
I think, that the second
homes have increased so
much in size. "
If the American Dream
has long centered on
owning a home, the Norwegian
Dream has, for
at least a century, been to
leave home behind and
go to the cabin. That's
more true than ever, with
one in every six Norwegian
families owning a
cabin, and the pace of
cabin construction more
than doubling, from
just over 3,000 a year in
1986 to more than 6,000
a year now.
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Where does this Norwegian
devotion to cabins
come from?
Finn Arne Jørgensen, a
Norwegian and a lecturer
on the history of technology
and environment
at Umeå University in
Sweden, has studied that
question for an upcoming
book on Norway's cabin
culture. He traces the rise
of the cabin to the latter
half of the 1800s, " when
Norway had gained independence
from Denmark,
but didn't really know
what 'Norwegian' was. "
In that era, both nationalism
and nature were
highly idealized. Jørgensen
says that an " urban
elite " went out to the
country and found rural
people living " what they
thought of as authentic
Norwegian culture. And,
of course, they discovered
Norwegian nature. "
Some of those urbanites
founded Den Norske
Turistforeningen, the
Norwegian Trekking Association,
in 1868. They
promoted early tourism
and made Norway's
remote grandeur accessible
by building roads,
bridges, hiking trails and
cabins, where trekkers
could spend the night.
" What the turistforening
does is establish this
ideal of experiencing
nature through the cabin,
with the cabin as the
base for being Norwegian
by being in nature, "
Jørgensen says.
So the ideal of going
to the cabin is longstanding,
he explains, and the
recent boom in cabin
construction, size, luxury
and price isn't happening
because there's new interest
in owning a getaway
in the mountains or on
the shore. It's because affluence
and mobility have
made it possible for more
Norwegians to live the
ideal-and to update it.
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Hytteliv (Cabin Life),
the popular magazine
and website, is a window
into the divided heart to
which Norwegians hold
their cabins close these
days. Next to the images
of spectacular modern
architecture, the list of
Norway's 10 most expensive
cabin addresses and
an article on how to make
over your 1960s cabin so
it's " unrecognizable, " are
pieces on " rustic bedrooms, "
an idyllic new
cabin in Ål designed with
no electricity or running
water, and minimalist,
pre-fab mini-cabins that
are " the new trend. "
There are constituencies
for both the ampedup,
modern cabin experience
and a simpler one
handed down from earlier
generations.
Kaltenborn says he sees
a renewed and growing
appreciation for older
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Viking Magazine - April 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Viking Magazine - April 2012
