Lake Mjøsa, Gjøvik, Hamar

We went five good, strong days of walking on our new wheels through Brandbu, Lena, Hoff and Kapp, to Gjøvik. Jens, a Pilgrim Hostel volunteer and custodian of Hoff Kirk was perfectly happy to open the hostel solely for us and, with his granddaughter, gave us a tour of the church the following morning. Jens told us of the trolls in these parts - one in particular who had so disliked the sound of the church bells that he threw two great stones in the direction of the church. Both missed their target but these huge stones can be seen in the local area, where they landed. This story is partly illustrated in the 800 year old stone carvings built into the original church. Here you see the body and head of the troll emerging from the ashlar and also a detail of the hand poised to throw a boulder. Hoff Church also contains this carving of a bear from the same period, for protection against wild beasts.

Happily camped along from Kapp, on the West shore of Lake Mjøsa, I took the Orkney Boat back to water for the first time in weeks.

However, Marianne continues to be let down by her wheels which, despite being superbly welded by our friends at Granavollen, were sheering little by little from their rims with every step. We noticed the grating noise as we tried to depart Gjøvik and one curb was all it took to do for the right wheel. For the second time, we had to seek out a mechanic; on this occasion, the answer came from the acquaintance of someone who had written to me many months ago, after seeing some television coverage about the project. Although in Oslo, Mike gave me a Gjøvik name and address and I went with my story to a sports shop in town to request a mechanic. Said contact was fantastic also, collecting the trailer from us that evening, advising us where to camp and returning her the following morning with reinforced weld around her wheel rims. 

During our anxious wait for the trailer, I was able to write replies to the postcards that the children of Hope Community School in Orkney made at our workshop back in May. The drawing on the front of each is of a place or landscape particularly and personally special to its artist. As well as drawing our most empowering landscapes, many of the children chose to stand in the stone and speak for refugees, the environment and their hopes for greater personal courage! I have carried the postcards in my map case until now, written a little about our journey and adventure, and posted them back to the school.

Friends and supporters of The Orkney Boat, we WILL get the stone to Trondheim, and we will return it home to Orkney. However, we will have to deviate, sometimes majorly, from our initial route and there will undoubtedly be further trailer trouble, perhaps requiring us to use public transport when stranded or not able to continue on foot. For me, this is a disappointment and it will be for some of you too, I know. But the terrain, the weight and the distance all make it so. And the more often we have to look to other people for help to move the stone through Norway, the more often we encounter enormous kindness, gather stories and make connections through conversation and through the standings in the stone, of course. 

Who knows how this Journey and Return will develop and change, but it must resolve itself somehow because I have been invited to talk about the project at the Orkney Science Festival on 9th September in Kirkwall! I am also thrilled to be able to say that the exhibition will run from 4th-25th November in the Orkney Museum Gallery, Kirkwall. The stone will be installed there for the three week exhibition period and, as ever, ALL are invited to make a stand in The Orkney Boat. 

So, back to this journey, and, unable to know how far we will get when we start out from Lillehammar, we have first brought the stone to Hamar, on the East side of Mjøsa. Yesterday, the Orkney Boat was amongst other stones at the medieval Cathedral ruins. 

We have been recipient of the high spirits, hospitality and engagement of Pilgrimssenter staff and six fellow walkers on the evening of Midsummer! Positioned on the track up to the hostel, the stone received its first “singing standing” of which I hope to publish a more detailed account in the near future, with Wanja’s permission.

Juergen is walking to Trondheim also, with two friends. They will be some way ahead of us by now but our encounter will stay in my mind for a long time as we journey on. Juergen, a business consultant from Germany, was most interested in the stone giving the opportunity for and gift of expression, since his work and his thoughts often turn to improving communications between people. During his travels in the northernmost climes of Finland, he met a shaman who performed a ritual, especially for him, with a piece of driftwood. Into this piece of wood, the shaman poured three gifts. When holding the wood he would: 1. be able to speak truth, 2. be able to find the words to speak truth and 3. he would find that he had the time to speak truth. Juergen uses this piece of shamanic wood in his workshops now; he tells its story and the practice of using the piece of wood accompanies the entire day. We spoke about the parallels with standing in stones such as the Orkney Boat, to be made courageous to speak. And at 6am, the following morning, while I was asleep and unaware, Juergen stood in the stone, entirely without witnesses. He later told me that he had begun to laugh, almost immediately, and then the laugh died down to a smile. He felt he rose up to look over a map of the world and from that vantage point he watched the connections form between places. He went from Nidaros to Iceland to Shetland to the North Cape and to the Black Sea and, when he had finished looking, five minutes had gone by.

Rescue and re-build!

Dear Friends and Allies of the Orkney Boat, 

I know you have been worried; my apologies. In the days that followed our rescue and rebuild we have had to pace the path in order to make up our miles!

I had expected a kind response from the Granavollen pilgrim centre but I did not expect the action that answered my plea for help... Jane listened to my distressed description of events and then she simply said “I will help you.” We each ate the doorstop foccacia sandwich that we were given, then Jane rallied Inga - a pilgrim centre volunteer - who drove us to the location where we had left The Orkney Boat and its sorry trailer some 24 hours earlier. As we bumped down the track, unfamiliar to Inga, she remarked, “and now I am a pilgrim myself because to be a pilgrim is to take a new path.” It looked as though both stone and trailer had been undisturbed, my note unread. In fact, both were basking in the sunshine.

It was marvellous to have stone, trailer and walkers together again and en-route to a hardware store. When the depth of the replacement wheels turned out to be too great for the axle we had, Inga threw us straight back into the car and drove to the yard of her car mechanic son-in-law. Without fuss, almost without comment, the trailer was lifted aloft from the boot and fashioned with a new axle of rebar. She is fit to roll again, but I will need to go cautiously. "Marianne" (so called because she has the word FAITHFULL - of the tool brand - embossed on her frame) will not survive the loss of another wheel, as these ones are welded on. “The weather is like the children” said Inga as we drove back to the Pilgrimssenter in the rain, “it is crying one minute and laughing the next.”

The help and support offered by Granavollen, not only solved our practical issues, but was so remarkable and affirming that we will most certainly be going on! Nor did all the encouragement from home fall on deaf and jaded ears. TUSEN TAKK. I can not help but think how food, drink, accommodation, transport, two new pneumatic wheels, and a hand made axle plus labour FAR exceed what can be held in a scallop shell!

Although the previous two blog posts read like a catalogue of woe and hardship, it has not entirely been so. We have had moments of great success and satisfaction.

On Saturday, when we finally reached Nordenov, I had abandoned my artistic duty for a while to focus on making a crisp sandwich, when I noticed that a woman who had passed by a few times seemed keen to talk. This was Nina’s standing.

On Wednesday, before setting out on our new wheels, we were fortunate enough to be offered a tour of the Glasslaven Arts Centre, neighbour of the Pilgrimssenter and the Sosterkirkene (sister churches.) Granavollen, in the Hadeland region of Norway, is a particularly idyllic area - the very best to be trapped in, I would say. When we were back on the road, with a renewed sense of urgency and determination, our route took us through sparkling pasture and farm land and past a huge enclosure of 30 or more huskies, all hollering and leaping. Perhaps this is dog sledding territory in the winter! They put up a noise that seemed to say, “look at this idiot human doing a dog’s job!” I have a similar thought when I pass horses with The Orkney Boat in tow. I certainly now understand a horse’s need to toss its head about in its bridle. We climbed all day and were rewarded with this pilgrim teepee-equipped with water in the corner of a sheep enclosure.

I’ve a feeling the stone might have been extensively licked by the sheep that night and maybe also by the cows we met the following night. Despite being laid low by illness for a morning and a nervous power-walk along the side of a main road for a stretch, we continued to make good progress. We reached Hogkorset (the highest point in the Hadeland region at 757 metres) to find the following story.

“This route is known as Kjolvegen. Kjol is Norwegian for keel. Kjolvegen is mentioned in King Sverre’s saga... he had the keels of his ships pulled up here, across the ridge between Randsfjorden and Einavatnet, and some believe that this is how the name originated.” And now we had brought another boat of a sort up here!

I have reconfigured the harness, which is helping to distribute the weight around my body but the switching between rain and sun means that the mozzies find exactly what they love - warm, wet humans in light shirts that present no barrier at all! I have learned not to rest at the bottom of a hill - better to get up and rest afterward - and not start mentally stopping before the moment that you actually stop.

I often glance back at the stone while we are rolling. Despite all the photos taken of it, despite the narrative that is accumulating around it and the mythology that we are creating for it, The Orkney Boat, visibly, is unchanged, ever solid, ever patient, ever anchoring. We have walked 100 miles through Norway. We have another 350 ahead of us.

Defeat at Honerud

"We are taking this stone to Trondheim. We have had to go for help. BEKLAGER. We will be back as soon as possible for it. TAKK" 

Terrible day. When we set up camp yesterday, by the river outside of Honerud, we took a look at the trailer. Its wheels were splaying out badly and barely rolling. Earlier in the day we had dragged and pushed it through a quagmire- it was still raining and the mud was calf deep. It had suffered a lot as a result. But, having straightened the split pins we reckoned we might make it to Granavollen before the wheels came off. We were badly dehydrated, so we spent some time drinking from the river.

The wheels sheered off not half an hour into the following morning. No choice but to abandon stone and trailer on the side of the path and go on to Granavollen ourselves to seek help. Pilgrimssenter closed when we arrives. Checked into a guest house to wash all our wet clothes - a small relief. Furious to have left the stone. Miserable, silent evening - nothing to do but wait until tomorrow. Not for the first time, I feel like admitting defeat. As I know from our visit to the Kon Tiki museum in Oslo, Thor Heyerdahl's first Ra mission failed (she thought to herself to try to justify her defeat). I think we may be beaten in this venture.

Out of Oslo

At the Oslo pilgrim centre this morning, Eivind (self proclaimed "Godfather" of the path) witnessed us break a scallop shell that was attached to the trailer. Having been given this scallop shell, the traditional symbol of pilgrimage, by a fellow walker in Orkney, I was a bit dismayed. Eivind remarked that "during every great journey there will be small accidents" and, after facing down today’s potential calamities, I hope that a broken scallop shell might be the worst of them! It is said that the quantity of food or water that could be held in a scallop shell was the accepted measure of sustenance to give a pilgrim; in this way no-one was excluded from being able to help.

Eivind fed us pineapple, strong coffee and jaffa cakes, praised the project and told me I was crazy. But he seems to think it can be done, perhaps with a little deviation to stay on-road when necessary. "Remember that the journey is in your heart, not in your feet" he told me. "So, if you have to adapt your route then do it, without guilt."

Quickly got into very difficult, forested terrain. Raining hard. Huge boulders, gridlock of tree roots, ascending steeply in the forest above Haslemkirke. Toby has to lift the back of the trailer (stone in situ) over the obstacles that the wheels and axel can not ride over, while I scramble forward, pulling with all my strength, losing my footing on sheer, wet stone. I capsized many times. One wheel rides up and tips the trailer, I twist and go down with it from my fixed position in my harness and Toby has to right 60 kilos. Each time he lifts the back of the trailer is pretty terrible, especially with the pack on. Exhaustion and pain mounting. Sometimes I can minimise our chances of capsize by better judgement of the path; when my feet go over an obstacle it’s a few paces before the wheels meet the same obstacle - time enough to manoeuvre around it. Having reached a rest stop, we met an Australian walker huddled in his sleeping bag inside the gapahuk, with all his wet clothes hanging up around him. We got a head start on him but he soon caught us up and walked with us for a while, keeping me company while Toby relayed, taking the gear on ahead, checking out the path and then coming back to push behind the trailer. Andy said that an endeavour like this was known as "hard yakka" in Australia. This cheered me up. We managed only about 8km today - not a very good start but we have pushed our luck somewhat already.
15mm rain in the night. Started positively with squashed raspberries, like jam, on oatcakes and then things became treacherous. We were heading downhill, out of the forest, over boulders running with water. We had no choice but for Toby to force the stone and trailer forward down the hill - a 60 kilo wheelbarrow effectively, either trying to run away to a crash landing, or barred in its way by rocks and quagmire. The most stressful physical sight I’ve ever witnessed, and Toby almost impaled himself through the stomach with a handle when the trailer halted dead. We have bent the right handle. Tears from me when we got to the road. Situation dire, really dangerous. Task ahead seems impossible. Toby got us to Baerum golf course, where caffeine and carbohydrates did wonders. We haven’t been able to have nearly enough calories, nor can we carry more weight. In the rational conversation that followed we seriously considered quitting. We had come so close to real danger and we were very low.

Now reasonably high, however. Having decided to continue, but with more manageable goals (for example, our focus now is simply on reaching Granavollen pilgrim centre in a few days time for further advice) we found that the path took quiet forest and village roads. On the steep uphill sections I watch my feet and think of rolling them heel-toe, like my Dad taught me when I was stomping about flat footed as a child. To pull the trailer over obstacles I think 2.6 - prepare on 2 and pull on 6, as we did hauling ropes on the Swan. And downhill I have to brace myself and not allow my concentration or my feet to waver for a second. The 60 kilo load is heavier than me - if it gets up some momentum I will be powerless to stop it. Still, for now the stove is on, we have made tea and set up camp. I wonder where this day will rank on the scale of days with the stone, when we look back at them. I will never be able to thank Toby enough, not simply for doing this with me, but for the manner in which he is doing it.

Bergen

Arrived at Fana Fjord in the midst of a Viking festival! We have been made so very welcome by Ole, our host at the Hordamuseum. He invited us to join in a huge meal of lamb, fruit and home brewed beer in the Viking tent - the strangers at the feast, highly conspicuous in our walking gear! As a consequence of our lucky timing and the hospitality we found there, we will now be sleeping on rabbit skin in the tent and washing with juniper soap. I bought a length of tablet woven cord to tie the stone onto the trailer - a Viking age pattern found in northern Sweden.



Bergen is a city surrounded by seven mountains and marked by fire. Nine major fires in its history mean that archaeologists can use evidence of burning from their samples to date their findings. And the climate of the Norwegian West coast is perfectly suited to rhododendron, which feature brightly on every roadside and around many public buildings.

........................

The stone is placed on Bryggestredet, in the centre of medieval Bryggen, available for standings all day. Heavy rain and a disheartening start. The footprints pool with water and the stone, with its sea-made ripples that become visible when wet, begins to resemble the dried stock fish sculpture beside me. I am not sure this is the right way to go on. This is not a selling pitch, but it looks like one to the people that are here to see the Bryggen architecture. Most people try not to meet my eye, because I am seeking theirs. I think I must make an intervention to engage people, to demonstrate why I am here. So I stand in the stone, barefoot myself. And I ask people as they go by,"Can I tell you about the project, in case you would like to stand in the stone?" And this seems to work. In a tourist area like this, the range of people and cultures I encounter is large - fitting for the themes of journey and migration, and the stories that begin to come out... Many people I find simply want to talk about the stone. When I tell Bill, from the States, about the stabilising, anchoring possibilities of the stone, he tells me how his country is fast destabilising. We talk about walking, about escaping. He doesn’t stand in the stone, but his well wishes lift my spirits and I speak to Scots, Swedes, friends from Turkey and an Iranian refugee. All of us agree on the power of landscape to affirm and fortify. I hope that naturally encountering people on the path will make conversation more forthcoming; still, standing in the stone myself today gave me a dose of courage to keep trying to reach people through the rain, from my anchored, Orcadian standpoint. A lesson in literally standing your ground perhaps...

The Vikings are dispersing. Tomorrow we tackle the three buses to Drammen, a town south-west of Oslo. The stone will be stowed away in bubble wrap once again, for its journey in the hold.

On board the Swan

Stromness to Bergen: 317 nautical miles across the North Sea, 2.5 days on board the SWAN.
Here follows an extract from my account of our days at sea:

02/06/2017: 10.00
59°46.`8N 007°22.`5E

CTS 90° Wind SE/F3 Visibility poor. Sea slight. Sails: Main 3R, jib, fsail, mizzen.
Just off watch. Toby and I are on 6-10, morning and evening, with Thorben (skipper) and Maggie (boson). It is a good watch to have, as it is not so necessary for us to get our heads down during the day. Last night was long, and cold, even in borrowed oil skins. The wind was slight and we were under motor. I thought a lot about Scott’s journals and wondered if I could do this expedition the same justice. A few people got quite sick below deck; a nasty convergence of waves built up as they bounced off North Ronaldsay, and again in the shallower waters south of Fair Isle. No sight of land since we lost Fair Isle. The AIS tells us that there are a few oil rigs out there, but visibility is too poor to make them out. We don’t expect to see any land but Norway now, and we are pretty much on a straight course due east to Bergen. A radio call from Shetland coastguard this morning informed us that we had dropped off the AIS, which led to a focused “fog watch” punctuated only by making porridge for us all - 13 in total - a welcome opportunity to stand, stirring, over a hot stove. The trailer is nestled among the food stores, fore; I think it is helping to brace the boxes and sweeping brushes, and the stone, in its wrapping, is stowed beneath the passage way. It gets a bit of rain and sea spray when the hatch is open.

14.15
59°50.`19N 002°15.`34E

CTS 90° Wind SE/F4 Visibility moderate. Sea slight. Sails: Main, jib, fsail, mizzen.
All hands on deck to shake out the reef! We are under sail only now and our new eta into Bergen is 11.30 tomorrow. Better visibility but still drizzling. The occasional gannet is a welcome sight. Our watch is off duty, playing cards below deck.

22.00
59°59.`9N 003°42.`2E

CTS 080° Wind SW/F3 Visibility moderate. Sea moderate. Sails: Main 3R
Deepest part of the North Sea. The depth gauge has gone haywire - 1000 metres plus of ocean beneath us. This has changed the nature of the waves to a long high swell. It is a lovely evening, though we are under motor once more. The main sail was luffing hard and sending the occasional loud crack whipping across the deck. Thorben had us wake more of the crew to reef the main sail, and take down the jib, foresail and mizzen for good. It has been an exciting watch - the warmest yet, dashing about with sail ties and tailing lines where we were instructed. Fishing Trawlers on the AIS invisible in the fog. I will be sorry to disembark tomorrow. I am just becoming comfortable with life
at sea, with its rules and rotas and teamwork, moving between watch, galley and bunk. When I am woken up for my watch tomorrow morning, Norway will be in sight.

6am - Norway in sight

Fog lifting further up the fjords

Moored in Bergen

The Orkney Boat on deck

Birsay- Dounby

10 miles on foot, Birsay to Dounby, Orkney.

For the first time I am in Orkney with my family; it has been wonderful to be able to share my delight in these islands with those closest to me, and to introduce them to the new friends and allies that this project has brought forth. We were all in attendance at the St Magnus Way launch festival for a programme of Orcadian and Norwegian music about journeys, featuring James Watson’s composition for the project on Hardanger fiddle and piano. I am no musician, and perhaps James will put me right, but in the arrhythmic repetition of the piece I hear the motion of waves, and I see the sudden emergence of a walker over a hill, or a ship on the horizon when the fiddle comes in, with a tune that I will gladly carry with me as I walk. 

Having had a difficult time walking the first twelve miles back in April, I am relieved to be able to write that the next ten miles were, in fact, a pleasure to do. The trailer, taken in hand by Antony and co. had an easier time of it too. Its main frame is now a sack trolley of rigid, welded steel that can go the distance, with two wheels that run on bearings in the middle of the frame. The load can be centred over the axel and secured there, thereby taking all the weight from my arms. And this is the comfortable way we proceeded, six of us walking together- a good pace from Birsay to Dounby, in sunshine that was melting the road.

Such was our pace, and our slightly tactical diversion, that we were able to wait for the rest of the Magnus Way walkers at the barn where Elspeth, Inga and Benjy were stationed to provide a welcome on the road. We spent a happy half hour in their company, benefiting from the refreshments they had for us! They were the first to stand in the stone that day and the most curious of any of the participants! Benjy’s knowledge of the potential pitfalls of the trailer was as good as any mechanic's.

In a few days we will move onto the boat, anticipating a 5am departure from Stromness on Thursday. I am looking forward to having The Orkney Boat on a traditional Shetlandic herring fishing vessel! Originally launched in 1900, the SWAN is now used as a training vessel based in Lerwick, but is in Stromness harbour for the Folk Festival, and will take us to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway, before it returns to Shetland. She is all wood, with a new mizzen mast, gaff rigged, with red sails and a green hull - truly a beautiful sight.

I would just like to make mention of something that happened at the last walk (Evie to Birsay) back in April, as it was only one of a few instances so far that a "stander" has spoken out from the stone. Please forgive the disruption of the chronological order. Without being aware of the historical precedent of standing in footprint stones to vote or be empowered to speak, Helen announced that she felt she could not stay quiet any longer and would be standing in her local elections. "Standing in the stone, feeling its solidity and power, I dedicate myself to the political process. If the people of Orkney want me, may it be so, if not, then not - whatever the outcome, all is well." I hope that Helen won’t mind me saying that we were both quite moved by the experience. As always, I greatly appreciate people’s open mindedness and engagement. I am signing off this post with another of my favourite photographs of a 'standing' so far.