The talks

One thing I did appreciate on the cruise were the talks. After the first couple of days there was a daily approximately half hour talk on some topic. All were subjects related the area we were visiting & the standard was high, enough to give something new to someone who had some knowledge without scaring off someone without any knowledge at all of the subjects.

The first talk was on the geology of the area. It was mainly about glaciation. I found it a bit frustrating in that I really wanted to know what the stone types were around rather than how the landscape had evolved over millennia.

However, my interest grew with the second talk, on the Vikings. I never realised that Vikings from differing parts of Scandinavia tended to go to different parts of the world. So those from Denmark tended to go west along the East coast of Britain, through the English Channel & so to the Med & North Africa. Whilst the Swedish ones went east to the Baltic states, Russia & down the great rivers of Poland etc. through to the Black Sea & Turkey. As for the Norwegian Vikings they came further west to the West coast of Britain & Ireland, even going as far as Iceland & America. I found this interesting as it made me wonder if that explained why Cumbrian dialect speakers even today can understand Norwegians speaking their own language & Norwegians can easily understand Cumbrian dialect.

After that we went on to a talk on “Hunters & Trappers”. Here we heard about whaling & seal/polar bear fur hunting. It was a tough life.

On we went to a talk on the Sami. It seems these people, formerly known as Lapps, were treated harshly by the Norwegian government. Nomadic people, spreading across the whole of the north of Scandinavia across Norway, Sweden, Finland & Russia, the Norwegian government attempted to tie them down & become more Norwegian. It is only today their language & culture has been allowed to thrive once more after being virtually eliminated. The curious thing about the Sami is that genetically the closest people they are related to are the Basques. Quite how this can be they have yet to work out.

So we went on to witch-hunting in Finnmark (the most northerly part of Norway). Between 1621 & 1692, around 91 women of Vardø (one of the ports we were visiting that day) were accused of witchcraft & died at the stake. Today the Stellneset Memorial is dedicated to their memory. As with witches everywhere at the time so many of the accused were simply old, ugly, poor, often with knowledge of herbal medicine. The tests were impossible to win e.g. thrown into a pond, if you floated it was the devil coming to the rescue, if you drowned it was too late to rescue you. So much of the accusations were based on rumours &/or greed/revenge seeking.

The next subject was “Coastal History”, predominantly about the fishing industry which was a principal part of the local economy. These days the great cod fishing expeditions have been replaced with fish farming.

The next day’s talk was related – “The Lofoten Fisheries”. This time we learnt about the purification of the cod liver oil they produced. Clearly this was in preparation for the southern crossing of the Arctic Circle the next day.

Only two talks remain. The first of these was entitled “Myths & Legends” in which we were told of trolls etc. Really it was just an excuse to tell us some traditional stories. The lecturer was a good story teller, putting much expression into his relating.

The final talk was longer, more like a full hour’s length. It was our lecturer’s favourite. The subject was “The Norwegian Polar Expedition”. It was essentially the tale of Nansen’s polar expedition in 1895-6.

All in all I was impressed by the standard of the talks. All in English. They provided a welcome bit of intellectual stimulation to the trip. They were all the more welcome as they broke my rather long afternoons with the Fox lying in the cabin being ill. Once he realised how good they were he increasingly got up just for the talks. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a cruise where the lectures have been so relevant & interesting. Even now pieces of information remain in my mind even though I didn’t make notes on them.