• Nynorsk
  • English

Universitetet i bergen logoUniversity of Bergen

Search form

Search form

Spring herring fishery at Espevær in the 1850s

A True Gold Mine

14.03.2023 - 10:32

Steinsdalen i Kvam i Catharina Kølles strek

Earth and stone

27.05.2019 - 14:00

"Humus" is a word with great meaning. It is the soil we live from, in addition to the resources we get from the ocean. This layer of earth - sometimes appearing as loose fertile organic matter; other places as scanty and acidic soil - is found in varying thicknesses over the bedrock. It is the result of 10,000 years of breakdown and erosion following the last ice age, and then several thousand years of cultivation in more recent times. The soil we can buy at the garden centre is a different product than the "natural" humus layer, formed of processes occurring far under the earth's surface. If you dig your spade into the soil where it has not been ploughed before, you will see that there is a big difference in colour, soil structure, moisture and stone content. We might say that the soil is fertile and easily worked some places, whereas other places folk might have given up trying to grow anything on their small patches of land, which then become overgrown with birch and thicket. Modern agriculture does not have room for small stumps between the piles of stone. Nowadays, machines do the job, and they require a lot of space and flat ground.

A deciduous forest slop with Bear’s garlic.

From Dense Forest to Open Heathlands

15.05.2018 - 14:06

The outer frame - the coast, the fjord and the mountains - are an inheritance from the country's geological history. But what, more than anything else, gives the scene colour and excitement is the plant life.

A Hardanger sloop in full sail on the Trøndelag coast.

Sailing Sloops and Boat Building

21.11.2018 - 19:47

Marine activities expanded greatly throughout the 19th century, and provided a livelihood for many people. Fishing and shipping were probably the subsidiary activities which had greatest economic significance throughout the century. Marine activities brought, literally speaking, wind into the sails of many rural districts in Hordaland during that period.

The Byrkjeland saw on Vikøy in Kvam in 1912

The Pine Forest, the Sash Saw and the Scots Trade

19.05.2018 - 12:13

The second Hotel Hardanger in Odda was built in 1896.

The Tourists, the Landscape and the Fantasy Hotels

19.05.2018 - 12:14

Tourist travel in western Norway experienced its great breakthrough with the regular scheduled steamship traffic.

Alfred Søvik from Lysefjorden

The Wooden Boat

15.05.2018 - 14:01

Craftsmanship through two thousand years

Kiste måla i 1834 av Bjørn Bjaalid

Vernacular arts and crafts

15.05.2018 - 13:57