Villmarksmessen

Yesterday I went with Thomas to Villmarksmessen, reputedly Norway's biggest outdoor exhibition, now in its 30th year. Norway has such a massive focus on the outdoors, with 700,000 of it's 5 million population being members of some sort of outdoors organisation. A big focus of the exhibition was on hunting and fishing although I'm not sure how hiking and backpacking for it's own sake could be represented other than gear stands. Instead it comes across as the means to an end (of an animals life).

Anyway, it was still exciting to enter the first of two large halls in the exhibition centre in Lillestrøm, the first stand I saw being Woolpower which has a decent following in Scandinavia, known for it's high quality ullfrotte wool - synthetic construction. I've been on the lookout for some Woolpower mittens, being a convert since using Thomas' on a walk months ago. Unfortunately they've been discontinued, which was quite a disappointment as they are super warm and the fit is so nice, so I guess I'll revert to eBay...
[Note that since I wrote this, Woolpower emailed me to say that their mittens are still being made and that the guys on the stand were wrong; happy days!]

After that we decided to just try to follow the grid system set up in the hall; next stop and bypassing the taxidermy stand (oops, a hunting stand) was the Bergans brand; rucksacks, clothing, rucksacks, a couple of sleeping bags and more rucksacks. We were interested to see how Bergans had adopted a few lightweight looking aspects to it's bag design, (reminiscent to me of the Osprey packs); looking at the Skarstind 40L, it felt reasonably light for an internal frame pack (1.25kg) and was quite a departure from the monster load luggers Bergans is known for. It's still not what I would prefer to carry, but a move in the right direction.


The next stand that made us stop was for Lånan, where a beautiful lady (Hildegunn I think) spoke with Thomas about how she continues a traditional practice of harvesting shed eiderdown by hand. The company is named after the island it all happens on, part of the Vega archipelago, 30km from the main Vega island and now part of UNESCO's World Heritage List. What had attracted me was first of all the lovely pine basket full of down, but then Thomas quickly pointed out a pair of Edderdunsvotter, or mittens with an eiderdown fill. Trying them on they were toasty and very light.

Almost next door though was the highlight for me; visiting one of the unassuming bushcraft stands towards the back of the hall. So unassuming in fact that I didn't get it's name and trying to trace it from the exhibitor plan equally successful. I admired the birch and pine crafted baskets, backpacks and cups when a lovely lady from the stand spoken to me in Norwegian - too fast for me to understand - and then asked her partner to show me how to make one. He very deftly showed how the sheet of birch was folded across the grain, then pinched on itself as a crease was made. Then snipping with an unbushcraftlike pair of scissors to round off the shape and lodging the cup into shape with a short twig. I was most impressed. I asked him in Norwegian (go, me) how long he had been making these, and of course, he'd been doing it since he was a boy. More than the bushcraft aspects, I was struck by how lovely and open these two people were, how willing to share information and to encourage people to learn. I'm not sure I would rely on my cup making skills if I found myself out in the woods tomorrow; but there is a glimmer of a spark of wanting to have a go that I think I will flame.

After crawling around the lightweight tents on the Helsport stand followed by an extortionately expensive hamburger but without the taste to match, we circled the hall and into the next one via a visit to the alpakkas (not the packrafting variety though). Inside there were a couple of representations from Sami people, in their traditional dress and examples of lavvo and their wonderful handcrafted knives and sheaths. There was also a working dog corner with representatives from the Norsk Retriever Klubb (with a lovely Nova Scotia Duck Tolling dog and lots of Flat Coated Retrievers), as well as different varieties of setters and spaniels. It was nice to see how the spaniels hadn't been docked.

A surprise was to see Matt Hayes, the English fisherman, giving a talk on fishing in Norway. He's recently completed a show about this which is on the Norwegian Discovery Channel this week at 11pm every night. I only know about him through my Dad's love of fishing, so I couldn't resist emailing a photo of Matt to Dad and my brother to let them know I'd seen him. No Dad, I wont be taking up fishing! (Have a look at Matt's blog though; his photos of the Norwegian landscape are stunning!).



Like Norwegian waffles, all too soon good things come to an end and we had to head back to Oslo. Unless I'm hiking this time next year I would love to come back, but would hope for a bit more representation from the DNT and similar organisations - and, dare I say it, bloggers - who are more focussed on the hiking and backpacking side. We shall see!