Holmenkollen weekend 9/3-11/3

On the weekend of the 9th of March our class went to Oslo to experience Norway’s greatest skiing festival at Holmenkollen. This weekend was all about experiencing and learning about the Norwegian culture and society in respect to outdoor and the Norwegian’s love for winter sports. Holmenkollen ski fest takes place in March every year and is especially well-known for its ski-jump, and the cross-country skiing and biathlon races. Typically thousands of Norwegians gather around in the forest to watch the races along the skiing tracks and cheer for their champions.

Day 1 (09/03)

On the first day we drove to Oslo to first visit the Fram Museum before heading to the ski festival itself. The Fram Museum is called after the famous wooden vessel, the ‘Fram’. Both Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen took turns in exploring new areas with this vessel. The museum particularly honours both man as they managed to travel all the way to the Arctic and Antarctic, undertaking an expedition where the Fram spent three years trapped in the ice. The museum primarily focuses on the Fram, and Nansen and Amundsen’s expeditions. Interestingly, the original interior is still intact, allowing the visitors of the museum to go inside the ship and explore it. Yet the museum also exhibits images of the Inuit, the Arctic’s flora and fauna, and other polar related stories (e.g. letter from Nansen, Amundsen and other explorers, and the equipment they used during their expeditions etc.). After we visited the museum we drove up to the Holmenkollen area, parked our cars uphill and walked into the direction of the forest and the tracks. As it was already dark by the time that we arrived, we collectively decided to set up camp at the closest and most spacious possible location (later we would find out the consequences of that). It was already around 19:00 when we started to unpack bags/equipment, and started digging snow way around the area with our shovels. A learning outcome here was that it took us way longer than expected to dig away the snow and set up camp due to the large amount of deep snow, and the darkness which made it way more difficult for the group to assess the located area. Yet despite that it really felt that we came prepared as a group, and worked along very sufficiently. After having settled down, cooked and unpacked we decided to walk around and explore all the different campsites. I was blown away by all the different campsites that popped up around every corner; each of them unique in their own way, and crowded with overly happy Norwegians celebrating the event.  Generous as Norwegians are in these kind of situations, we got invited to sit with them around the fire at almost every self-built campsite we came along. I can say that the first night already left me with a pretty good impression of the Norwegian (Holmenkollen) culture.

Day 2 (10/03)

We got woken up quite early since the Norwegians started playing music at their campsites around 08:00. We witnessed the most bizarre happening ever as soon as we crawled out of our tents. More than a thousand Norwegians were marching into the area, looking for a place to sit or stand along the tracks. They would all just cram themselves into the camping area, regardless of all the tents being pitched there.

[ This is basically what our campsite looked like on the day of the races ]

Our camping area got fuller and fuller by the minute so we decided to leave the forest after breakfast. The plan for today was to watch the cross-country skiing races and ski-jump at the Holmenkollen arena. Most of us thus decided to walk down to the arena to buy a ticket and spend most of the day watching the athletes in both skiing and jumping (see a map of the arena below).

After a fair amount of time, and after having seen the athletes, we went back to our camp, and immediately got overwhelmed by the increased amount of people as soon as we entered the terrain. There was barely any place to stand or sit. The Norwegians were going completely out of their minds, they were parading around, drinking alcohol and cheering for their champions. Us being international student not familiar with the culture at Holmenkollen were all in complete awe most of the time. That afternoon, and the night itself were both a very interesting experience, but most of all: lots of fun. We got in touch with a lot of Norwegians, we learned more about the annual excitement around the Holmenkollen festival, and had a blast sitting around the campfire at night.

Day 3 (11/03)

On the last day we woke up to a surprisingly abandoned camping area. All the Norwegian seemed to have left late night or early morning, despite the fact that on this day there were still the women’s ski races. The group decided to pack up camp before noon as we were heading back to Kristiansand that day. After packing our bags we cleaned up the area by putting garbage into these big bin bags and taking stuff from the campsite back to the cars (we were not the only ones scavenging that morning; couple of Norwegians joined in to collect things as well). The group split up in three, and me, Jo(hanna), Sam, Marijn and Jed decided to stop in Oslo before we were headed back for Kristiansand. We walked around in the city centre and stopped to have a look at the Royal Palace. It snowed heavily when we were walking. and decided to get back to the car late noon as we still had to drive back to Kristiansand for four hours.

Learning outcomes

Personally I learned quite a lot about the polar expeditions and how it is so strongly related to the Norwegian culture. How Norwegian culture is built around polar explorers like Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen, and how this closely resonates with the popularity of skiing and cross-country skiing in Norway nowadays. Other than that, I learned a lot about young Norwegians and how wasteful they are in regards to popular events like Holmenkollen. Especially since Norwegians are well-known for their outdoor life and cultural maintenance. To then see these Norwegians drink and waste so much at a national event such as Holmenkollen can be considered to be quite shocking (i.e. especially in regards to Norway’s strict rules in regards to alcohol tolerance). Other than that, I must say that I am glad to have experienced the Holmenkollen Skifest as it does show both the beauty and the flaws of Norwegian culture.