yeah norwegia!

[Ken Gargett]

i swear this is true. no names to protect both the innocents and the idiots.

on our first trip to cuba many years ago, we met a chap, an expat, involved in the industry living in havana. he was introduced to us as 'xxxx, a norwegian'.

one of our group immediately responded with 'good to meet you, xxx, how is life in norwegia?'.

sadly, it was not an attempt at humour. (one of our group was missing as, this being day two, he'd left his wallet and three grand in US$ on the back seat of a taxi and was hoping to find it - have you ever travelled with the keystone kops?). and believe me, this was far from the most embarassing thing he did that trip.

rob and i decided that "norwegia" must be the new zealand of the northern hemisphere (really sorry to everyone from norway but you had to be there).

i was reminded of all this when i saw the following article. seriously?

each to their own.

More than 20 per cent of Norwegians tuned in to watch a 12-hour extravaganza about firewood.

Norwegian wood fires up national spirit

A 12-hour Norwegian TV program about firewood strikes at the heart of the Norwegian soul, says Ole Jacob Risnes of the Norwegian Church Sydney.

OSLO, Norway: The TV program, on the topic of firewood, consisted mostly of people in parkas chatting and chopping in the woods and then eight hours of a fire burning in a fireplace. Yet no sooner had it begun, on prime time on Friday night, than the angry responses came pouring in.

"We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program," said Lars Mytting, whose best-selling book Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning inspired the broadcast. "Fifty per cent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down."

I couldn't go to bed because I was so excited.

He explained, "One thing that really divides Norway is bark."

''You can tell a lot about a person from his firewood stack'' ... Lars Mytting, whose best-selling book Solid Wood inspired the TV show. Photo: Kyrre Lien/The New York Times

One thing that does not divide Norway, apparently, is its love of discussing Norwegian wood. Nearly 1 million people, or 20 per cent of the population, tuned in at some point to the program, which aired on the state broadcaster, NRK.

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In a country where 1.2 million households have fireplaces or wood stoves, said Rune Moeklebust, NRK's head of programs in the west coast city of Bergen, the subject naturally lends itself to television,

"My first thought was, 'Well, why not make a TV series about firewood?"' Moeklebust said. "And that eventually cut down to a 12-hour show, with four hours of ordinary produced television, and then eight hours of showing a fireplace live."

Viewers offered advice through Facebook ... a screenshot from National Firewood Night. Photo: Courtesy Lars Mytting

There is no question that it is a popular topic. Solid Wood spent more than a year on the non-fiction best-seller list in Norway. Sales so far have exceeded 150,000 copies not far below the figures for E.L. James' Norwegian version of Fifty Shades of Grey, proof that thrills come in many forms.

National Firewood Night, as Friday's program was called, opened with the host, Rebecca Nedregotten Strand, promising to "try to get to the core of Norwegian firewood culture — because firewood is the foundation of our lives".

Various people discussed its historical and personal significance. "We'll be sawing, we'll be splitting, we'll be stacking and we'll be burning," Nedregotten Strand said.

But the real excitement came when the action moved, four hours later, to a fireplace in a Bergen farmhouse - the fire on National Firewood Night burned all night long, in suspensefully unscripted configurations. Fresh wood was added through the hours by an NRK photographer named Ingrid Tangstad Hatlevoll, aided by viewers who sent advice via Facebook on where exactly to place it .

For most of the time, the only sound came from the fire. Hatlevoli's face never appeared on screen, but occasionally her hands could be seen putting logs in the fireplace, or cooking sausages and marshmallows on sticks.

"I couldn't go to bed because I was so excited," a viewer called niesa36 said on the Dagbladet newspaper website. "When will they add new logs? Just before I managed to tear myself away, they must have opened the flue a little, because just then the flames shot a little higher.

"I'm not being ironic," the viewer continued. "For some reason, this broadcast was very calming and very exciting at the same time."

To be fair, the program was not universally acclaimed. On Twitter, a viewer named Andre Ulveseter said: "Went to throw a log on the fire, got mixed up, and smashed it right into the TV."

But Derek Miller, an expatriate American and author of the novel Norwegian by Night, said the broadcast appealed to Norwegians' nostalgia for a simpler time as well as demonstrating the importance of firewood in their lives.

"The sense of creating warmth, both symbolically and literally, to share conversation, to share food, to share silence, is essential to the Norwegian identity," he said in an interview.

Solid Wood, the title of Mytting's book, has a double meaning in Norwegian, signifying also a person with a strong, dependable character. Its publication appears to have given older Norwegian men, a traditionally taciturn group, permission to reveal their deepest thoughts while seemingly discussing firewood. In this way they are akin to passionate fishermen roused from monosyllabic interludes by topics like which fly to use and how to really understand what a trout is thinking.

"What I've learned is that you should not ask a Norwegian what he likes about firewood, but how he does it — because that's the way he reveals himself," said Mytting. "You can tell a lot about a person from his firewood stack."

The book has proved particularly popular as a gift for hard-to-shop-for men.

"People buy it for their dads, their uncles — 'I don't know what to get him, but he has always liked wood,"' said William Jerde, a clerk at the Tanum bookstore in downtown Oslo.

Tobias Sederholm, a clerk in a different store, said that one customer came in after Christmas having received copies from seven different family members.

Petter Nissen-Lie, 44, a lawyer in Oslo who every morning before breakfast lights a fire with wood he has chopped himself, said he understood perfectly what all the fuss was about.

The other day, he said, one of his three axes broke at his vacation home in the mountains, and he took it back to the store where he had bought it a decade earlier. When he tried to pay for repairs, he said, the storekeeper declared that "this sort of thing should not happen to our axe," and insisted on doing it free.

"It was very important for this man to carry quality axes," Nissen-Lie said.

Where does Nissen-Lie stand on the important bark-in-the-woodpile question?

"I like to have the bark facing down," he explained, in summary. "That's the way I learned from my grandfather, and I believe it's drier that way. But I respect that there are different ways to do it — and basically the most important thing is how much air you leave around the logs."

The New York Times

[dangolf18]

I guess Norwegians don't believe in "spare the air" days lol.

[Hohenthal]

Be fair -

just think of the climate, a long winter with temperatures dropping to - 40 C

just makes both quantity and quality of firewood a matter of survival, it's as simple as that.

Living in Austria, where Winters can also be too long

(I remember one seaon we were covered in snow from November to mid May)

but by far less severe (around minus 20C is about as low as it gets)

I can tell you that the quality of wood and how you store it has a tremendous effect

on the heating qualities and therefore the sustainability of firewood.

Yes, we do use central heating in Alpine countries - not sure about countryside Norway though.

Probably not.

Long story short: if your wood supply expires before winter does, you are dead.

I guess that's difficult to imagine if you live in a country where most of your "winters"

are just about the equivalent of summers elsewhere...

Cheers, Alex

[mazolaman]

Interesting reading Ken, I could have done with story while traveling through Hungaria.......

I found Norway to be one of the most staunchly traditional countries I've been to, so I'm not surprised to see this.

As Alexandro says, it stems from the times when you were dead in mid winter without a good, well dried, log pile....and still everyboby has them, side of the house, middle of a field....in a timed rotation.

I love the fire cam, and the advice of where to put the log.....

My father and I used to squable about whether we needed a drier or wetter log on next...or a bit of coal...it's a contentious issue.

I'd still rather watch this than most crap on tv, do I need to know whether Shelley the plasticised model will go out with Steve, the amatuer footballer..? I'd rather watch logs burn.

[Ken Gargett]

Be fair -

just think of the climate, a long winter with temperatures dropping to - 40 C

just makes both quantity and quality of firewood a matter of survival, it's as simple as that.

Living in Austria, where Winters can also be too long

(I remember one seaon we were covered in snow from November to mid May)

but by far less severe (around minus 20C is about as low as it gets)

I can tell you that the quality of wood and how you store it has a tremendous effect

on the heating qualities and therefore the sustainability of firewood.

Yes, we do use central heating in Alpine countries - not sure about countryside Norway though.

Probably not.

Long story short: if your wood supply expires before winter does, you are dead.

I guess that's difficult to imagine if you live in a country where most of your "winters"

are just about the equivalent of summers elsewhere...

Cheers, Alex

i did say 'each to their own'.

i still don't understand why all nations are not locked to the tv for any cricket test - it is only five days and there are normally only three to five of them a series. what is not to love?

actually, as a kid, i remember my utter and total shock when i dioscovered that my dad and the rest of the nation had to go to work on a test day. that was the moment i realised that the planet did not make sense.

[mazolaman]

i did say 'each to their own'.

i still don't understand why all nations are not locked to the tv for any cricket test - it is only five days and there are normally only three to five of them a series. what is not to love?

actually, as a kid, i remember my utter and total shock when i dioscovered that my dad and the rest of the nation had to go to work on a test day. that was the moment i realised that the planet did not make sense.

Agreed.

It's a violation of human rights.

[Fuzz]

That reminds me of the scene from National Lampoon's European Vacation, when the Griswolds are in England and nothing is on TV except a show about cheese making.

[canadianbeaver]

Matthew and I buy a bush cord of firewood every other year, stack it on the front porch and then re- stack it on either side of the fireplace every couple of weekends. I am the "pyrotechnical officer", which means I build the fires in the fireplace everyday.

I can totally relate to this story.

And the guys know when I don't like a cigar I chuck it in the fire.

[CaptainQuintero]

I read this on yahoo a few days ago lol, even though I nearly took a cheese grater to my teeth from the sheer mind-numbing story, it make me smile about how each country has some crazy obsession: English=the weather, Sweden=pickled fish etc etc

[headstand]

I kinda think its a great read and a fun story. I remember fondly the hours spent cutting, chopping, stacking at the cottage in northern Ontario. Hmm the smell of burning birch bark - nothing like it.

Ps. Bottom row: bark down as a barrier from ground moisture. The rest: bark up to shingle the rain away. Of course you could get fancy and build a shelter - but then you would be, well, getting fancy.

[Trevor2118]

What's wrong with having a few sticks of wood around the house?

[headstand]

beauty Trevor

[stargazer14]

to listen to while reading this thread.

[tempbond]

Even though I really don't get this "wood fanatism", I'd watch this show anyday over Honey Boo Boo...

[Zacapa]

Have you actually watched Honey Boo Boo Temp? That family, with all its problems and disfunction and lewd behavior, is so full of love. I speak only for myself when I say I wish my family loved each other unconditionally and as much as theirs do.

Oh Shlomo youre scaring me!! How did you end up watching so much Honey Boo Boo that you made it through the layers of redneck and bumpkin to get to the warm loving core?!?!

[dangolf18]

What the hell is Honey Boo Boo?

[Ken Gargett]

a 12 hour tv programme on stacking wood in norway to rednecks to something or someone called honey boo boo (please tell me it also involves someone called yogi?).

you have to love this forum!

[Fuzz]

I had to Google what the heck a Honey Boo Boo was.... now I wish I didn't...

[Hohenthal]

What's wrong with having a few sticks of wood around the house?

I love it!

[Ken Gargett]

I had to Google what the heck a Honey Boo Boo was.... now I wish I didn't...

i am desparately hoping to live the rest of mine life blissfully unaware as to what a honey boo boo is.

[jedipastor]

haha, Ken maybe you haven't lived for a prolonged period in a harsh climate. If it weren't for burning trees, Scandinavians would have died out long ago. Why do you think the Vikings spent most of the year pillaging other places? Snow for 8 months a year sucks, lol.

[Ophidion]

I'm engaged to a Norwegian. My coffee cup even says "god help me I married a Norwegian".

She loves the outdoors and she always criticizes my fire building skills even though I build a damn good fire. This explains it all.

[sengjc]

I wouldn't knock the Norwegians, mate. One of the richest countries in the world from all the petroleum, natural gas and minerals. Their GDP per capita is one of the highest in the world.

Being born a Norwegian is like winning the lottery.