Tough Sledding in Stavanger
Story and Photos by Frank Mazer

he’s shouting into the night. She’s running downhill. Snow is falling gently. The only lights are those glowing in the wooden homes along the snow covered street which tips down and away steeply in front of her in the dark of the early evening. A Norwegian winter evening. In suburban Stavanger, on the South coast near the North Sea. I can see her dilemma. With urgency, I take off running from behind her. Slip sliding in the snow.

She’s chasing the little sled. On it is her little two year old son happily wrapped in a big snowsuit. He looks back over his shoulder smiling with a child’s delight in his eyes. I see beyond him as he picks up speed in a frightful demonstration of gravity, snow, and lack of friction. 200 meters beyond him sits the bottom of the dark, snow-covered street where there are boulders marking the end of the of the way and a dark ominous ocean fjord lying just beyond the boulders.

I live here. I don’t know her. But I do now. So how did we both come to this place? I’m walking around the corner at the top of the hill taking deep breaths of the tasty fresh Norwegian air while I look down at the fjord lit up here and there by the lights of homes on its shore. Then I see a mom and child ahead of me at the hill top. No traffic anywhere around here. Just Norwegian delight.

Ahead of me she gives the sled a tiny nudge to get it going downhill. Clearly her intention is to walk downhill next to it. The best of intentions lost in a flurry. Such is life. The sled lurches forward and takes off downhill. Initially, it glides slowly enough that the mom can trot just a meter behind it. Then she slips, her feet spinning like a cartoon character, and next, the little sled is accelerating with amazing rapidity.

There are two cars parked at the bottom of the hill on the left side. The same side the sled is traveling on. We both can see that the sled is destined to engage the parked cars on its current course. I speed past her in a desperate downhill headlong dash while attempting to retain a semblance of balance. Her cries are muffled in the snow behind me, “Alf Jakob, Alf –Jakob,” her voice calls into the falling snow. I hear the baby giggling with glee. I am not gaining on him. The sled is fleeing farther from me.

Stavanger has natural beauty beyond belief. It’s a gateway to the fjords. A city of culture. Home of one of the best schools in the world, as I can testify to for having taught at the international school there for years among its friendly, motivated students and staff from all over America and the world. Education as it should be. Could be. Here I am. One moment walking home from work. The next moment joining a scenario of gravity, sled and car, slowly unraveling like a bad dream.

I keep running and stumbling in the snow. He slides, lighting up the night with his spirited laugh. From behind the sled I can now see his head is on a level with the bumper of the first parked car and the sled is making a beeline for it. I prepare to make a head-long dive of desperation to grab the sled in a similar fashion to an NFL football defensive back making a dive of futility from behind the running back who is strutting into the end zone ahead of him. Then, a few meters away from the car, it happens.

The sled, for no apparent reason, veers to the right of the car, then straightens and goes right past it, carrying its joyful cargo on its back. The sled slows to a stop all on its own just before the boulders. With my feet churning and snow flying I come to an inglorious halt as the child turns around laughing with glee. Mother arrives breathless and sobbing. I stand dumb-founded.

She is thanking me in Norwegian for my attempt at a good deed. She is kneeling down cradling her smiling little one while speaking his name between tears. I wait a moment to make sure all is ok in this Norwegian night. I find myself wondering about the twists and turns of life beyond our control. Lesson learned as I walk the 50 meters along the path to the left which leads to the home where I live with my (wonderful) adopted Norwegian family.

I recall being told once to be aware of this “kinder, gentler” place. This place called Norway. This town called Stavanger. This was confirmed upon seeing the strollers with little children seated in them, parked outside of shops, unattended. No fear lurking. Only smiles from passersby. And humility, too, is a cherished commodity along with kindness.

As I sit down in the warmth of the family home I am reminded of a warmer running excursion. It’s summer. I am testing my fitness by running the five miles on the trail around the Stokka Lake near downtown. Through the woods. Up hills. Down hills. Past small waterfalls. Visions of glaciers in the distance. I am feeling fit and fast. My pace is rapid. Especially for an “old-fellow,” over 45 being “ancient” by most younger perspectives. Humility, Norwegian style, soon follows. I suddenly sense, here amid the forest path with the lake to my right, breathing coming from behind me. A pack of five women runners, clearly Norwegian by their look, some with grey hair, all wearing tights and moving fluidly, scoot past me and disappear ahead around the next twist in the path through the woods. I am feeling as if I should be wearing a tortoise costume. It occurs to me, are there tortoises in Norway?

Norway. A land of fitness, beauty, kindness, glaciers, old villages and modern cities. A land, from head to toe longer than the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles, filled with magnificent scenery all along the way. Winter nights and Northern Lights, and summer days for standing on the side of fjords at places such as Prekestolen near Stavanger. If you visit, be sure to greet the hills with a laugh, beware of snow, sleds, and gravity, and most of all, be ready to have your breath taken away by it all.