Last Day in the Arctic

Today was my last day at FabLab Norway; tomorrow, I fly to Oslo to continue my summer adventure. Fittingly, tonight the sun will go down for the first time since mid-May.

We've had quite a few gorgeous days these last coupla weeks, including a real stunner on Sunday when we were out camping (I'll devote a post to that trip this week, once I've sorted through all the pictures).

Tonight, we had a real American Farewell BBQ with hamburgers, potato salad, and potato chips. I'm going to miss this crew; it's been a really sweet month and a half working on projects and exploring the Lyngen Alps. I hope to come back sometime with the whole family; maybe in the winter when we can strap on some skis and gaze at the polar lights.

I've spent a lot of time this last week on the ShopBot, cutting out parts for a viking ship chandelier that will hang over the conference table in the lab (I'll devote a post to that project as well). The machine is out in the barn at the farm across the street.

This sheep liked to hang in the barn and guard the ShopBot. Most of the rest of the 85 or so of Jorgen's sheep roam around at the base of the mountains, but a few are homebodies. There are also several Lyngen horses on the farm, the local breed of short and stocky mountain horses. While I've been here, two camp sessions have seen the farm overrun with little girls who stay in a dorm above the barn and spend most of the day out riding. They seem to have a lot of fun.

This labyrinth dates from the Iron Age, and was moved to its current spot on the farm from its original site, which is where the lab now stands. There have been a few excavations on the Polleidet over the years, and Haakon has his own little museum attached to the barn.

The oldest building on the farm dates from the late 18th century, and is a tiny 2-room cabin which is now used as a sauna. Unfortunately, one of the attendees at the Climate Conference cooked the hot tub dry and burned a hole in the wooden tub the week before I showed up. Bummer.

The sauna is a log building, as are most of the buildings on the farm and at the lab. These logs are about 4X6, and obviously hand cut and fitted. The chinks are stuffed with wool.

Many of the newer buildings are made with machine cut logs. When you want to build a new building, you call up the lumber yard and give them your exterior dimensions; a few weeks later, a truck drops off your lincoln logs and you get to assemble them into a house. Pretty cool. All the local building suppliers also have premade log sheds out front for purchase (like the plastic ones we have at Home Depot, only without all of the suck). The logs in this house are about 5X8.

The lab is built on an entirely different scale than the other buildings, and is made of logs that are around 12X18 inches. That is biggish. The logs are planed with a machine, then fit by hand using axes. The geometry of these corners is really great, as the logs are flat-faced with round corners along their length, but shaped into hexagons at the joints. Apparently the master log builder is a young German guy. Very impressive.

Off to sleep; big day tomorrow.