I happened to be looking at a paper map of the world (kids, ask your parents) and I noticed that Norway – the whole freakin’ country – has this dotted line running through it marked “Arctic Circle.” Even famously gloomy Finland, where the three national moods are depression, violence and vodka, is mostly below that line. Hell, I bitch all the time about winter, and I live in the high desert where single digits on the positive side of the Fahrenheit scale is a cold night. I’d never voluntarily live in a real winter place like Norway – or Alaska, for that matter – though I admire the physical endurance of people who say they don’t mind it.
Why does anybody even live there? Do they need to be kept there with guns, I wonder?
To be sure, there are some aspects of the near-polar culture that might be hard to emulate elsewhere. Small Norwegian communities are tightly knit, and strong social ties increase well-being everywhere. That said, there are lessons that can help anyone think differently about cold weather.
First, Norwegians celebrate the things one can only do in winter. “People couldn’t wait for the ski season to start,” says Leibowitz. Getting outside is a known mood booster, and so Norwegians keep going outside, whatever is happening out there. Notes Leibowitz: “There’s a saying that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”
Norwegians also have a word, koselig, that means a sense of coziness. It’s like the best parts of Christmas, without all the stress. People light candles, light fires, drink warm beverages, and sit under fuzzy blankets. There’s a community aspect to it too; it’s not just an excuse to sit on the couch watching Netflix. Leibowitz reports that Tromsø had plenty of festivals and community activities creating the sense that everyone was in it together.
So, don’t be a hermit whose principal winter activity is bitching about winter. Got it.
I’m doomed.
Gulf Stream…
Also, don’t forget the saunas with all those cozy nekkid women (I guess it is a Finn concept but adopted across Skandinavia?)
My problem with Norway (I’m 1/4 Norwegian) is not the cold, but the socialism…
I almost feel like a traitor for saying this but as a Canadian I am not a fan of the cold having had frost bite twice through no fault of my own. In the winter where I live it can get really nasty. There are nights when it gets cold enough for frost quakes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryoseism I have to say that when one happens near ya you know it, the sound is like a gun shot.
As for: “People couldn’t wait for the ski season to start,” all I have to say is that cross country skiing is OK if you live in a small country. :^) As for me I will take a nice fire in the hearth and a hot Monte Cristo* any day of the week when it’s winter outside.
* In a coffee mug…
1 oz Kahlua® coffee liqueur
1/2 oz Grand Marnier orange liqueur
fill with hot coffee and add 1 1/2 oz whipped cream
I don’t believe a love of indigenous weather is a requirement of patriotism, MJR. Though living in Canada, a deep and personal love of cold would be a big help.
I was born and raised in Michigan, and there’s not a single winter sport I ever cared for. The only thing I never got dragged into at some point was downhill skiing, which always struck me as one of the dumbest, most pointless and least comfortable ways to break bones I ever encountered. Yet some people like it, or say they do. Go figure.
Joel a few friends who live up in Thunder Bay consider where I live (South/Central Ontario) to be in the banana belt. One friend is actually “proud” of the fact that in February he can boil water, take the pot outside; toss the water from the pot and before it reaches the ground it’s frozen. That’s nuts, give me a nice fire in a hearth any day.
About winter sports, I usually get dragged out once or twice a week (bitching and complaining) by my wife to snow shoe around the back forty. I used to cross country ski but never would I do down hill.These old bones are a little to brittle and gravity is a bitch.
The only redeeming quality cold weather offers me is ice fishing, primarily because it’s the only kind of fishing that keeps the beer cold. And go ahead and bitch about the cold weather-that’s one of the reasons we’re here.
Cold can be fun. We made ice towers by tossing water in the air in Fairbanks.
http://www.projectgnap.org/doug/alaskanalpineclub.com/IceTower/07-08IceTower4.html
Um, there was a sauna at home. I like winter.