In September 2003 a group of ITS members visited Luster. A part of their itenerary was a roundtrip from Solvorn through Gaupne, Skjolden, Urnes Stave Church, and then across the fjord to Solvorn again. Morten Simonsen from Luster Travel Board was their guide. The group expressed interest in his manuscript, so here it is. Please feel free to use it for information purposes.

Welcome to Luster

Luster lies where the Sognefjord, the longest fjord in the world, meets the Jostedal glacier and the mountain range of Jotunheimen. The Luster municipality belongs to the biggest municipalities in Southern Norway when compared by area. The municipality represents a fascinating part of Norway. It is a miniature picture of south-western Norway,with spellbound fjords, foaming waterfalls, blue glaciers and lush valleys. The approximate 5000 inhabitants live from agriculture, cultivating berries and fruits, industry, production of hydroelectric power,tourism as well as private and public service production. The tourism has its peak season during the high summer. The Nigard glacier in Jostedal has 50 000 visitors each year. The one able to choose will find the spring and autumn just as impressing and adventurous - but it is a lot quieter. The green, lush spring in Luster is especially beautiful when the contrasts in nature are at their peak: Fruit trees in blossom against lush valleys, blue glaciers and snowcapped mountains. Skiing in spring is very popular,especially on the Jostedal glacier plateau. In Norway the wilderness is state property, there is no private property in the wilderness or in the mountains and everybody has a right to hike and roam in the wilderness.

• In Luster you can find the longest fjord in the world, the greatest glacier on the European mainland, the most alpine mountains in Northern Europe, rivers full of waters and one of the highest waterfalls in Norway. The scenery in Luster offer many contrasts, from fertile fields to barren high mountain scenery in the vicinity of the glaciers.
• Luster offers many possibilities for hiking. You can make lighter family tours as well as more demanding peak climbing. Paths in the mountains are marked with signs so that it is easy to find one's way.

• Urnes was during the Middle Ages seat for the gentry and noblemen in the area.
• In the 13th century Urnes was the greatest farm in Sogn, and towards the end of the 14th century probably one of the greatest seats for the whole nobility in Norway. Up until 1773 Urnes was a nobility seat until the catholic bishop in Bergen bought the farm. Later his daughter took over and she married the priest Jens Bugge from Leikanger. By and by the farm was divided into smaller farms.
• Urnes farm today is the same as the former nobility seat in Urnes.
• Urnes is the oldest stave church in Norway. Stave churches are a special building style used during the Middle Ages in Norway. Urnes church is built upon parts of an even older church, something the rich decorated north portal is a witness of.
• The wood used in the north portal dates back to 1050, and the decoration has given origin to the Urnes style.
• Urnes is the only stave church listed on the World Heritage List from the United Nations. This list contains some of the greatest buildings ever created by man, such as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Castle in Versailles in France and cathedrals in Europe.
• Most of the oldest Norwegian stave churches were stave churches. Tree was the natural building material in these times,and Norway had in the Middle Ages lots of this material.
• There is about 29 stave churches in Norway today. Urnes is the oldest among these.
• The wooden church of Urnes stands in the natural setting of Sogn og Fjordane. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is an outstanding example of traditional Scandinavian wooden architecture. It brings together traces of Celtic art, Viking traditions and Romanesque spatial structures.
• The oldest church that we know of in Norway was discovered through an archaeological excavation under the floor in the church currently standing in Urnes.
• Traces of a wooden church with poles sunk in holes in the earth have been found. Later another church was built upon the old with rich decorated wall paintings. Large parts of the material from the original standing church was reused in the new church which dates back to around year 1130.

• The glacier is a dangerous neighbour; it creates harsh living conditions for those who live closest to it. The glacier brings with it a cold climate with great amounts of snow each year. As one can easily imagine, the conditions for agriculture are not the most favourable in such an environment. Astonishingly though, the areas closest to the glacier have excellent conditions for growing grass as food for domestic animals. This is due to the fact that sediments from the glacier in forms of gravel and sand leave the earth more fertile than it would have been without these sediments. This is because sediments from the glacier contain minerals that benefit the fertility of the earth. In areas close to the glacier the earth will be more pristine because of the glacial activity, which means that the earth will be less contaminated by use of fertilizers and other chemicals used in modern agriculture.

• The flood in 1979 was the biggest flood in the history of Jostedal. In Myklemyr, the water rose about 5 meters in 16 hours. Because the valley is formed like a funnel, narrower the farther away from the glacier one travels, the effect of the flood was greatest in the narrower parts of the valley closest to the fjord. The flood destroyed most bridges in the valley, and the valley was isolated for several weeks. Groceries were transported into the valley by helicopter. Nobody was hurt during the flood, which is quite incredible considering the amount of water and the speed with which the flood swept through the valley.
• The period around 1750 is called the "little ice age" in Jostedal. Suddenly, without any warning, the glacier started to surge violently forward. The Nigard glacier arm reached a point about 5 km from where it is today. In other word, the glacier has receded 5 km in around 250 years. Currently the glacier is on the move forwards again, the reason for this is rather obscure. One theory is hat climate changes around the globe contribute to excessive precipitation in the western part of Norway. More precipitation of course means more snow in the glacier areas, so that over time climate changes leads to growing glaciers in this part of the world.
• Snow avalanches are quite common in Jostedal. Because these avalanches tend to follow the same tracks or routes from year to year, they carry little threat to people in the valley. Avalanches can, however, cause considerable damage if they hit the road going through the valley. Avalanches were a greater threat some 50-100 years ago when the population was bigger so that every possible piece of cultivated land had to be taken into use for feeding everybody.

• People in Jostedal have always used the glacier as a transport mean. Before the road to Gaupne was build in the 1890's the easiest route in order to get commodities like grain and fish was to walk over the glacier to Nordfjord. When bad weather hit Jostedal the route over the glacier was the lifeline for people living in the valley.
• Intermarriage between people from different sides of the glacier was quite common. Quite a lot of people in Jostedal have ancestors in the Nordfjord area. Even the dialect or accent spoken in Jostedal has more in common with the one in Nordfjord than with accents spoken by the Sognefjord. This is even today a characteristic feature of everyday life in Jostedal.

• Some 50-100 years people in Jostedal made a living of buying cattle in Nordfjord, bringing them over the glacier for grazing in the lush valleys along the glacier on the Jostedal side before taking them further towards the markets in Oslo or other places in central eastern Norway.
• Cattle caravans over the glacier could contain as much as 200 cattle along with 10-15 horses. Each man in the caravan had to look after 6-7 animals. The caravans started around mid-summer when the ice was still solid enough to carry the animals. Later on in the summer the ice would melt too much to be suited for this kind of transport. The caravans started around 2 o'clock in the afternoon from the Nordfjord side so that one could use the lower temperatures during the night for better ice quality. Remember that summer nights in Norway are all bright; there is hardly any darkness to speak about this far north at that time of the year.
• According to one story, a caravan reached one of the glacier arms in Jostedal too late in the summer for the ice to sustain the cows. The "cowboys" had no other options than to sled the cows on their back down the glacier arm because otherwise the cows would fall through the ice.

• The pioneers visiting Jostedal in earlier times have given us valuable expressions of their encounter with the grand forces of nature.
• The English geologist James Forbes visited Jostedal in 1815. He claimed: "This is the one Norwegian valley that is truly compatible with Switzerland"
• The Norwegian bishop Neumann saw the Nigard glacier in 1823 and claimed: "Never have I with deeper and holier sentiments worshiped God and his creations. A mass of ice sheet amidst rolling waves magically reminds me of a frozen sea".
• The German geologist Leopold von Buch in 1806: "In Krondalen (a side valley to the main Jostedal valley), the glacier arms looked like a white carpet falling right out of the sky".
• Godfred Bohr was a Danish teacher who was one of the first human beings to climb Lodalskåpa, which is the highest mountain on the glacier plateau: "The whole nature was deserted and encompassed in deadly silence and quietness. The soul was penetrated by a sad feeling for the perishableness of material forms, but it is raised by an extraordinary feeling of nature's grandness".
• William Cecil Slingsby was a British pioneer in climbing and mountain sport. Standing before the Austerdal glacier arm in Veitastrond he claimed: " This is the finest ice scenery in Europe".
• Kristian Bing was a lawyer from Bergen who was a pioneer in mountain sport in Norway in the 18'Th century. Once he climbed the Bergseth glacier arm in Krundalen, which is very steep and inaccessible. The glacier arm raises about 100 meter straight up with a lot of crevasses and it is a dangerous adventure to climb it. Bing had got a local farmer, Anders Grov, to guide him to the top of the glacier. During the ascension Grov got terrified and fell down on his two feet begging Mr. Bing to turn back referring to his wife and five children. Mr. Bind was in no mood to turn back so he looked straight into Mr. Grov's eyes and said: "Oh shut up, I got an old aunt too." They reached the top.
• Not everyone felt devoted to the forces of nature when seeing the glacier and its surroundings. The Danish scientist Gustav Blom said in 1823:" I travelled the valley from one end to the other, I climbed the glacier and looked attentively for anything that could reconcile me with this awful place, but of graciousness I found nothing, of majestic natural beauty something, but of horrors plenty

• The Black Plague was a great disease in Europe in the Medieval Ages. It reached Bergen, a central trading city in Norway, with a ship around 1350. It spread quickly even to remote places. In Jostedal people tried to isolate themselves from the outside world by limiting communication by means of writing letters delivered at special designed places. But the strategy failed and according to an old story everybody eventually died from the disease. That is, everybody except a little girl. She survived along with wild animals until she was found about a year later by visiting farmers from the other side of the mountains. These farmers had seen cows from Jostedal gone astray and wondered about what was happening in the valley. There were also rumours in neighbouring valleys about everybody in Jostedal being wiped out by the disease. The visiting farmers captured the little girl as she tried to run away from them. All she was able to say was "Mother - little bird". They named her the Jostedal Ptarmigan and brought her back to civilization. According to the story she is the original mother for everybody currently living in Jostedal.

• The Jostedal glacier is about 480 km² big. It is the biggest glacier on the European main land. There is a glacier on Iceland, Vatnajøkull, which is considerably bigger. The glacier is as big as Andorra, the little country between France and Spain, or Barbados, the island in the Caribbean. The Isle Of Man, which of course belonged to Norway until 1266, is a little bigger, about 572 km². It has 70.000 inhabitants. The Sheffield metropolitan area has an area of about 370km² with a population of about half a million people.
• The glacier is situated in the Luster municipality, which is almost as big as Rhode Island. Luster has almost 5000 inhabitants. In comparison, Rhode Island has about 1 million inhabitants. Luxembourg has an area of 2500 km² and a population of 450 000. Greater London metropolitan area has an area of about 1700 km² (60% of the area in Luster) and the area has a population of almost 6,7 million people.
• The Jostedal glacier is 75 km (45 miles) long and up to 35 km (22 miles) wide. It has a depth of around 600 meter at it's deepest. The Jostedal glacier has grown about 10 km² in the last 5 years; this represents a growth rate of about 2% of the total glacial area.
• The highest mountain on the glacier is Lodalskåpa, which reaches approximately 2000 meter above sea level.
• The Swedish geologist Ahlmann has given a popular definition of a glacier: "A glacier is a mass of ice and snow which is situated inland and which is in constant movement." A glacier is a contiguous system of snow and ice, which receives more snow in one part of the system than it gives away in other parts. The accumulation and melting of snow and ice takes place in different seasons during the year. As long as the amount melting in summer is less than the amount delivered by precipitation during the winter the glacier will accumulate ice and grow.
• The glacier is in constant movement even if it looks as though it is lying still. The glacier is working as it moves, constantly releasing gravel, sand and rocks as it is sliding over the mountains underneath the glacier. When the glacier moves it is exposed to different forces. Some forces work in the length direction while other forces are pressing the glacier towards the underlying material. These opposing forces are creating crevasses and ice towers, especially at the mouth of the glacier arms.
• There are different forms of glaciers: i) Plateau glacier of which the Jostedal glacier is one, ii) valley glaciers where the whole glacier is located in one valley, as in the Alps, iii) inland ice as in Antarctica.
• From the main plateau several glacier arms as they are called in Norwegian are penetrating the valleys around the Jostedal glacier. These arms connect the plateau with the lower-lying valleys. The main plateau of the Jostedal glacier is wave-formed and is situated at about 1750 to 1950 meter above sea level. Most of the glacier arms are reaching down to about 250-300 meter above sea level, some of them even going down as far as 60 meter above sea level. The highest point on the glacier plateau is reaching 1957 meter, but this figure can vary from year to year. The height difference between the plateau and the surrounding glacier arms gives the landscape a quite spectacular touch.
• There are some 50 glacier arms connecting the main glacier to its surrounding valleys, 11 of these come down in the valley of Jostedal, which has given its name to the glacier.
• Every glacier has what is called an equilibrium line. All snow falling above this line contributes to the accumulation of the glacier while most of the snow falling below this line will melt away during the summer. The equilibrium line on Jostedal glacier is situated around 1550 meter. Since the highest point on the glacier is about 1950 meter there is a height difference of about 400 meter that is causing the glacier to accumulate ice over the years.
• From the glacier arms huge amounts of melting water from the glacier are being transported to the fjord. Along with the water sediments like gravel, small rocks and sand is being delivered from the glacier to the rivers. These sediments are the results of the glacier movements on underlying material. The Jostedal river transports up to 100 000 tonnes of sediments each year, this corresponds to about 1000 big trucks transporting the same amount. As these sediments are reflecting the light in a different manner as are ordinary water molecules glacier rivers tend to look green.
• Around 1750 the so-called "little ice age" occurred in Jostedal. This concentrated surge of ice is a special feature of the Jostedal glacier, nowhere else in the world has there been reports of a similar natural phenomenon at that time. The ice destroyed cultivated land and farms as it surged forward. The saying has it that it that one glacier arm in Jostedal destroyed nine farms, therefore this arm has been named the "nine farm glacier" or Nigardsbreen in Norwegian ("breen" is glacier). During the "little ice age" the Nigard glacier grew around 100 meter a year.
• The Nigard glacier is currently growing with around 40-60 meter a year. This is also a special feature for the Jostedal glacier area; most other glaciers in the world are retreating while the glacier arms in the Jostedal area are surging forward.
• The current surge shows that the glacial movements are cyclical. From the "little ice age" until today the Nigard glacier has retreated some 4-5 km. From the glacier museum in Jostedal one can see the end moraine from the surge forward during the "little ice age". A moraine is a pile of rocks and sediments together with vegetation, which is being "bulldozed" by the glacier as it moves forward.
• The Jostedal glacier is about 7-8000 years old. The last ice age culminated about 10.000 years ago. For a period of about 2000 years the plateau on which the glacier is currently situated was free of ice. For some unknown reason the ice started to accumulate again after this short ice-free spell. The Jostedal glacier is therefore no reminiscent of the last ice age.
• The Jostedal glacier is a laboratory showing us the central landscape-shaping process on earth still in action. The glacier shows us nature in its pristine state, as it was in the origin of modern geological time. The youngest of geological periods, the Quaternary period, was characterized by great shifts in climate along with extensive glaciations. This process can still be seen alive today in areas like Jostedal.
• During a normal year, some 12-15 meter of snow fall on the glacier plateau. This is the precipitation contributing to the accumulation of the glacier. It takes some time before this snow reaches the mouth of the different glacier arms. This time period, called the reaction period, will vary from one glacier arm to another depending on how steep the glacier arm is. The Nigard glacier has a reaction period of some 25 years while other steeper glacier arms in the same area has a reaction period of 5-10 year.
• When the snow falls on the glacier plateau it is light and has low density, somewhere around 0,1 g/cm3 of ice. The density gives an impression of the amount of oxygen in ice molecules, the lower density the more oxygen. After a while the new snow is packed by the old ice molecules and the density increases to 0,3 g/cm3 of ice. Now starts a process whereby snow melts and freezes in intermediary sequences. During this process the newly arrived snow will be more packed while it slowly flows into the old ice on the plateau. As this process repeats itself constantly the newly arrived ice molecules reach even higher density. Molecules that have survived one summer are called firn. This is an intermediary state between snow and ice.
• Ice molecules are constantly on the move. When they finally reach the mouth of the glacier arm they have been packed repeatedly under high pressure from the mass of ice above. Consequently, these ice molecules at the mouth of the glacier has a very high density and very little oxygen. This causes these molecules to look blue because the high density reflects the light in another way then ordinary snow molecules. This give a "blue" feeling of the ice at its mouth in contrast to ordinary snow in its vicinity. Dark ice molecules absorb more light than do molecules with lighter colours.
• Valleys that are shaped by the glacier have been exposed to erosion. The erosion takes place when the glacier works on the underlying material and shapes the landscape. If one imagines oneself standing in front of a glacier valley looking into it the valley will have a typical U-shape. This is because the erosion has been strongest in the bottom of the valley. Typically one will find quite a number of hanging valleys in a glacier valley. These are valleys that end abruptly up in the mountainside causing spectacular cliffs to arise from the main valley up to these hanging valleys. These cliffs have quite often beautiful water falls leading down to the main valley.
• In the length direction a glacial valley is shaped like a stairway where different steps are masses of sediments (gravel, rocks and sand) left behind by the river. In the Jostedal valley one can see such "islands" in the river all along the valley. The valley rises from sea level to around 300 meter above sea level at the Nigard glacier.
• A valley in the surroundings of a glacier is often shaped by a river that transports melting water and sediments down to the sea. The river digs in a V-shaped form so that glacier valleys often have alternating sequences of U- and V-shapes, depending on where the influence of the glacier has been overtaken by the river.
• The glacier has dug out all the fjords in the Sognefjord area. No other natural force can dig under water. When the glacier retreated seawater streamed into the lower lying valleys dug out by the glacier and the fjord was created. On the way towards the airport in Sogndal one can get an impression of the great mountainous plateau that existed some 50 million years ago before glaciations started to shape the landscape.
• In late Quaternary period inland ice covered much of Europe. It started some 1,5 million years ago and culminated 10.000 years ago. At its peak, the inland ice covered an area from Great Britain in west, Germany in south all the way to Moscow. The Jostedal glacier is an ancestor of this great natural force.
• The Jostedal glacier is a testimony of earlier changes in climate. Why do these changes occur, why do we have ice ages? There are different theories about this phenomenon. One theory states that irregularities in the earth's movement around the sun, and similar irregularities in the earth movements around itself, cause changes in climate. When these irregularities coincide, great changes in the climate of the earth can occur.
• The earth is mostly covered by water. Of all water on earth, only 2,5% is fresh water, the rest is salt water. Of all fresh water on earth, around 75% or three quarters appear in the form of ice. Glaciers are therefore one of the most important reservoirs of fresh water we have on earth today.
• There are several stories of people falling into crevasses on the glacier. One of the most famous stories in Jostedal is about a scientist who fell into a crevasse some 35 years ago. He was saved after spending some 8 hours in the crevasse. In the accident he lost his camera and his wallet. In 1998 this wallet and camera was found be a glacier guide. After spending all these years in the ice, one should believe that they would be completely ripped apart. Astonishingly the items were all in perfect condition, as can be seen in the glacier museum where the items are on display. In the wallet you can still read his hotel bill from the week before he felled into the crevasse! It seems that the glacier is a perfect storing place.
• The river in Jostedal has typically narrow passages that were created by melting water at the time the glacier was still lying there.

• The Jostedal Glacier is today part of a national park. You can reach the Nigard Glacier from Jostedal. There is a road leading almost all up to the Nigard Glacier. Form the parking place a small boat is taking people the last part of the way toward the front of the Nigard Glacier. No other glacier arm is so accessible as the Nigard Glacier.
• From the mid 1980's a professional company of glacier guides are offering guided trips on the Nigard Glacier. These trips last about 1-2 hours. Participants tied together by ropes before entering the blue ice at the mouth of the Nigard Glacier. The trips offer excellent possibilities for experiencing the glacier. You will see crevasses and ice towers. Often the route is taken inside a crevasse to give a spectacular view of the ice from within the glacier. It should be mentioned that the guides all have the highest qualifications available in Norway. During all the years they have had guided tours not a single accident has happened.
• The Jostedal valley is situated in the biggest reservoir of hydroelectric power in Norway. At Styggevatn, 1400 meter above sea level into the mountains, a dam has been built which supplies water for hydroelectric power production. The power plant is situated in Myklemyr at 100 meter above sea level. About 60 km of tunnels connect the dam with the power plant, and the height difference gives the water pressure enough to drive a turbine that produces the power at the plant.
• The power plant in Myklemyr produces about 877 gWh of electric power during a year; this is enough to supply a city of around 50.000 inhabitants.
• The road leading into Jostedal from Gaupne was originally built in 1890. Before that time there was no road between Jostedal and the fjord area.
• Jostedal is a mirror of the welfare development in Norway after the Second World War. From being one of the poorest regions in Europe the valley can today provide living conditions not inferior to any region in Norway or elsewhere in Europe. Nowhere in Norway is the rapid economic and social development more noticeable than in remote valleys like Jostedal, these places are true monuments over a successful transition from a poor society mostly living from agriculture to a modern welfare state based upon industry and development of modern technology.

• The southern side of the Luster Fiord (the distance from Skjolden to Urnes) played a vital historical role after the establishment of the national state in Norway in 1814. Norway became a separate national state in 1814 (though as an equal partner in a union with Sweden). In the Treaty of Kiel from 1814 Denmark lost its colony Norway because it has supported Napoleon in the war.
• Contrary to other national states there was no national movement in Norway preceding the establishment of the national state. Consequently, the national identity that is supposed to bind the state together had to be formed in some way. In this context the development of the Norwegian art was of great significance, in particular painting.
• Many of the most important artists from the period after 1814 found their motives in the Luster area. They were all representatives of the national movement in painting, and they sought to exhibit the "real" Norway and Norwegian in their art. Their perception of the real Norway was the dramatic and majestic nature of the Luster area. The artist were invited to the area by the proprietor of a gentry farm in Kroken on the southern shore of the Luster Fiord. His name was Gerhard Munthe and he was of an aristocratic family that originally came to Norway from Flandern in Belgium because of religious persecutions there.
• It must be added that Norway had very little noblemen, gentry or aristocracy because the country was a colony but first and foremost because the country was very poor, too poor to sustain such a social superclass.

• Gerhard Munthe was a captain in the Danish Army in 1813. He participated in the war between Denmark-Norway and Sweden. After the separation of Denmark and Norway in 1814 he got a job at the Institute for Geographical Measurements. He was also a teacher at the Army school in the new union between Norway and Sweden.
• As a teacher he taught two princes that were later to become kings in the union of Sweden and Norway, they were Charles XV and Oscar II. One of them, Charles, visited his teacher in 1856 in Kroken as Crown Prince. Among the farmers in the area mister Munthe was known and respected as the royal teacher.
• In 1830 Munthe ended his career as an officer and devoted himself to collection of geographical and historical materials. He was also interested in the development of a separate Norwegian language that was connected to the old Norse language. This has disappeared during the Middle Ages and was replaced with the administrative language of that time, Danish. This old Norse language is still spoken on Iceland and on the Faroe Islands. There was an attempt in Norway at that time to form a specific Norwegian language that was not derived from Danish. This attempt resulted in the formation of two official languages in Norway, a situation which has persisted until today. Mister Munthe took part in this work and made several contributions. He was also active as a researcher in genealogy.
• The work he performed as a researcher was a great burden for his eyes. To improve his health situation he moved to Kroken in 1841 and took over the family farm. As a proprietor he had a lot of visits from other scientists and artists, and during this period Kroken was a centre of art and culture not only for the Luster area but for all of Norway.
• Captain Munthe was the first farmer in this area that started to grow potatoes. That was an important event because the climate here is very beneficial for potato growing. The potato harvest was not so insecure as corn, that meant that more farmers could control their harvests better than before.
• Captain Munthe died in 1876 and not very long after the farm was bought by a local farmer. The nobility came to an end.

• Some of the most famous artists from the national-romantic period visited mister Munthe in Kroken.
• J.C. Dahl became professor at the university in Dresden in 1824.He made a trip to Norway in 1826. During this trip he visited mister Munthe in Kroken. A friend from Oslo, the Danish painter Flintoe, who among other things has decorated a whole room with one of his pictures at the king's castle in Oslo, had recommended the area to mister Dahl. The professor found the nature in the area very impressing and painted afterwards almost exclusively scenery motives from Norway. Some of his paintings are among the most famous and significant from the national-romantic period in Norway.
• Other famous painters who visited mister Munthe in Kroken was J.C Tiedemann and T. Fearnley.

• The southern side of the Luster fjord is a very fertile area. The climate is very suitable for cultivating berries. Strawberries and raspberries are produced in big quantities (in Norwegian proportions) in this area. Tobacco was also earlier cultivated in the area. The winter is relatively mild with much precipitation, though great parts of the fjord can be frozen for longer periods. This despite of the Golf Stream which makes Norway habitable. The Luster Fjord freezes because the fjord contains lots of fresh water flowing into it from the surrounding mountains and glaciers.
• The road from Skjolden to Urnes was built in several stages and the road was not finished before 1981.

• Skjolden was earlier a traffic junction. It lies at the end of the Sognefjord and in its harbour lots of commodities were exchanged. The farmers from the eastern side of the Sognefjell (the mountain range east of the Sognefjord) bought fish and salt and sold corn and leather. These commodities were transported further on to Bergen, the main trade centre for both western and northern Norway.
• People who wanted to travel to Bergen by boat also used Skjolden as the starting point for their journey.
• Not very far from Skjolden lies the small community of Fortun. A big hydroelectric power plant was built here in the middle of the previous century. The power plant serves the big aluminium plant in Årdal, which is one of the biggest in Europe.
• Skjolden was in historic times also a traffic junction for pilgrims who wanted to travel to Nidaros or Trondheim. The church in Nidaros was probably the holies place in Norway as the country belonged to the catholic church.

• Sørheim means the home in the south. A gentry family lived in Sørheim during the Middle Ages and later on for some time. The family Kruckow, originally from Pommern, had their seat in Sørheim.
• At the end of the 15th century there was much strife between protestants and catholics in Norway. Norway belonged at this time to Denmark as a colony. The Danes wanted to introduce protestantism in Norway in order to secure their power in the country. Because of this the strife was not only religious but also political. The opposition to protestantism had national overtones.
• Hans Kruckow, a noble man from Sørheim allied himself with the last catholic bishop in Nidaros and they tried both to exploit the situation politically in order to separate Norway from Denmark and establish Norway as a separate national state. Denmark was successful in the strife and the Norwegian culture and Christianity took a serious blow from which it never quite revived. Sørheim and Kroken was plundered by Danish troops in 1527. Mister Kruckow was able to escape but his wife and children later had to beg for food in the surrounding districts.

• "What are we going to do with these buckets of berries", asked the merchant Nils Lerum his wife some day in 1907 when the steam boat had left Sørheim with the buckets left at the quay. They made juice from the berries and sold it. An industrial adventure was started.
• In 1918 they produced 40 000 litre juice and 20 000 kilo jam. Because of logistic problems (i.e. frozen fjord in winter) it was difficult to sustain the production in Sørheim and it was later moved to Sogndal which was more of an geographical centre.
• Today Lerum is one of the leading brands of juice and jam in Norway.

• The free fall of Feigum waterfall is 218 metre.
• The water is foamed when it hits the ground, therefore a fog veil can always be seen at the end of the waterfall in the spring or in periods with lot of precipitation. The veil makes it always raining in the vicinity of the waterfall.
• The name Feig means the end is near.

• The Luster municipality has an area of about 2800 km² and is one of the biggest municipalities in Norway according to their area. That means that the municipality is about as big as the American state of Rhode Island. This state has 1 million inhabitants while Luster has under 5000. Luster is more than twice the size of Los Angeles City (not the LA County) which has 3.8 million people. As one easily can imagine: there is a lot of space in Luster.
• The name Luster originates probably from the special light that shines over the fjord and over the mountains. This light comes from the glaciers, lots of ice and snow create lots of reflections of sunshine and moonshine.
• Many people emigrated from Luster to the USA in the previous century. In some years more then 60% of all children born emigrated. There are today probably about 200 000 people living in USA with ancestors from Luster.
• The biggest glacier on the European mainland is situated in Luster. The glacier is called Jostedalsbreen or the Jostedal Glacier. It has an area of about 480 km². This is a little more than half the size og New York which has over 18 million inhabitants. It is about the size of the city of Philadelphia with almost 2 million inhabitants.
• The glacier has about 50 glacier outlets reaching the surrounding valleys. These outlets are called "arms" and about 11 of them come down into the valley of Jostedal in Luster which has given its name to the glacier.

• Luster has many old churches. Joranger church in the community of Indre Hafslo was build in 1650.
• The stone church in Dale, Luster is 750 years old and was probably build by jobless workers from the building of the great cathedral in Nidaros, Trondheim. Descendants from religious refugees from North-Germany have given art for decoration of the church.

• Solvorn is an old market place. The place grew on trade while the fjord was the most important artery.
• All up to the mid 1960's Solvorn was a traffic juncture with ferry routes to Årdal where the great aluminium plant is situated. A lot of people made every weekend the journey from Årdal to smaller districts along the fjord to visit their family and to work on their farm. In this way many small places were able to survive despite falling population and less income from agriculture.

• to move by feet or by ski
• to use canoes, kayaks or sail boats in lakes and rivers
• to camp outdoor
• to ride a horse or a bike on paths or mountain roads
• to bath or use a boat in lakes, rivers and waterways.

• enter cultivated fields
• break off or pick plants or trees
• disturb wild life and birds
• break down or destroy fences