Saturday, June 18, 2011

A note from Gunnar in Norway

This is a live screen shot of the Norway Coast tonight under the Midnight Sun. Norwegian Public TV has a team on a cruise ship that is broadcasting every minute of its weekly coastal voyage.  It's kind of a neat idea, takes 138 hours to do. Our Norwegian relative thought we might get a kick out of this. Go to the site by clicking here and get in on the actual voyage.
Got an email from Gunnar Rolfsrud, our relative in Norway, tonight. He and his brother are coming with a tour group to Minnesota and North Dakota in July and we look forward to meeting them, probably in Roseville.
In the meantime, Gunnar notes that the Norwegian Public Television station is broadcasting a non-stop live 138 hour view from a ship going up the coast of Norway. This is the time for the Midnight Sun, so there's plenty of light to do this.
This is Sandnessjoen in northern
Norway. Our grandmother
probably came from around here.
Can you check on this, Sosie?

Watching it can be a bit like watching paint dry, but you can hear the sounds of the ship and then views of the spectacular Norwegian Coast comes in to view. All of this is explained in an English version of the page that you will land on if you follow this link:
Hurtigruten voyage
Click on this and look around. On the top of the page is a view of the Norway Coast. Click on the icon there to get started. Eventually you'll get to their camera on the ocean. It's pretty cool. It looks like the ship will be in Harstad in a day or so. We have relatives there, or at least did have. Help?
Ship's officer at one of the stops

When Gunnar and Knut get here we'll post some more about them here. Their grandparents stayed in Norway while ours immigrated to North Dakota.
We've never met and we're excited to greet and talk with them. Gunnar has good English. We have a previous post about them. (He's got a granddaughter named Emily!) Put "Gunnar" into the search box above to get some background on these Norwegian Rolfsruds.
Here's Gunnar's note:
It's 3 a.m. but these happy Norwegians
are out and about, hooting, hollering and
greeting the camera ship
at their remote northern port.
-------------
Hello Stan
If you are interested looking at the Norwegian coastline and fjords, then you should find NRK.no - "Hurtigruten, minutt for minutt" on internet.
The Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation have a team onboard one of the coastal vessels going from Bergen to Kirkenes. Presently, they are close to an island with a mountain called Torghatten and the midnight sun is beautiful.
Hope to see you in a couple of days.
Best regards
Gunnar
Here's a cool shot we grabbed of some crazy Norwegians waving their flags as the video camera ship passed their island tonight. Guess they want to be on tv too. Lighting is courtesy of the Midnight Sun.