We awoke Thursday morning and ate breakfast at the hotel
before walking a few blocks to catch the bus to the airport. We flew on a
fairly small turbo prop plane up to Tromsø and then changed to an even smaller
turbo prop plane to continue on to Hammerfest. The skies were cloudy, but once
we broke through the clouds while descending for the landing we were able to
get a nice birds-eye view of the Hammerfest harbor. Another must remember
moment: Hammerfest is small. It is around 10,000 inhabitants, but there is
nothing else around for many miles. We got off the plane at 5:15pm, waited the
four to five minutes it took for them to bring in our luggage, and walked over
to get our rental car at Budget Rental. The rental company window was all
closed up and there was not a living soul around the airport (this airport
actually closes at night). We were a little confused! I tried calling the
number for Budget, but couldn’t get through their automated system, and the
person we finally got to help us at the airport showed us that there were only
two rental companies, and Budget was not one of them. We were more confused.
Then we noticed that the Budget number was the same as the Avis sign, so I
tried calling again and was finally able to get a live person. It turns out we
were supposed to pick up our car at 6:00pm and we were just too early. (We
figured it would take more than 10 minutes to get off the plane, etc.) The man
from Budget/Avis showed up about 25 minutes later and we finally got our car
and were able to drive to our hotel.
We checked in to our rooms and there were two plates full of
fruit and candies waiting for us from our extended family here in Hammerfest!
(They were gifts from Ole-Johan Valle (my dad’s second cousin).) After dropping
off our bags in our rooms we went out and walked around town for a few little
while and then went and ate at a restaurant. By then it was already 8:30pm so
we just went back to our hotel. I played around on my computer and phone for a
while and just relaxed, waiting for “dark.” I knew we had missed the summer
equinox by a few weeks, but I still thought it would be light out pretty late.
Little did I know. (I found out on Friday that the midnight sun lasts until
around July 28th.) At midnight I became restless and decided to go
and find a geocache. (Too long to explain here, but it is a type of scavenger
hunt using GPS units.) I made it so one of my milestones would be in Norway and
I saved it so I could have one in Hammerfest. There was one going up the Zikk
Zakk Veien (Zig Zag Trail) built by the citizens of Hammerfest in the 1890s
right behind our hotel. The trail winds back and forth up the steep hillside to
the top where you have a beautiful view overlooking the harbor. I went up the
trail to where the geocache was, found it, and then decided to keep walking the
rest of the way. At the top I admired the view and took some pictures with my
phone. I was just amazed at how light out it was at midnight! It felt more like
our 8-8:30pm, at the most. I then walked back down to our hotel, but could go
to bed yet! I am somewhat like a child (no comments here!) that hates going to
bed when it is still light out. I would have trouble living here! Around 1:00am
I was back outside taking more pictures. The clouds parted a little bit and I was
able to see blue sky. Can you believe it, blue sky at 1:00am! It was quite the
sight (for those who have never experienced the midnight sun) and I was very
impressed and in awe. I went back inside and forced myself to go to bed. I
closed the curtains, which blocked out most of the light, but not totally, and
lay in bed until 2:00am playing games on my phone and before finally going to
sleep. It was quite the first day in Hammerfest, and had only been about 10
hours.
We slept in on Friday morning and didn’t get going until
about ten. We contacted Ole-Johan to see if he would be able to meet and he
agreed to meet us at our hotel just after 11:00am. Liv Hanna and her husband
Ernst, and Marta and her husband Olav also came and met us at our hotel. Liv
Hanna and Marta are sisters and they are also second cousins with my dad.
Ole-Johan is through Lorents Jakob Pareli Holmgren, and Liv Hanna and Marta are
through Anton Holmgren. We walked around Hammerfest and they showed us a few
places. One was the Hammerfest church where we went inside and were able to
take pictures. On the back wall they had pictures of some important figures of
the church, and one of them was Lars Laestadius. (Laestadius is the father of
our church movement.) We also went over to the cemetery where many Holmgrens
are buried. We found the headstones to my great-great-grandparents Lorents
Jakob Pareli and Marit Holmgren and Anton and Stine Holmgren. There were others
that we took pictures of as well. After this we all went down to The Royal and Ancient
Polar Bear Society where Liv Hanna and Ernst paid for us to become members.
That’s right, I am officially a member! I can come to their annual meeting
every January if I would like; an experience I definitely would like to do. We
then went back to our hotel, got our cars, and drove out to Liv Hanna and
Ernst’s house.
Liv Hanna and Ernst live just around the harbor from the
main wharf and it only took a few minutes to drive to. They live in a nice
house that has been added on to over the years. It was originally Liv Hanna and
Marta’s grandmother’s house that Liv Hanna and Ernst now live in full time.
Their daughter Lina lives upstairs with her husband and their son. Lina was
home and came down and visited with us for the couple hours that we were there.
They served us coffee (of course), lefse, and some other dessert treats. We had
plans to go over to their house for dinner on Saturday evening, so being able
to meet them and spend time with them on Friday was a great bonus! We really
enjoyed our visit with them and we were really thankful that they could speak
English; very well, by the way. The fact that so many people speak English has
made travel much easier and being able to visit much more enjoyable.
After our visit we drove to the top of the hill overlooking
the harbor to take pictures and then drove around a few minutes checking out
the town. We then went back to our hotel to relax before we went out to find
something to eat for dinner. After wandering around a little trying to find a
place to eat, we ended up going to Peppe’s Pizza, the same restaurant we went
to in Oslo. After we ate we just went back to our hotel for the night.
We had a leisurely start to Saturday morning. We did not
have any plans until dinner at 5:00pm at Liv Hanna and Ernst’s house. They were
having another day of their festival here (celebrating Hammerfest’s founding as
a town) by having bicycle races. They had the main street through town (right
next to our hotel) blocked off for the races. We waited to watch the little
kids with their race and then we left for a drive. We drove down to Kvalsund
where many, many Holmgrens have lived in years past (there are still many that
currently live there) and we went to the Kvalsund church and cemetery. We spent
over an hour going through the entire cemetery looking at and taking pictures
of all of the Holmgrens buried there. We then went to the store and “shopped”
for a little bit before continuing our drive down to Skaidi where Jan Petter
Holmgren has his trucking company; Holmgren Transport. Jan Petter was not
around, but his son and his family live right next to the company buildings. We
parked and got out of the car and saw someone come out of and go around the
back of the house. We walked up and saw that the name on the house was a Holmgren,
so we walked around the house until we found him and his wife. We talked for a
couple minutes explaining who we were, but they didn’t seem to interested in
carrying on a conversation (they were busy hanging laundry to dry), so we just
went back down to the trucks and took some pictures. We then drove back to
Hammerfest. One thing to note about our drive: beware of the reindeer! We were
warned about them, but we figured it was like when we tell people to be careful
of deer. But they were serious; reindeer everywhere does not even describe it.
Hammerfest installed a fence to keep them out of town because they were causing
so many problems, but outside it all the way to Kvalsund there were herds of
reindeer everywhere. We had to stop many times to let groups cross the road and
we also stopped many times to take pictures of them. Plus one funny stop, a
large reindeer was walking along the road so David yelled at him, “Why were you
so mean to Rudolph!” We had a good chuckle about that one as the reindeer scampered
off.
When we got back to Hammerfest we just relaxed for the hour
or so before going over to Liv Hanna and Ernst’s house. The bad part was that
the sky began to clear around 4:15pm and we were to be at their house at
5:00pm! We wanted to go up to the top of the hill surrounding Hammerfest to
take pictures, but we didn’t have time. The sky totally cleared up when we got
to their house and it was beautiful, so we just hoped it would stay clear
(which it did not) or be clear again on Monday, like it is supposed to be.
Well, we showed up to Liv Hanna and Ernst’s at 5:00pm and their house was
packed! I can’t even remember all of their names, but there were 15 people there.
We had already met some, but there were many to meet and try to remember their
names. I was a little nervous about eating the meal in the first place, but
especially with that many people there. We sat at two tables, us “younger” ones
at one table and the older “adults” at another. Luckily they did not serve us and I
was able to dish up my own amount of food. As stated before, I am not
especially fond of fish, but I could tell when we walked in that fish was on
the menu. Luckily it was salmon; although I do not care for salmon, it is one
fish that I have no problem eating. After dinner we had dessert and kept
visiting until about 9:30pm when we left because we knew we had an early
morning. It was an incredible evening visiting with so many cousins and new
friends and we had a great time. So great in fact, that decided to meet with
them and some other relatives that Ole-Johan Valle (another second cousin to my
dad) wants us to meet and have meet us on Monday. Monday was our open day to be
able to visit or do whatever we wanted, so it will be great to visit with them
again. We went back to our hotel to go to bed because we were going to drive to
Alta for church Sunday morning.
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