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Walking, Hiking & Trail Running

Return To The Wild | Adventure Without Boundaries In Børgefjell National Park

How one walker reconnected with nature in an undeveloped Norwegian national park

The following article is an abridged extract from On Sacred Ground.

Strictly speaking, the Børgefjell isn’t an Arctic range—it lies 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. But location isn’t everything. What counts more are the defining characteristics of a place—the climate, the plant and animal species that live there, the composition of rock and soil, the interplay of water and ice, the amount of daylight in summer and darkness in winter. By those measures the Børgefjell is unquestionably Arctic. Once you step onto it, there’s no doubt at all.

“The Børgefjell is unquestionably Arctic. Once you step onto it, there’s no doubt at all”

My Arctic journey began early on August 3—460 days from The Walk’s start back in Calabria. Seen from camp, the fjells looked enormous, somehow heavier than other mountains, as though they contained more mass than narrower, sheerer-sided peaks. The Børgefjell is built from 1.7-billion-year-old granite, and reaches its apex on 5,574-foot Kvigtinden. The fjells are all massive and blunt. Some still sport glaciers. All offer great expanses of exposed rock and scree. The Børgefjell is a rugged but surprisingly simple place; an open land without secrets. It exists entirely without people. It doesn’t need them, and has never really known them, except in passing. But it’s also a land a few people have come to love and protect.

Crossing a river in the Svartisen region of Arctic Norway. Credit: Andrew Terrill

On August 9, 1963, the Børgefjell National Park was created, becoming Norway’s second national park. As early as 1932 Norwegian conservationists had argued that the Børgefjell should be preserved as a wilderness without cabins or marked paths, and when finally the park was born its founders agreed, stating it would ‘retain a large natural area virtually free of technical intervention’. The Børgefjell is described as an ‘undeveloped’ park, and as a result has never become popular. This sounded ideal to me. ‘Undeveloped’ is the best form of development there is.

“The Børgefjell is described as an ‘undeveloped’ park, and as a result has never become popular. This sounded ideal to me”

The sky was infinitely blue when I set out, and the temperature was so pleasantly mild, that the idea of being near the Arctic was laughable. I’d been warned that rain was on the way, but that didn’t worry me. If anything, its approach added extra brilliance to the morning. And anyway, in Norway rain is always on the way.

Camping in the Børgefjell National Park. Credit: Andrew Terrill

Beneath clouds, the Børgefjell had looked intimidating, but under clear skies it was as bright and welcoming as a mountain wilderness could ever be. In ways that I couldn’t fathom the rising land called to me as no other wild land had. I pushed toward it eagerly along a gravel track, and three miles passed easily, until the track dead-ended at the national park border. Ahead now were birch woods, pathless and wild. But who needed a path? In the past fourteen months I’d experienced an entire continent of forests, and they put these woods into perspective. Soon, I was weaving through willowy undergrowth that might once have tested my patience but now seemed open and easily negotiated. Plus, the woods didn’t extend far. Back in the southern Apennines, tree line was at 6,600 feet, but here the trees ended at 1,500 feet. After a short distance I burst free into the sparse open space of Arctic tundra.

“Who needed a path? In the past fourteen months I’d experienced an entire continent of forests, and they put these woods into perspective”

Much of the Børgefjell is tundra, an environment notable for its year-round permafrost—permanently frozen ground that exists just inches beneath the surface. Because of it, tundra features a lot of standing water that cannot drain away, and thin, acidic soil. Plants like lichen, moss, sedge, and bilberry grow upon the surface, rarely rising more than an inch or two. Fierce winds regularly scour the land, and temperatures remain milder right against the earth. Most Arctic plants grow low to survive.

The tundra captivated me from the very first step. It was unexpectedly and luminously green, there were thousands of tiny flowers, and there was very little grass: the ground cover was made up almost exclusively from low-growing shrubs. The diminutive size of the plants made them seem more precious than plants in less harsh environments. Each one looked tough—it had to be to survive—but also fragile. The tundra was an austere place, but the vegetation added incredible richness to it. I vowed to tread with care.

Chilling on a rock in the Norwegian Arctic. Credit: Andrew Terrill

But most captivating of all was the space—the shocking excess of space. The landscape felt wider and emptier than any other environment I’d visited.

Moving slowly—from appreciation, not weariness—I crossed rising slopes and entered a valley, the Storelvdalen. The higher I climbed the wilder the atmosphere grew. A sense of peace descended. The only sounds came from birds, the wind and rushing water. Ah, the song of water, the omnipresent soundtrack to the Norwegian wild! Fjells rose all around, but I didn’t feel hemmed in as I had before. The sense of space remained extraordinary. Space, I saw, was the defining characteristic. Although the Børgefjell was smaller in area and lower in altitude than many ranges I’d previously crossed, it felt far bigger and wilder. And yet it still called, as though being here was right. Soon, the emotions of connection and completeness that I’d experienced weeks earlier in the Trollheimen came flooding back as though the intervening weeks hadn’t occurred. The pain I’d put myself through to get here suddenly felt justified.

“As time passed I felt a change occur, as though I could now reach into the land beyond its surface to know it in a way that couldn’t be articulated but was real nonetheless”

Early in the afternoon I reached a tarn at 3,000 feet, unnamed on the map. I’d planned to camp beside it, but the surrounding ground was covered by shattered rock. Broad snowfields lay upon surrounding fjells, and plates of ice still floated on the lake—winter lingering on even in August. In bright sunlight it was heartachingly beautiful, but not suitable for camp. I moved on with great reluctance.

Two miles further and several hundred feet lower I reached a more suitable location: a moss-softened patch of ground beside a sparkling stream. The view reached across a long lake, the Søre Bisseggvatnet, to the slopes of the Børgefjell’s highest peak. It was perfect. For the rest of the day I sat on a bed of emerald moss with my back to a rock, losing myself within the landscape, thinking less with each passing minute, feeling more. This was an uncluttered place and it prompted an uncluttered mind. It also seemed to sharpen my senses. Soon, I felt as though I could see further, and more sharply; smell more, and more discernibly; hear more, and more discriminately; feel more, and more acutely; and even sense more, as though a whole host of forgotten senses had been brought back to life. As time passed I felt a change occur, as though I could now reach into the land beyond its surface to know it in a way that couldn’t be articulated but was real nonetheless.

Sunsets in the Norwegian Arctic just hit differently. Credit: Andrew Terrill
Autumn in the Norwegian Arctic. Credit: Andrew Terrill

I sat in stillness, considering my place in this land. More than ever, I sensed that here—outdoors in nature, not just here in the Børgefjell—was where we as a species fit best. We weren’t meant to live behind walls with soft carpet underfoot and electricity keeping us comfortable. Yes, we still needed shelter, but not all the time. We needed this so-called ‘wild’ as much, if not more. It was our original home, after all.

Perhaps once, long before cities and extensive human-dominated landscapes existed, there hadn’t even been a word for the wild. The natural world was merely the environment we lived within. But when cultivation began, a description for what we had control of, and what we didn’t, was probably useful. This distinction may well have been where our separation from nature began.

“I sat in stillness, considering my place in this land. More than ever, I sensed that here—outdoors in nature, not just here in the Børgefjell—was where we as a species fit best”

Prior to that, nature had been an integral part of human existence. It constantly touched us, shaping us into what we now are. Environmental factors great and small sculpted our physical traits, abilities, senses, instincts and minds. Undoubtedly, life during this evolution was frequently hard. Almost certainly, there was no golden era when humans lived in perfect harmony with the land, and no time without tragedy, famine, danger and sudden death. But, as functioning ecosystems around the world demonstrate, plants and animals can coexist in relative stability. For humans to have developed into what we now are, it seems likely that there were settled periods when we fitted into nature without it excessively harming us, or us excessively harming it. Periods when nature was essentially home.

Since then, of course, as we’ve grown in cleverness, we have stepped away from that home. In the last 3,000 years, and even more in the last 300, we have separated ourselves from nature with a completeness never before achieved. We have built protective barriers against it—for understandable reasons, and with some benefits. We have remade the world and reinvented our own place in it, but we haven’t been able to remake what we fundamentally are.

No matter how advanced we have become, our brains and bodies are still hard-wired to respond to and benefit from an immense range of stimuli that nature provides. Chemical compounds that plants send into the air; patterns and shapes only found in nature; sounds that prompt beneficial reactions within our brains; environmental stresses that keep our bodies strong, healthy and balanced—the human animal still requires them all, and frequently suffers negative consequences without them, as scientific research is only now starting to reveal. The senses, instincts and abilities that we once relied upon still exist within us—they are the foundation that supports us. Many of these human traits are now woefully neglected. A few may even have been lost. But many remain, waiting to be nudged awake.

Some untracked tundra in the Børgefjell National Park. Credit: Andrew Terrill
Reindeer in the Okstindan range. Credit: Andrew Terrill

This was what I was feeling: a reawakening of senses and instincts that had been asleep; a reawakening of an essential part of what our species had evolved to be. It didn’t mean I had to go and live in a cave now, take a step backwards. The reawakening was a step forward to a fuller existence, a filling in of missing pieces—and it felt great. No, greater than great. It felt euphoric.

As the minutes passed my euphoria grew. It wasn’t a jump-up-and-down feeling of excitement—it went deeper and filled me with an extra-ordinary sense of peace. It felt comfortable and ancient, as though it were an emotion I’d known far in my past.

In visiting these northern fjells I saw that I hadn’t merely stepped into the wild, I’d returned to it. And I wasn’t merely at home here—I was back home. As I sat alone in the Børgefjell peaceful euphoria enveloped me.

“I saw that I hadn’t merely stepped into the wild, I’d returned to it”

Clouds rolled across the fjells early in the evening. Soon, wind and rain rattled my shelter. From my new vantage point, it wasn’t bad weather, and the tent didn’t feel like a betrayal of my place in nature. I needed and benefited from the wild, and I needed and benefited from appropriate shelter, too.

I didn’t have to reject either. Getting the balance right was the thing.

I lay within my tent with the entrance half open and cheered the storm on. Later, the rain ceased and the flame of sunset lit the fjells. Later still, in the twilight that was as dark as the night would get, sixteen reindeer ambled by, utterly untroubled by my presence. Here in the national park they behaved how I wanted all my fellow citizens of the wild to behave, as though I were just another creature and this was a home we shared. At that, the day felt complete.

I had a strong suspicion that my time in Arctic Norway was not going to be the worst two months of The Walk.

**********

On Sacred Ground describes the second half of Andrew Terrill’s epic 7,000-mile/11,265-kilometre walk across the ‘other’ Europe – the hidden wild side of Europe that many people miss. The first half was chronicled in The Earth Beneath My Feet, published in June 2021, with an extract from it featured on Mpora here.

On Sacred Ground was published by Enchanted Rock Press on October 1st 2022. It can be found on Amazon in hardback, paperback and ebook formats.

BUY ‘ON SACRED GROUND’ HERE

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