One family hopes to show people how a return to basic mid 19th-Century life can teach us much about how to care for our environment today.
The approach to my accommodation for the night was similar to the ascent into any valley in the Norwegian fjords. Precipitous rocky mountainsides thick with conifer forest increasingly pressed the narrow road to the shores of Haukalivatnet lake. Yet somehow, enfolded in the valley’s upper reaches before the increasingly steep gradient precluded the possibility of settlement altogether, I arrived at some gentler, fertile land.
Reidunn Botnehagen’s family have farmed this land for more than a century and, like many living amidst south-west Norway’s entrancing scenery, also have a countryside cabin here that they rent out to holidaymakers. But Haukali 333, as they’ve named it, is not just another country escape. This cabin openly celebrates its jettisoning of conventional holiday mod cons in order to emulate the lifestyle of those that first settled Norway’s wilderness nearly two centuries ago.
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One family hopes to show people how a return to basic mid 19th-Century life can teach us much about how to care for our environment today.
The approach to my accommodation for the night was similar to the ascent into any valley in the Norwegian fjords. Precipitous rocky mountainsides thick with conifer forest increasingly pressed the narrow road to the shores of Haukalivatnet lake. Yet somehow, enfolded in the valley’s upper reaches before the increasingly steep gradient precluded the possibility of settlement altogether, I arrived at some gentler, fertile land.
Reidunn Botnehagen’s family have farmed this land for more than a century and, like many living amidst south-west Norway’s entrancing scenery, also have a countryside cabin here that they rent out to holidaymakers. But Haukali 333, as they’ve named it, is not just another country escape. This cabin openly celebrates its jettisoning of conventional holiday mod cons in order to emulate the lifestyle of those that first settled Norway’s wilderness nearly two centuries ago.