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Nils Aagot Gva

We arrived there on the afternoon of September the eighth, 1975; after having traveled by train, from Oslo to Kongsberg; and by bus, from Kongsberg to Rjunkan.The office manager at the tourist bureau had made the necessary contacts. A telephone call brought Knut Heggtveit who had agreed to chauffeur us in his own car. He owned the Hegtveit farm, but unfortunately for us he only spoke Norwegian. The man at the bureau then called Nils Kvale who was home and was expecting our visit. He assured us that Nils spoke English well, and that for Knut, the drive was also an excuss to visit with Nil's wife, who was his cousin.

The drive took us down the narrow Vestforden Valley past Guastatoppen, a 6,200-foot peak - hidden the clouds on the east, and then on the west the lower massive Malelsaaen. The road was blacktopped, rather narrow, and had no shoulders. Knut, a careful driver, communicated his dislike for a few speeders who rounded the corners to fast. Language is not always needed. Beyond a store and a few houses, in a village called Mael; we reached Tinnsjo, the second deepest lake in Europe. The shores rose abruptly above the sky blue waters, giving the lake the appearance, like that of an inland fjord. We headed west along the shore to Atra about 12 miles from Rjukan. Atra consists of a Church, two schools a country Inn and a few houses. Just before reaching the school, Knut turned off onto a gravel road, that switch backed up the steep hillside toward the mountain, Maelsaasen. We stopped where the ground was fairly level, with most of the mountain, the farm, the high field above us. There we met, Nils Kvale, a short wiry man looking less than his 76 years, at the car. And there he invited us into his 180-year-old-log-home. We entered the brown two-story, log structure through a low door. A fire was burning in the white corner fireplace...

Robert Paul Hanson