Maristuen, Laerdal and Helene Maristuen

Again, we woke up later than we anticipated.  We are finding the long, long days to be quite wonderful, but it does cause one go to bed later since it is still quite bright at midnight

We did, however, get motivated and walked over to Sara's place to get Jorunn who walked with us to the private Maristuen cemetery.  It was a nice hike over some beautiful terrain, along the crystal clear rushing river, and in places, we walked on the King's Road.  The cemetery held many of the graves of the Maristuens, past and present, 12 graves to be specific.  They were all in a row, and the deceased had chosen the kind of stone they wanted before they died.  Some were official gravestones, while others were flat, solid rocks from the area which were engraved with the relevant information.  One of them had written his signature which was then duplicated on his grave stone.  Pretty pink mums adorned each grave, and they were all well kept.  Jorunn talked about how they had scrubbed the stones in an attempt to keep the moss from growing, but it was difficult to keep up with the moss.

the private Maristuen cemetery at the hotel/cottages

Jon/John Maristuen's brother Knut who took over the hotel after John emigrated to North Dakota. Knut and John (and other siblings) were Anders' sons (Andersen). Anders was born Anders Nystuen and died Anders Maristuen.  He was the first owner of the hotel, purchased in 1847.  Anders' grave is at the Borgund Stave Church, but it had broken and had been somewhat poorly repaired.

Knut's son was Anders.  Notice the first names alternate with each generation,
and the middle name tells who the person is the son or daughter of (Knutsen or Knutsdatter for a girl).

Anders' son Knut.  His son was Anders (father of Sara), and
Sara's son is Knut (whom we met), and Knut's son is Anders (whom we also met).

After visiting the Maristuen cemetery, we got dressed up and headed for Laerdal to have lunch with Helene Maristuen who lives on the edge of town.  She hadn't expected us so early and was not home when we arrived :-(, but after a phone call, she arrived quickly.  She was a delight.  She is about the same age as Randall and Juleen and has two children (a boy 13 and a girl, about 8).  She is an assistant professor in tourism at the tourism college in Laerdal, and she also runs two shops, works in the local market, and does several tourist-related activities in the community.  She had a wonderful sense of humor and was clearly a busy, busy, busy person.  Our lunch consisted of all local products, which was a Laerdal brain child of hers.  We had venison salami, goat salami, pork prosciutto, a spicy hot salami, a local cheese, boiled potatoes (this area grows most of the potatoes for Norway), local salmon, and a potato salad.  We also had a wonderful local raspberry beverage to drink and had local ice cream for dessert.

We, thus, hit it right with our gifts for her.  She was very excited about the North Dakota durum pasta, and said she would frame it instead of eat it. She was equally thrilled with the North Dakota bison salami made in Leeds; she said she had never tasted bison. Olive and Juleen told about their purse/bag gift, and she wanted to make sure she wore it correctly, and could hardly wait to take it downtown to the store and to work.

Helene, sporting her new bag and wondering if she
was wearing it correctly.

Randall, Helene, and Juleen -- 5th cousins

Lastly, of course, we went through the book Julie had made on the Leeds branch of the Maristuen heritage.  We speculated that Helene would visit us all in the US at some point.

While we were there, Helene remembered that several years ago, there was an exhibition of emigration from Norway.  This area of Laerdal has 2500 people, but 5000 people emigrated to America.  They left largely because the area was very economically depressed, and as we learned last night, they were so depressed as to actually be hungry.  Thus, it made more sense that 5 members of one Maristuen family emigrated, and we also learned that they most likely sent back money, and perhaps considerable money.  We speculated that perhaps Knut built up the hotel the way he did because of money from the North Dakota Maristuens who all did quite well.  It turned out that the diary of John Maristuen was featured at the exhibition, so we went to see it.

Then we parted ways with Helene, and it seemed somehow quite fitting that we hugged and said good bye at the same location where Knut and John said good bye in 1870, for this was the exact location where the boats left to go to Bergen before they headed across the ocean. Poignant.

Juleen and Joe about where the boats came in in Bergen to pick up emigrants

In the middle of the day, we headed over to the salmon center in Laerdal and learned more about the life of the salmon and more about this section of the Laerdal River, especially between Laerdal and the Borgund Stave Church which is world-famous as a salmon-spawning area.  We were able to see the river where the salmon jump in their struggle to get back to the location where they were born.  We did not actually hang around to see any salmon jump, however.  We did see several fishermenfly fishing for salmon in the river.  It's only "catch and release" for wild salmon at this point because of over fishing, and all of the Norwegian salmon are from salmon farms.  The King comes here every spring to fish, and he was here just a couple of weeks ago.  Helen also told about working at the tourist center when Eric Clapton came in for information.  It's apparently a hot, hot, hot salmon fishing area.

Juleen preparing to go out salmon fishing

Then we headed back to Maristuen, washed some clothes, napped, took hikes, ran, washed dishes, and Juleen and I ordered two reindeer pelts which Anders will bring us tomorrow morning.

a hike up the mountain on King's Road.  Maristuen is behind us to the left. 

Happily for all of us, last night, Randall had made us a soup, so we feasted on his soup, a salad, flatbread, and six bottles of beer which he said cost $40.  They were larger bottles however. . . .