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Catalans Abroad
5 December 2021 2.00 h

Xavier Cusidó Oliete

A northern paradise

Why did you leave Cat­alo­nia?
I’ve al­ways been an ad­ven­turer. Meet­ing new peo­ple, liv­ing in new places and the chal­lenge of start­ing from scratch al­ways at­tracted me. I started get­ting a taste for free­dom when I went to a school in Eng­land at 14, and since then, home has been many places.
Why did you choose Hes­seng?
After our son was born in Tuc­son, Ari­zona, we knew we wanted our kids to grow up in a safe en­vi­ron­ment, so we de­cided to move to the se­cu­rity of coun­try­side life of Finn­mark, where my wife is from. The first time I vis­ited Nor­way, dur­ing a 10,000-kilo­me­tre solo cy­cling trip in Eu­rope, I fell com­pletely in love with every­thing the re­mote and un­known north had to offer.
How long have you lived there?
We moved to Hes­seng after liv­ing for four years in Asker, so we’ve been in Nor­way for about 18 years now.
Are you happy with the job op­por­tu­ni­ties you found in your adop­tive coun­try?
Ab­solutely. Here we only have about 4% un­em­ploy­ment, and be­fore Covid it was 1.5%. If you adapt and make the min­i­mal ef­fort to blend in, Nor­way, and es­pe­cially Finn­mark, opens the doors wide for every­one.
Tell us about the Cata­lan Casal, when it was founded, and its ac­tiv­i­ties.
Finn­mark is huge and the new Cata­lan Casal in Tromsø is quite far away, about 800 kilo­me­tres from us. We keep in touch elec­tron­i­cally. In a way, I try to cre­ate my own “Casal” in Hes­seng, but Cata­lans usu­ally come here just for a short pe­riod and gen­er­ally have big prob­lems blend­ing in so­cially. Most of them just barely know Eng­lish and al­ready come with the idea of stay­ing just for some few months. Dur­ing sum­mer I try to wel­come and in­ter­act with the oc­ca­sional Cata­lan tourist by show­ing them around, telling them about our county and treat­ing them to a nice stay at our place. There’s a huge lan­guage bar­rier that keeps non-Eng­lish speak­ers from in­ter­act­ing with the lo­cals. If you move here, then the bar­rier comes if you don’t learn Nor­we­gian. Many for­eign­ers that don’t learn the lan­guage end up with their own com­mu­nity and they keep away from the gen­eral one. So, some ad­vice here to all new­com­ers that would like to ex­pe­ri­ence Nor­way to its fullest, learn Nor­we­gian and blend in.
What is the best thing about liv­ing there?
The ex­treme con­tact with raw na­ture. We live in the real last fron­tier in Eu­rope. The ge­og­ra­phy here is dra­matic and rough. Part of my her­itage is from the Basque Coun­try and the north of Nor­way often re­minds me of it.
What would you most like it to change?
Noth­ing. Finn­mark is a par­adise.
What do you miss most from home?
I’ve lived out­side Cat­alo­nia for about 30 years. I have lived in many places. Cat­alo­nia will al­ways be part of me, but I feel as much fromFinn­mark, and Ari­zona is also part of the equa­tion. Home is a “feel­ing” that I ex­pe­ri­ence in many places where I am just an­other local. I’m a very proud Cata­lan, but Finn­mark is also a huge part of me. I’m a local here. But, when I visit my fam­ily in Barcelona I re­ally ap­pre­ci­ate so­cial­is­ing in Cata­lan, en­joy­ing Cat­alo­nia with my fam­ily, dis­cussing pol­i­tics, going for long walks...
What char­ac­terises your local neigh­bour­hood?
Hes­seng, with its pop­u­la­tion of 1,700, is a small town in the county of Sør-Varanger. Kirkenes, which is four kilo­me­tres away, is the main place; a city of just 3,500. What de­fines us more than any­thing is the melt­ing pot we are made up of, the bor­der with both Rus­sia and Fin­land, the ore mine and the huge in­flu­ence World War II had here. With just about the same num­ber of in­hab­i­tants back then, the Kirkenes area was in­vaded by over 100,000 sol­diers from Nazi Ger­many. When war was over, this was lit­er­ally “terra cre­mada” [scorched earth], as we say in Cat­alo­nia. In the last 100 years a lot has shaped this land.
What is the best ex­pe­ri­ence you’ve had in your adop­tive coun­try?
Now al­most 25 years ago, falling madly in love with my wife Siw Annie and hav­ing our kids An­dreu and Núria.
Do you plan to go back to Cat­alo­nia?
I dream of a lit­tle house not far from the sea­side in a small vil­lage some­where when we re­tire, but the tran­quil­ity and se­cu­rity of Finn­mark will be very hard to find in Cat­alo­nia. Here we rarely lock our houses and cars.

CATA­LANS ABROAD Hes­seng (Nor­way)

SOME SUGGESTIONS:

Can you recommend a place to have lunch with friends?
We do have a few restaurants where you can taste the local cuisine, but those are mostly for tourists or special occasions. Here we enjoy local produce from hunting, fishing, or gathering. We don’t buy what we can get from nature. I would recommend getting some king crab or cured reindeer heart and enjoying it while watching the midnight sun.
Where would you have a special dinner for two?
In our cabin, but if you want me to tell you the name of a restaurant… that would be Aurora Restobar or Surf & Turf in Kirkenes or Bugøynes Bistro in Bugøynes. Now, that said, again: find a nice cabin or one of the many incredible spots and grill some local food and enjoy the spectacular views to be found everywhere.
When is the best time of year to plan a visit?
For the average traveller, winter can be too rough, and it is less brutal for most during the summer. Personally, I love the harsh winter or the snowy beginning of spring.
What do you take with you as a present from your new home when you go back to your own country?
I’ve lived in Norway for the past 18 years and I’ve been away from Catalonia for many more; home is now more here than there. Anyway, perhaps wild smoked salmon, Norwegian cheese and chocolate and Finnmark jewels are always popular, but mostly big hugs. Interestingly, here we can hug, as Covid has been quite marginal here.
What is the best kept secret about the area?
Almost every visitor complains about the weather in winter and claims it’s way too hard. But if you like winter and keeping active, then winter here is fantastic. Summers usually have a period of about three weeks of very warm weather. It’s an awesome destination to get away from the masses. Our best kept secret? I dare you to come and find it for yourself! I know from that day on, Finnmark will never leave your heart.
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