A northern paradise

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.

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.

We moved to Hesseng after living for four years in Asker, so we’ve been in Norway for about 18 years now.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing. Finnmark is a paradise.

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...

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.

Now almost 25 years ago, falling madly in love with my wife Siw Annie and having our kids Andreu and Núria.

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.