05 May 2008

Loen, Norway in 1901


At the head of the Nordfjord and home to two of the oldest farms in Norway (established before the time of Christianity). Most of what is pictured here was probably swept away four years later when a huge rockfall from the mountains caused a tsunami to sweep through this part of the fjord. Nothing special - just thought this was an interesting photo. (click to enlarge)

5 comments:

  1. Can you tell us anything else about this photo? My great grandfather came from Loen to the USA a few years after this photo was taken, so anything other info you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Is this from a postcard? Can you show the backside of the postcard? Thank you!!

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  2. Greetings, anonymous -

    I agree it looks like a postcard photo. The image I posted came from Pixdaus.com, where unfortunately the provenance of the pictures is almost never given. And the history I added was generic info I think from from Wikipedia.

    The best place to start exploring the web for photos is Google image search (http://images.google.com/), so to look for an answer to your question I started there today, just typing in "Loen." That got me 106,000 hits (!), so you can guess I have only checked a few.

    BUT... I did find this absolute gem, which I think will fascinate you. Go to this link -

    http://loen-bilder.info/

    and start exploring the sublinks. It's a Norwegian site in Norwegian, but you can figure out what the "postkorts" are and the "bildegalleries" are the picture galleries, and you can find everything from historic images to modern satellite images.

    There's enough there for you to spend several entire days. Maybe you can work your way to "litteratur" and write a greeting or thank-you to whoever did this huge amount of work in his "Gjestebok."

    Happy exploring.

    Stan

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  3. explored that site more myself. and found one more sublink that may be exactly what you need. This won't be clickable but just copy and paste to your browser -

    http://www.loen-bilder.info/sjurebruket/index_gen_1902_1907.html

    That page has lists of people who lived in Loen in 1902-1907. Might have your great-grandfather's name or his family.

    Stan

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  4. darn. Blogger "trimmed" that url. Just use the part up through sjurebruket/ and then you can click further on the subheadings to get to the 1902-1907 (or before) as you wish.

    Stan

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  5. Even better. Look for the link called "lokhis" (Local History) and then click on "Personregister" and you get an immense list of apparently everyone who has ever lived in in Loen!!! Frustratingly (for an American), the names are organized by first name in a fashion typical for a culture where Johnson means "son of John". Your grandpa's probably there - looks like many of the people are listed with MN or other US destinations.

    You're going to be busy for a while...

    stan

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