Explore the real-world places that appear in Helge Ingstad by Frode Skarstein. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Meråker, Bergen, Great Slave Lake Region, Myggbukta, Longyearbyen and 3 more.
Trøndelag, Norway — Ingstad's birthplace
Helge Ingstad's life story begins in Meråker, where he was born in 1899. The place marks the start of the path that led him from a Norwegian childhood to the wilderness and the Arctic.
Meråker is a rural municipality in Trøndelag, Norway, historically tied to the railway line to Sweden, the Meråker Line. It is a forest and valley community.
Meråker is a small inland community known for outdoor recreation and winter sports. It is a quiet municipality, not a major tourist hub.
Western Norway — Ingstad's boyhood home
Ingstad grew up in Bergen and was educated there before becoming a lawyer. It was the city he left behind when he chose a trapper's life in northern Canada.
Bergen was a Hanseatic trading city and Norway's largest town for centuries. Its Bryggen wharf is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Bergen is Norway's second-largest city and a major port and cultural centre. Bryggen and the surrounding old town attract many visitors.
Northwest Territories, Canada — Ingstad's years as a trapper
In the late 1920s Ingstad gave up his law career to live as a fur trapper in the Canadian north. He lived among the Indigenous people of the region and later wrote about this life in his bestselling book Pelsjegerliv (The Land of Feast and Famine).
The Great Slave Lake area was a centre of the fur trade, and Yellowknife grew up on its shore after gold was found in the 1930s. Indigenous Dene peoples have lived in the region for millennia.
Yellowknife is the capital of the Northwest Territories and a base for visiting Great Slave Lake and the aurora. The wider region remains sparsely populated wilderness.
East Greenland — Eirik Raudes Land
Ingstad served as Norwegian governor of Eirik Raudes Land in East Greenland in 1932–33. Myggbukta was the Norwegian trapper and weather station in the territory he administered.
Norway occupied Eirik Raudes Land in 1931, which led to a dispute with Denmark that the Permanent Court of International Justice settled in Denmark's favour in 1933. Myggbukta was a Norwegian radio and weather station on Hold with Hope.
The station is long abandoned and lies in the Northeast Greenland National Park, one of the most remote areas on Earth. It is not open to ordinary visitors.
Spitsbergen, Svalbard — Seat of the Governor
In 1933–35 Ingstad served as Sysselmann (governor) of Svalbard, governing the Arctic archipelago from Longyearbyen. This post followed his time in East Greenland.
Longyearbyen was founded in 1906 as a coal-mining settlement by American John Munro Longyear. It became the administrative centre of Svalbard under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty.
Longyearbyen is the largest settlement on Svalbard and a base for Arctic tourism and research. It hosts the Svalbard Museum and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault nearby.
Mexico — Expedition to the Apache
In the 1930s Ingstad travelled to the Sierra Madre of Mexico in search of the last free Apache. He later wrote about the expedition in his book Apache-indianerne.
The Sierra Madre Occidental was the final refuge of Chiricahua Apache bands who raided into the 19th century. Geronimo's resistance ended in 1886.
The mountains are a rugged region in northern Mexico, noted for canyons such as Copper Canyon. They are home to Indigenous Rarámuri communities.
Newfoundland, Canada — The Norse site found by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad
In 1960 Helge Ingstad and his wife, the archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, identified Norse remains at L'Anse aux Meadows. Their excavations through the 1960s proved that Norse people had reached North America around 1000 AD, centuries before Columbus. This is the achievement for which Ingstad is best known.
The Norse settlement dates to about 1000 AD and is the only confirmed Norse site in North America. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
The site is run by Parks Canada with reconstructed sod buildings and costumed interpreters in season. A visitor centre displays artifacts from the excavations.
Visit: L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site (historic site)
Norway — Ingstad's home in later life
Oslo was Ingstad's home base between expeditions, where he wrote his books and organised the Vinland excavations with Anne Stine Ingstad. He died there in 2001 at the age of 101.
Oslo has been Norway's capital since 1814 and is its political and cultural centre. It was named Christiania from 1624 to 1925.
Oslo is a major Scandinavian capital with museums including the Viking Ship Museum area and the Fram Museum. It is a thriving cultural and tourist destination.
More by Frode Skarstein: All Frode Skarstein books