Saturday 23 August 2025 – In yesterday’s post, I said that the plan for today involved tramping around looking for local wildlife. The activity was described as a “safari”, which conjures up images of hot, sunny conditions and being ferried around between exotic photo opportunities in a robust 4×4. However, we’re in the Norwegian midlands, and so realised that it wasn’t going to be hot, and the forecast suggested that it wouldn’t be sunny, either. So our getting-up activities involved a certain amount of rumination about how much protection we’d need against the almost-certain cold and the apparently likely rain. We also knew that there would be, as I said, a certain amount of tramping about, quite possibly up and down the side of mountains and maybe even in and out of Norwegian woods. So I was also concerned about not getting too hot, since the forecast temperature was some 12°C. In the end, I opted for more protection against the rain than against the cold.
At breakfast, and at the suggestion of the hotel staff, we stacked up a couple of sandwiches each so that we could take a packed lunch with us for the day, and set off for the two dozen kilometres to Hjerkinn, where we would meet up with our guide for the day. On the drive over, we noted a couple of things to be explored on the way back.
We arrived at a windswept car park which featured a few huddled groups of folk who, like us, were expecting a safari,
but there was no immediate information about what to do. There was a troll there, which was laughing at us,
but that was it. I realised at this point that I had probably got the balance between wet and cold wrong in my gear selection – it was chilly and there was a stiff breeze.
After a while, though, some chaps emerged from the building and it became clear that they were the guides for the day. There was a bigger group, around a dozen, who were going with one guide; and we had our own chap, Jakob. But we all piled into vehicles together and headed down the road for a few minutes to the starting point of the day’s safari. Jakob immediately led us off on our trip. I asked him what the plan was for the day, and it was straightforward enough: walk for a couple of hours in the hope of finding our quarry; spend some time eating lunch and watching it; and then walk a couple of hours back. Simples!
We crossed a river,
went under a railway and then headed along a track up the side of a hill.
The scenery was immense
and the wind was strong and cold; but walking up the hill was a nice warming activity. At one point, Jakob stopped and said, “Ah, I can see them already”. He was doing that thing that expert guides do all over the world and which annoys and impresses me in equal measure – picking out an animal from its surrounding scenery, even though it’s entirely invisible to my eyes.
Believe it or not, there’s a Musk Ox in the middle of that picture. In fact, it became clear that there was a small group of them, maybe some 700 metres away, which I could just about make out if I used the 30x telephoto of my phone.
It was clear that we would have a bit of a trek to get to the point where even I could see them with my naked and streaming eyes.
Jakob gave us a choice of route – we could take an easier, but longer way round, or we could do a shorter yomp across the intervening brush which should get us near the animals more quickly. We opted for the brush route, which took us across and through moss, lichen and small scrubby plants of various sorts. The going was not easy.
but it conveyed the authentic Norwegian safari experience wonderfully well. We even got to see Musk Ox poo.
Before you get too excited about that, let me show you the scale of this defecation.
This, remarkably, is the poo of an animal which might weigh half a ton. Jakob explained that it was winter poo – more details promised later. We also, by way of balance, came across some summer poo
which was larger and, unsurprisingly, fresher. This demonstrated that we were actually using a track that a Musk Ox might choose as a route from A to B, via W and C.
We finally got to a place where even I could make out the beasts, some 250 metres away.
We were not the only people out looking for Musk Ox; I hope this picture gives some perspective of what could be seen with the naked eye.
We were not allowed to go any closer than this to the Musk Oxen. We had been told before we embarked on this diversion that that this was the case. I had thought that it was in order to afford the Musk Ox some protection from the ravages wrought by humankind. That’s not the case. The distance rule is for the protection of humans, of whom Musk Ox are not even slightly frightened. Jakob explained that the animals are very protective of their rather large personal space, and can be aggressive if people get too close. In fact, a handful of people get killed by Musk Oxen every year.
So – 250 metres. Time to get the Big Camera (or, rather, the Big Lens) out.
We could see a family group – female, male and two calves. They seemed utterly unaffected by the proximity of the E6 main road going close by.
The E6, in fact, is a barrier – if they stray beyond it and can’t be shooed back, they have to be shot before they cause aggro.
Jakob had brought a spotter scope with him and was able to assist Jane in getting a couple of shots through it on her phone,
and the results are pretty good; but I was pleased with the results I got, particularly when three of them formed a nice family group photo for me.
Female on the left, 4-month-old calf in the middle, male on the right, distinguishable by the bulk of horns on his head.
I took a little video, also.
We spent probably an hour watching these, whilst we ate our lunch, and Jakob gave us a great deal of information about Musk Oxen, on which he is something of an expert, having written a thesis on the beasts at University.
They are not, despite the name, cattle. They are actually related to sheep and goats. Once you know this, it’s obvious from looking at the heads and eyes. It also explains the habit of the males during mating season of establishing superiority, and hence shagging rights, by running full tilt at each other, which is a disturbing sight.
They are mind-bogglingly stupid, apparently. Several die each year because they will charge an oncoming train, for example. The area we were in used to be a Norwegian Army training area, and one Musk Ox apparently charged a tank several times. He actually survived, but minus one of his horns, which must have felt as odd to him as it would have looked to us. They are very agile, and will climb steep mountain sides, a la goat, but should they lose their footing it rarely ends well. They are also subject to dying from pneumonia. That said, they are very tough creatures, being able to survive in winter temperatures down as low as -60°C. This explains their winter poo – during extremely cold weather, they stop growing entirely in order to conserve what energy they can derive from what grazing they can dig up from beneath the snow. In summer, when the temperature climbs, they can simply go higher in the mountains to avoid the worst of the heat. And their poo reflects a more normal metabolism.
The big surprise to me is that they are not native to Norway, having gone extinct here some ten thousand years ago. They were reintroduced from Greenland, a process that was far from straightforward and which took several attempts over the course of centuries, starting in the 18th century and only really succeeding in the 20th. The group we were watching was part of a population in the area which is managed to only around 200.
We had been joined by the others in our larger group, and they drifted off to watch another pair of oxen just along the way. We passed them on our trek back to the start.
There are a couple of Musk Ox there, honest.
We took the longer but easier way back to the van.
and Jakob explained to us a somewhat left-field, but lucrative, industry based around a lichen, the White Curl lichen, which is ubiquitous here. (By the way this is one of the several species collectively known as “Reindeer Lichen” because… er… they form the major part of the diet of reindeer).
These tiny little clumps are prized. People pick them dry them and then sell them – to model railway enthusiasts, who use them as trees. It’s a million-crown industry, apparently.
Generally, the colour and variety of mosses and lichens in the area is remarkable.
So ended our Musk Ox safari, six of the possible 200 animals sighted, altogether a satisfactory day out. The expected rain never materialised, further underlining my poor clothing decision-making ability. Although I found it very chilly at times, it could have been a lot worse; but I really could have done with an extra layer. Never mind – we saw our Musk Oxen and we were happy.
On the way back, we stopped off at the two places we’d noted on the way out. Firstly, Dovregubbenshallen, which is a remarkable huddle of buildings just beside the E6. The wooden construction and turf roof is in the traditional architectural style called “Gudbrands”, which is a feature of the Gudbrandsdale valley, this region.
Translated, its name means “Old Man’s Hall”, or “King’s Hall”, and it has links with the well-known saga of Peer Gynt. Ibsen’s play confers the name “Dovregubben” to one Jotun Dovre who fostered and raised Norway’s King Harald, called Dovefostre as a youngster. I’m not sure that Edvard Grieg, in writing the part of his Peer Gynt suite called “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, had the cafe there in mind…
The cake (well-deserved, I’m sure you will agree) was good though.
The other place we wanted to visit was, again, a set of striking buildings beside the road.
This was Fokstugu Fjellstue, Fox Cottage Mountain Lodge, which turned out to be a pilgrim hostel and retreat, based upon a sheep farm. There’s a pilgrim route, Olav’s Way, stretching from Oslo to Trondheim, on the coast, and this is a place where pilgrims could stay. It looked a bit run down, frankly – the church was closed and some of the building structure was crumbling. But it’s a handsome site.
And that was it for the day – an active and full one, and perfect preparation for my deerburger evening meal back at the hotel.
We have one more day in Dovrefjell before heading back to Oslo to mooch around there. No formal activity is scheduled on our agenda, but Jane has just informed me that she has a few ideas. I’ll come back to these pages tomorrow to see what it was we got up to.
