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 My move to Norway - My dream and path Blog post - January 2016

That’s right; I am now a resident of Norway! Telemark is my home county. I moved here from the UK last year (mid 2015). Wow what an adventure!

As much as I love Britain and its nature, over the past years I began to feel like a wild bear in a cage; particularly with there being no right to roam in England or Wales. What’s more, for a long time my dream has been to work towards being as self-sufficient as possible. Realistically, I didn’t feel that this could be achieved in the UK, at least not without lots of hassle. And so, for my personal freedom and sanity, moving to another country was the logical option in my mind.

Apart from the epic landscape and freedom, Norway is home to one of my best friends: Torjus Gaaren of livingprimitively.com . He is a true expert in wilderness living skills. I saw what kind of life he has, and thought, “I want that too!”.

Torjus has taught me an incredible amount of skills, which are needed for living off this land. For that I am very thankful. By combining these things with my existing skills, I have already made huge steps on my path towards self-sufficiency.

I could go on for hours about all the things I have done and made in the last year. However I would rather sum things up with the lessons and realisations which have been most profound to me; many of which are actually psychological:

Some realisations & lessons from my time in Norway so far:

  • Community and friends are everything! This is the case in so many aspects, and is not to be underestimated.
     
  • Share what you have without worry that you won’t receive back in some way. Giving is receiving as they say…
     
  • As expected, self-sufficiency is not an easy life, but it is a fulfilling life. I have felt many times that no matter how worn-out or uncomfortable I am (e.g. cold and wet), deep down I am still happy and feel that I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else. There is actually a lot of happiness to be found in hardship
     
  • In the beginning, if you are not used to this life, there will most likely be times which are very psychologically challenging. Any weakness in your mind will be trying to convince you to give up and return to the comfortable life… The trick is to push past this. It can sometimes take days, but one day you’ll most likely wake up and feel optimistic again. You will be stronger for going through these mental tests and your thresholds will be pushed to higher levels.
     
  • Hardship makes you stronger.
     
  • You don’t have a God-given right to anything. You have to make your reality...
     
  • Determination will get you to where you want to be.
     
  • In life I have learnt to Instinctively try to follow my 'path'. In terms of direction and lessons, I have learnt to trust in the universe to bring to me what I need. My experience in Norway has confirmed this.
     
  • Living this way of life which is so in touch with nature makes you realise how far we have come from what is natural for us physically, mentally and spiritually. All people used to live off the land a relatively short time ago; our modern way of life is a mere scratch at the end of a time-line of human existence.
     
  • It is easy to underestimate how much food you need to hunt, gather and grow.
     
  • Animal parts which most modern people refuse to eat are actually the best parts, both in terms of flavour and nourishment. I am talking about things like:  liver, kidneys, spleen, brain, tongue, nose, hooves, bones and very fatty meat. People are seriously missing out! In fact, if you are a hunter-gatherer and you don’t eat these things, you will probably die before long.
     
  • In order to overcome fears, you have to face them; for example, believe it or not, I used to be quite squeamish about the idea of gutting and butchering animals. But since just getting stuck-in, I now really enjoy the task! To overcome a fear is incredibly rewarding!
     
  • You cannot live off protein and greens alone, you need plenty of fat or carbohydrates too (I choose mostly fat), otherwise you’ll become ill from protein poisoning. For example, if you catch a ton of fish, if they don’t have a good amount of fat content, then you can’t survive off that alone.



     

My rented cabin
 

A catch of brown trout one Spring morning

 

Preserving: smoke drying trout in a tipi
 

 
 

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