The Nordic Ways 002 - Water Crossing

The Nordic Ways 002 - Water crossing

(Posted in different FB groups during 2020-21, here in a refreshed and updated version )

The genre starts with water and a boat

If we look upon the genre's, that we call Nordic Noir, Nordic Crime, Scandi Crime or whatever, starting point as the publishing of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's first crime novel Roseanna in 1965. We get the boat and water theme as a crime scene from the start. On a passenger boat up and down the channel Göta kanal the first victim in the genre meet her destiny. An odd way to start a genre you might think. Beside the fact they didn't think of it as a starting point for a whole literary and cinematic genre, It was on a boat trip on Göta kanal they came up with the idea in the first place. And as Swedes, Scandinavians and of Nordic origin. Going on water was nothing to reflect upon really, just came natural to us. Chatting with people in New Mexico and inland Portugal I realized that the sea, lake, river, island, archipelagos and channel themes are not too common and natural to people outside the Nordic countries.

Boats or should we call the Ships like is more proper

In the Icelandic Netflix series Ófærð (Trapped) a lot of the drama is built around a Danish cruiser ship. My first thought was, how Nordic! The Nordics still love their ships. Especially their cruise ships.

In Swedish schools we learn about the Vikings, you might do so as well?

I bet they, even more, do so in Norway and Denmark. Have the Icelanders even left
the Viking era? (Sorry for that joke, an Icelandic guy got offended by this, but I still keep it in the text).

What made the Vikings so effective was their skill with boats. Both building and sailing them. The daring ways they sailed them with Atlantic crossings for instance.

After the Viking ships went out of date the shipbuilding had to get help from Holland during the 1600-1700. But the Nordics were and still are seafaring nations. Saga Norén Länskrim Malmö points out that often as we speaks about boats we means ships. That are bigger.

Regalskeppet Wasa

The most fearful ship that was built during the 17th century was the Swedish Wasa ship. That sunk just after a kilometer on its maiden journey because of a construction error. Today the salvaged ship is Swedens most visited museum. Norwegian sailors heroism during WW ll is as well a known story. Even Danes and Swedes did it. As described by story's by Åke Edwardson and Camilla Läckberg.

And HC Andersens classic story Den lille havfrue (the Little Mermaid). The mermaid that sits statue in Copenhagen/Køpenhavn and have become a symbol of the City of Copenhagen. Køpen-havn means trading harbor in a straight translation, Holm in Stockholm means a small island. The Nordics are synonymous with crossing waters.

Gothenburg have some big shipyards and are the biggest trading harbor in Scandinavia. Uddevalla, Landskrona and Malmö had an identity as shipyard cities as well, before that business moved out of Scandinavia. This is just a few points given how important the sea is in the Nordic, subconscious, identity. The Islands of Åland, Gotland, Öland and Bornholm are nothing without it's shipping. Not to forget about the Færøerne and Svalbard. And wait a minute! Isn't half of Denmark on Islands? Fyn, Lolland and Sjælland (Funen, Lolland and Zealand) as Danish mainland as well as Greenland and Faroe Islands. Finland and Sweden with their big archipelagos. Finland have the most lakes in the world, Sweden the most islands. You get the picture. It is a lot of water to cross.

Cruisers the popular nightclubs Today we get on a cruise ship to be on the sea. Of course some of the Nordics have their sailboats and motorboats.

But go on a cruise is a way to live. To party and shop.

A Brazilian friend of mine didn't have a clue what she was into. The ferry to Turku from Stockholm. How hard could it be? After a while she realized that the level of drunk people, the dancing and the hunt for a mating partner was more like the Carnival in Rio than anything else.

From Stockholm you can get to Helsinki, Åbo/Turku or Åland. Big boats going to Åland for a few hours cruise as well. So people can buy their taxfree booze. For some taxfree drinking and dancing. And sometimes even a happy ending.

The alcohol is in general expensive in the Nordics. So the the cruises between Stockholm and the various parts of Finland is pretty much gigant party boats. Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll style. The same goes for the Norwegian cruises to Denmark. In the Johan Falk Tv series they have some of it in the story, travelling from Gothenburg.

From Wallander's Ystad you get to to Poland with the Roro Ferry Cruises. But also the fast Catamaran to the Danish Island of Bornholm. Trelleborg is a Roll On Roll Off city as same can be said about Esbjerg in Denmark. Many of the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish cruises take the trip to Kiel, Germany. The Ferries was the reason why Henning Mankell chose Ystad as location for his Detective Kurt Wallander. And use the fact that people travel in and out of the country by boat. Both in the Books and the filmed versions. The Ferries is the reason why the big city crimes happens in the small town Ystad according to Mankell's logic. The sea vessels and big boats are often used in smuggling or as a part of a murder. Like in tv series like Hawkwind, Beck, Wallander, Dicte and Johan Falk for instance. And in the third season of Forbrydelsen (The Killing) pretty much the whole series is build up around container shipment. In the Icelandic series Katla you reach the area where all the mystery going on by going on small ferries. A good trick to add some claustrophobia in the already eerie landscape. The sea vessel as a symbol of surviving. 

"Att tura"

My grandmother went to Copenhagen from Malmö for cheap shopping. Buying groceries as flour, butter and pork in the fifties. Until her death in the nineties she appreciated going to Dragør, just south of Copenhagen, by the ferry. She never experienced the Bridge and I think it was a blessing. Because she liked the boats. If in "town", Malmö I followed her on trips to buy some stuff she wanted to buy and cheap beer, we "turade" as they say in the area.

In Skåne they call it "att tura" (taking a daytrip). To Helsingør, Bornholm or Copenhagen, by ferry to buy cheaper alcohol. From Malmö they go by the bridge. Yes that "BRIDGE"! (dramatic music added).

The Finns have a another situation with the ferry cruises to Sweden. Because it is the way you get to Sweden or the continent if you want to bring your car. Not by flying. To them it is not just a way to drink yourself into seasickness. Even if they are pretty good at that too. I have one remark on the Trapped Series. The passengers should been more drunk. I think that they made a bleak sight that way.

The most classic cruising you get in Scandinavia is the Norwegian Hurtigrutten. Hurtigrutten means in translation the fast track, but it is a lie. It takes it times, at least a week.

The trip from Bergen to Kirkenes are by many considered as the most beautiful cruise in the world. Have a drink while you cruise through the mighty fjords. It is however expensive.

Hurtigrutten also takes trips to Svalbard.

The Nordic Islands are another reason why the Nordics go by boat. Svalbard, Faroe Islands, Gotland, Åland, Bornholm, Ven and not least Iceland itself. But also the archipelagos among the coasts of Sweden.

is so many ferry, sea, ships, island and archipelago themes in NN that it hard to remember them all. And the Trapped series is just one in that tradition as well as the tv series Fortitude, Graven, Morden and more. Imagine Läckberg, Thursten or a Edwardson without an investigation trip to a small Island. And Viveca Sten's Sandhamn is all about crimes on the Island Sandön, and it's little village Sandhamn. Yrsa Sigurðardóttir's character Þóra Guðmundsdóttir (Thora Gudmundsdttir) leave Iceland for a mission on Greenland. And Yrsa  manage by that move to get us to think of Iceland as a mainland compared to the even more isolated Greenland. "..., I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore", to put it like it is.

Bridges

Just as Henning Mankell used the ferries docking in Ystad to motivate his stories. The Bridge between Sweden and Denmark, Öresundsbron/Öresundbroen. Today mostly called Bron/Broen, the Bridge. Reading this on this blog you know what I'm talking about. A milestone in the genre the Swedish-Danish tv drama Bron/Broen took the world by storm. The impact it did on the world of crime fiction is a well known fact.

All of the Nordic countries take a pride in being a sea faring nations but that doesn't stop them from building bridges. In the Danish Series Rejseholdet (Unit One) bridges are here and there in the plot showing how the investigators travel all over Denmark. Often in Finnish and Swedish series the same scenes are often going on a road through a spruce forrest.

All over the Nordic countries bridges are built. Especially Denmark have their country tied together with them. The Great Belt Fixed Link (Storebældtsforbindelsen) is a massive bridge. Ranked as no2 in the World as the longest suspension bridge. Even if China have longer bridges they have not so many suspension bridges. Even Norway and Sweden gets into the top ten of the Suspension bridges. Svinesundsbron is a border bridge between Sweden and Norway. But I doubt it would be the same if the Bridge was about that Bridge. I will tell later why I doubt that. And going to Johan Theorin's Novels Locations on Öland you pass Ölandsbron. An Impressive bridge in it self.

Djuröbron as seen in an episode of Beck

In Swedish Tv series as Kommisarie Winter, Irene Huss and Beck, there is a lot of bridges. In Stockholm I pass so many bridges every day I might not ever remember them all. Stockholm is built in an archipelago. Gothenburg is divided physically by Göta älv, and therefor have its big bridges. Winter and Huss going over them every episode. Even in Beck, Innan vi dör and other Stockholm series, there are its fair share of going over bridges. If not least as a view of the city. I can add that the city of Sundsvall, that organize the annual Swedish Deckarfestivalen have the longest . In the Novels I have read by Jonas Moström, I can't find him doing a "Bridge" in his stories.

So it is no wonder why Hans Rosenfeldt let the bridge between Denmark and Sweden be the theme in the tv-series The Bridge (Bron/Broen). As a symbol of unity and diversion. Bron/Broen The Bridge in itself was an infected issue in Swedish politics before it was built. Today it is mostly forgotten about. But there was a certain political tension around the

subject The Öresundsbron at dinner tables and on Tv. The Danes didn't understand what that fuss was all about. And few might remember it today. September 21 2011 everything said about theBridge amounted to nothing. The Bridge got a new meaning. Brought to us by Saga Norén Länskrim Malmö and Martin Rohde ved Køpenhavns Politi. The differences and little tensions between Sweden and Denmark, Between Logic and emotions. Women and men, right and wrong, many aspects are in the plot around the bridge.

I tried to watch the English/French adoption the Tunnel. But no, it didn't really work for me. And I pass the trans Atlantic version from that the Tunnel experience. Because the Bridge, except a brilliant cinematography, acting, script and idea etc,is also in the fabrics of our two Nations psyche. Just seeing the title for the first time I knew we were in it for a ride. A ride most of us still tries to relate to, to understand what the Hell hit us. The Bridge was just so right and so Nordic.

As Nordics we still cross waters like our ancestors once did. Where we love, need, is depending on our sea vessels and bridges.

I could go on with submarines from here but I'll stop for now.

Hope this gave some salty taste to your NN reading.

Högakustenbron north from Sundsvall in the district of Ångermanland
holds almost the same length as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco