The Stølstruta gives hikers a accountable, respectful strategy to witness a pastoral custom that has disappeared virtually in every single place else in Europe.
The Solar, descending from its lofty midsummer perch, soaked the valley in ochre. Rolling drumlins, lakes and birch forest glowed within the heat night mild, and the stillness of a distant Norwegian fell was damaged solely by a tune: someplace within the distance, a farmer was singing to her cows.
It was my third day on the Stølsruta, Norway’s historic summer time farming route, which traces the age-old rhythm of seterdrift – a seasonal agricultural follow relationship to the twelfth Century the place cattle are pushed from the lowlands to mountain pastures, roaming freely by means of alpine valleys, open grasslands and forests.
Deeply woven into the nation’s rural tradition, seterdrift was added to Unesco’s listing of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2024, recognising the musical, culinary and storytelling traditions that grew out of summer time farming over the centuries – and its enduring function in Norway’s folklore and delicacies.
Simply three hours north of Oslo, the 65km route winds throughout the Stølsvidda plateau, residence to Norway’s largest remaining community of summer time farms. It runs by means of open hills draped in heather and wildflower-rich pastures, soundtracked by cowbells and, at day’s finish, the echoing calls of kulning – conventional herding songs developed in Scandinavia centuries in the past and nonetheless used to sing cattle residence throughout the fells. Alongside the way in which, some stalls promote the country summer time farm produce that embodies Norway’s kosemat (consolation meals), like brunost (wealthy brown cheese) and risrøt (candy rice porridge). With restricted lodging en route, the Stølsruta is intentionally low affect, providing a choose variety of hikers a window onto a time when seasonal migration formed on a regular basis life.
