Between our two days in Oslo, we took the train up to Lillehammer. The two-hour trip was lovely: late April in Norway means that there is still snow on the ground and ice on the lakes, and we enjoyed some complimentary coffee in our empty first-class train car as we watched the increasingly mountainous scenery go by.
But why go to Lillehammer? One of the biggest attractions is the Norwegian Olympics Museum and all the facilities related to the 1994 Winter Olympics that were held there, but M and I aren’t too interested in sports. Instead, our destination was Maihaugen, Norway’s largest open-air museum with a collection of nearly 200 historic building. We could’ve just seen old buildings in the open-air museum in Oslo, but Maihaugen has a schoolhouse that my great-grandfather actually attended. Since one of the best parts of this trip was connecting to my heritage, I wanted to make the pilgrimage to see it.
Arriving in Lillehammer, we walked up the hill to Maihaugen. As it was a weekday in April, we were one of the only visitors to the museum (not even any school trips!) which suited us just fine. Before going outside to walk around the grounds, we went through a very informative exhibit on the history of Norway, from the Ice Age to the present day. The most relevant to us was the late 1800s when many Norwegians, including my relatives, traveled to the middle of America to have their own land. We learned that no other country sent as many people to the US as a percentage of their population, besides Ireland. The exhibit ended with a look forward at where Norway is going, particularly focusing on its environmental impact.
After a quick lunch of smørbrød, or open-faced sandwiches, at the cafe, we were ready to head outside. It was cold, with patches of snow still around, but sunny. The buildings are placed on the hillside in thematic and time-period groups, so the first collection we came across was rural buildings from the 1700s around a pond. Many of the buildings came from a single farm and were laid out accordingly so we felt as if we’d gone back in time. All the buildings, from the houses to the food storage, were solidly made and many of them had sod roofs. Since it was so quiet there weren’t any guides around in historical outfits to give life to the farms or explain the history of the buildings, but we could look inside a few of them. It was interesting to get such an intimate look at how people in the past lived.
Beautiful carved details. 
Inside a farmhouse. 
More farm structures. 
Visitors walking on the icy pond. 
View down the hill towards Lillehammer.
Apparently, no open-air museum in Norway would be complete without a stave church. This one from Gudbrandsdalen was build in the 1200s and would have been the only communal gathering place in a rural village like this. Unlike the one in Oslo, we could see the details inside more clearly. The pews were packed tightly together and with no windows it must have been a little claustrophobic when crowded, but at least it would have been warm.
The outside, with a carved dragon head. 
The inside, lit only from the open door.
The highlight for me, of course, was the schoolhouse. The school was built in Skjåk which is where my great-grandfather must have grown up. It is set apart on top of the hill and, in the summer, is still used to give lessons as they would have been taught in the past. The building features a main classroom, painted pink, and a smaller room where the school master would have lived. The walls were decorated with educational materials such as maps and letters; it didn’t feel too radically different from the classrooms of today. Though we could only look inside, it was very special to be in the same place that my ancestor had been over 100 years ago.
The little schoolhouse. 
Some detailed information. 
Inside the classroom.
Maihaugen also has a section with more modern buildings, relatively speaking, so at the end of our trip we walked through a town made up of houses in the styles of each decade in the 1900s, as well as an example of modern Nordic architecture. The town also featured a train station, complete with old-style postal train, and several shops that were all sadly closed. I’d wanted to get some fresh lefse, which is a Norwegian potato-based flatbread that my family makes to this day, but would’ve had to come in the summer for that. However, with comprehensive history exhibit, the experience of actually walking among these historical buildings, and the connection to my family’s past, Maihaugen was well worth the long journey from Oslo.
The Year Without Summer 