You better not ask this to a Norwegian

It's that serious.

The stereotype that Norwegians can be reserved and distant couldn’t be further from my experience. That said, I have discovered that there’s a certain question you’re better off not asking…

When my parents were visiting, they casually asked a neighbour where they could find some cloudberries.

“That’s not something we talk about.” the neighbour said.

I laughed, and thought of the winter, when another neighbour pointed to a patch of land and told us:

“This is where you can find cloudberries in the summer. I’m telling you this now, but what you hear here, stays here.”

Norwegians are happy to tell you where you can go fishing, where the blueberries are best, and where you can find all sorts of other things. But where to find the cloudberries…they rather keep it for themselves.

Cloudberries are one of the real treasures of the Norwegian forests. These orange-coloured berries, which really do look like tiny clouds, only grow in cold climates. And although the leaves seem to grow everywhere, the berries themselves can be hard to find. The plants are either male or female, and of course, only the females are the ones getting things done…

Only the females produce berries, and the males are very much in the majority. So you can walk through a whole patch of cloudberry leaves without finding a single berry.

So when you finally find a good patch with berries, there’s only one thing left to do:

Keep your mouth shut.

All this territorial behaviour only made me more determined to find a secret cloudberry patch of my own. And, to my great satisfaction, I succeeded.

I found a spot that looked completely untouched. So, according to the very serious rules of cloudberry hunting, I can now officially claim it as mine :)

But while some Norwegians (and I) can be quite territorial, others are surprisingly generous with their harvest.

Take my colleague, Marit.

During this time of year, before we start our daily round of houses to clean, we make a detour to drop off cloudberries to some of the locals.

In this ageing community, there are many people who are no longer able to head into the mountains themselves to find the berries. However, they are an important part of Christmas.

Multekrem (cloudberries mixed with whipped cream) is the traditional Norwegian Christmas dessert, and apparently, Christmas without it is simply not an option. So when Marit handed over the berries, they went straight into the freezer, only to make their grand appearance again in December.

I’m afraid we weren’t patient enough for that.

Since this summer felt more like winter, we decided to bring Christmas forward and enjoy a good amount of multekrem in August.

So yeah… it might still take a while before we can truly consider ourselves locals.

At least we’ve joined the treasure-hunting game. We have our own secret patch, and a dangerous dog to guard it.

Thank you for coming along!

Jule Noah

By the way… for those expecting a video after reading this, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a few more days…

Bernardo still has some cloudberries to pick…