Hi!

I have been excited to share about my time training and racing in Norway, and I realized very quickly that it was too much to fit into just one post. I had an amazing opportunity to train with the Fossum Biathlon Club, race in the national Norway series, ASKO Norway Cup, and experience this amazing country on many different levels this winter. Every time I leave home, I return having grown so much in many different ways in my life. Norway has been a dream destination for me since I was very young! So, I’ve decided to turn my Norway experience into a short series.

The first entry is about the small, everyday moments and enjoying traditional Norway food, from tacos to wild reindeer!

I hope you enjoy it! More parts coming soon 🙂

Best,

Haley Finch

Every biathlete dreams of visiting Norway at some point in their career. It is the country that lives and breathes this sport. Rollerskiers practice on the roads in summer as cyclists do in other countries. The infamous Norwegian stadiums like Holmekollen, Lillehammer, and Sjusjøen, fill with diehard fans who know every split time and shooting percentage. Norway also holds the record for the most Winter Olympic gold medals in history. Snow sports  are a normal integrated identity here. But I dreamt of visiting Norway long before I knew about any of that.

When I was nine, I imagined the mountains, fjords, and tundra. At the time, I barely understood biathlon. I thought it was a combination of running and swimming. My interest in Norway didn’t start with sport.

I grew up in Alaska, where the environment shapes daily life. We have long winters, heavy snow, and a culture built around hunting and fishing.

I wanted to come to Norway because I wanted to see how people live in a place just like home, and how that way of life compares to my own. It is different, but it also feels familiar.

At that age, Norway was a distant fairytail land more than a real place. Now I have been there. Of course, biathlon has become a big part of my motivation to visit! I am lucky to have lived, trained and raced at several venues and in different parts of the country! The best part is that the most meaningful moments have been all the little things.

Grocery Stores as Adventures:

Living somewhere is different than briefly visiting. I need to do things like grocery shopping, taking the bus, and figuring out recycling.

The first time I walked into a Norwegian grocery store alone, I thought it would be quick. I only needed bread, butter, milk, and eggs. I was still there forty-five mintues later.

The milk had many versions and none in english: lettmelk, helmelk, ekstra lett. Butter comes in blocks, not sticks. I stood in the bread aisle translating the words in my head, feeling a little akward as I stared at ordinary household objects. I’m sure it isn’t every day a young woman stands at the bread slicing machine not sure what to do with it. 

And there’s still something emboldening about not knowing. Turning something as ordinary as a grocery run into a scavenger hunt for matfløte and hushholdingssaft. And the first time checking out without switching to english with just “takk” or “ha det” was a dream come true in the smallest way. Things like grocery runs, and mealtimes are the reminders that the world has so many similarities, yet, so many differences. 

Norwegian Cuisine:

One of the first traditional cultural Norwegian foods I tried was “makrell i tomat”, or mackerel in tomato sauce on bread. There is a cultural rule against eating it in public because of the strong, pungent smell. I thought it was actually really good! It tasted like the ocean and something else comforting to me, as an Alaskan, especially. I don’t eat this food often at home, but I’ve been around the smell and flavors since I was little. So, it was foreign, but it was also familiar. 

Norway consumes one of the highest amounts of tacos per capita in the world, second only to Mexico. Taco Friday (Taco Fredag) is surprisingly a big deal, and a big cultural item to check off the list. The Norwegian version includes a table spread of corn, cucumber, cheese, avacados, sometimes sweeter seasoning. Everyone builds their taco differently. Apparently that says something about your personality. I’m not sure what it says about someone who just grabs the closest ingredient within reach. But sitting around a table, passing bowls, laughing over pronunciation corrections and the infamous “Norwegian hand” (reaching across the table for food rather than just asking) was a full inclusion into a foreign culture, even just for an evening. Going to a different country is one thing, but experiencing through culture and inclusion is something else!

I first learned about the Indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia during the 2023 Arctic Winter Games, an event held for the arctic, originating in Canada, then including Alaska, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The Sápmi live in northern Fennoscandia. This includes Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Russia. At the time, I was simply curious. But my little curiosity came full circle this February.

I had the opportunity to try Bidos, a traditional Sápmi reindeer stew, on Sápmi National Day. What made the experience special wasn’t just the food itself, but the setting. I was welcomed for a dinner with my friend’s family, whose grandmother had made the stew just for the occasion.

I was introduced to his extended family, who asked about my biathlon, my races, and my time in Norway. Conversations moved between Norwegian and English, sometimes translated, sometimes not. For most of the evening, I was a guest in their world. I got to listen, observe, and try to following along.

It is meaningful to experience this in the environment where the dish belongs. It wasn’t in a restaurant or something just checked off a list. It was the entire shared experience that made it wonderful.

I have never tried reindeer before. Growing up in Alaska, hunting and fishing have always been part of my life, so wild game has a familiarity to it. It was a new dish, but very recognizable at the same time.

Even though I was over 4,000 miles and ten time zones away, there were moments where this culture didn’t feel so distant. The similarities between my home and this place were familiar, not foreign.

I used to know nothing about the indegenious people of Scandinavia. The Sápmi aren’t something that I got to learn about in school. Only because of biathlon, was I able to meet some athletes when I competed at the 2023 Arctic Winter Games in Canada. The event, with over 3,000 athletes from four different northern countries, taught me a lot about arctic people and cultures. I was able to finally make my way here experience the Norway and have a Sápmi dish. It amazes me how something you learn in passing can come full circle years later, in a completely different place, in a way you never expected!

The food and daily life highlight our differences and our similarities all at once. However, there’s another layer that makes this whole experience more personal to me. That is language. Because being able to speak, even if quite imperfectly, changes everything. Part two coming soon!