Rotary World Service - District 5950 Group Study Exchange 2003

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Mike Morris
John Hobday
Margit Karkela
Lynn Keillor
Alanna Simone Tyler

THE TRIP
April 22-23 - Days 1-2
April 24 - Day 3
April 25 - Day 4
April 26 - Day 5
April 27 - Day 6
April 28 - Day 7
April 29 - Day 8
April 30 - Day 9
May 1 - Day 10
May 2 - Day 11
May 3 - Day 12
May 4 - Day 13
May 5 - Day 14
May 6 - Day 15
May 7 - Day 16
May 8 - Day 17
May 9 - Day 18
May 10 - Day 19
May 11 - Day 20
May 12 - Day 21
May 13 - Day 22
May 14 - Day 23
May 15 - Day 24
May 16 - Day 25
May 17 - Day 26
May 18 - Day 27
May 19 - Day 28
May 20 - Day 29

May 3, 2003
Gol, Norway
By: John Hobday

Picture this: You’re sitting at a street-side café on a busy pedestrian mall having a coffee on a sunny, warm afternoon in May in the beautiful, quaint European town of Kongsberg, Norway. Sounds pretty nice, huh? Well, that was yesterday! Today, we awoke to SNOW and lots of it.

Today was our departure day from Kongsberg. We are on our way to Gol (pronounced “Gooll” with a long “l” sound at the end). We travelled up the picturesque Numedal Valley (one of five major valleys running north-south from the Oslo area) along the Numedalågen River. We stopped in Rødberg to meet our new hosts from Gol. After the appropriate introductions and a coffee at the local café, we departed. Despite the fact that the snow made the Norwegian mountains look quite beautiful, the necessity of putting chains on the tires reportedly had one of our hosts wishing for summer!

In route to Gol, we made a stop at the Langedrag Wildlife Mountain Farm. The farm was developed by an individual wanting to house and showcase different varieties of wild animals (lynx, Norwegian horses, polar fox, highlander cattle, and Arctic (or Siberian) wolves). A prominent feature on Norwegian television a few years ago has made it quite the attraction. By the time we got there, it was really snowing and blowing hard. I have not personally been as cold all winter. All of the animals were interesting, but it was the Arctic wolves that were particularly interesting. The owner’s daughter (herself in her 40s), has developed the ability to communicate with the wolves very effectively. It was really amazing to see her work with the animals. We spoke briefly afterwards, and she said this was one of the only centers in the world where wolve! s were held in captivity. She was interested to learn that our group was from Minnesota, home to the International Wolf Center in Ely that she had absolutely heard of. An exchange of wolf experts between the centers was proposed. (Photo above: An arctic fox, seen at Langedrag, an mountaintop wildlife park near Gol.)

Our trip finished with our afternoon arrival to Gol. We each met our hosts and departed.

If you read my earlier entry a few days ago, you remember that I am relating things we do and learn to my professional life. Here is one lesson I learned today:

Activity: Observing a pack of four wolves approach their lunch with a lone onlooker (me) observing them (the rest of the group had moved on to the lynx area).

Professional Applicability: The pack worked as a team with amazing efficiency. One wolf moved forward to a position to check things out. The others hung in the background. Then the front wolf stopped and just hung out in that spot. After a few minutes, one of the wolves in the back moved to a more forward position and the other two wolves moved up in the rear. This happened a number of times over the course of 25 minutes. If something startled them or made them uncomfortable, the whole pack would quickly move back to the tree line. It was an amazing system of teamwork. I wonder how my professional activities would benefit if my teams worked with such efficiency. It’s a visual lesson I will not soon forget, and a model for working together in groups both personally and professionally.