Day 66 – at Lierne National Park

The Lierne National Park is one of Norway’s smaller parks, and half of it lies in Sweden. It’s renowned for its lynx, wolverines, bears and the rare Arctic fox around its mountains, but the area I visited today was wetlands, much to Roja’s delight. To him it was like a giant aqua theme park.

Though the rain had stopped during the night, the cloud was low and there was always moisture in the air. Once or twice it threatened to lift, but soon after set in low again. The track I followed is used mainly by fishermen, and leads to a couple of isolated cabins that are not for public use, but must be rented from the Park Authority. I saw no one all day, except the moose hunters who are renting the cabin next to where I am parked. Surprisingly, their dogs, Norwegian Elkhounds get in very well with Roja. They have one Jämthund, a Swedish moose dog, which they keep separately, on a leash, she and Roja get on particularly well. They also have a Bloodhound equipped with a GPS collar to smell out the moose. This technology has ‘gps recall’ so the dogs roam free over huge distances. It works like the ‘no fence’ technology for cattle, giving them when required, an electric impulse, or shock, to urge the, home. This has had a significant effect on the ‘success’ of the hunter. Your average occasional city slicker who visits just once a year to shoot, is now four times more successful than they were prior to the technology. Bloodhounds have by far the strongest sense of smell of any dog, his owner told me he can trace a moose from more than 50 kilometres away. Fortunately for them, there are plenty a lot closer than that.

We stayed put this afternoon. I still do some remote work, and had a few hours of that to attend to, then the cricket from Lahore. It really is a great stopover place, enough kilometres from any road or habitation for it to be totally silent.