Welcome to our exhibition about women in Nord-Troms! In this exhibition, we want to highlight women and their diversity. Author Bente Pedersen will be here to talk about «Nordkalottkjerringer».
What: Opening of exhibition: Women in Nord-Troms - Always employed
Where: Davvi álbmogiid guovddáš / Centre for Northern Peoples
When: 8 March 2019, 18:00
Exhibition period: 8 March - 26 April 2019
Programme:
Janne Hansen: introduces and opens
Author Bente Pedersen: About «North Calotte bitches»
Eline Petrine Johansen: cultural feature
You know, it was the women who basically ran almost the entire farm, as far as chopping wood and so on. I think there were few places where it was the man who ran the farm..
Public health nurse Valborg Mørch Soleng
The days were long and the workload almost unstoppable. She sacrificed everything for her family, and for long periods she managed everything alone when her husband was out fishing. Bringing up children, housekeeping and cooking, fishing, farming, harvesting, caring for the sick and elderly, duodji, charity..... The list of Nord-Troms women's tasks and roles is long. Her efforts were invaluable in neighbourhoods and rural communities. Yet her work is undervalued and almost invisible in the history books.
The work the women did is unimaginable today. They had knowledge of how to manage nature, medicine and health, and they were committed to frugality and recycling. Hard work combined with charity and selflessness was the norm they lived by. The women of the interwar period have been given the most space in our physical exhibition, but the exhibition will live on digitally, and will include stories from several eras.
The Centre for Northern Peoples has produced the exhibition in close collaboration with Nord-Troms Museum and the Sami Library Service. The project has received support from Troms County Council.
While the men spent much of their time in desolation, the women, on the other hand, were «always busy» spinning, knitting, weaving and making sausage-skin traps and coarse woollen blankets that were sold to Lofoten and the Swedish Sami..
(Bishop Krogh)
Women in Nord-Troms on nordligefolk.no
Brochure Women in Nord-Troms, pdf
See photos from the exhibition
All photos: Torun Olsen
