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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
Introduction
Although European landscape-management policy
is seen by some as the result of objective natural
science (Jørstad and Skogen 2010), it is impossible
to separate nature from the way we perceive it. The
stories we tell and have told about nationhood play
an important role in defining which landscapes
are managed, how, and why. As the historian Simon
Schama (1995:10) writes: “[I]t is our shaping
perception that makes the difference between raw
matter and landscape.” Stories of the forest and its
trees have been surprisingly enduring throughout
European history, Schama (1995:17) points out, and
adds: “[M]any of our modern concerns—empire,
nation, freedom, enterprise, and dictatorship—have
invoked topography to give their ruling ideas a natural
form.” Trees and forests, whether we plant them,
harvest them or leave them be, have had a cultural
and spiritual significance throughout the ages. Trees
are prominent features of any given landscape, and
their seasonal changes and lifecycles remind us of
our own mortality (Jones and Cloke 2002:32, Syse
2000:82). The “World Tree”, of which Norse mythology’s
Yggdrasil is an example, is perhaps one of
the most commonly used symbols for the creation
of the universe, and the “Tree of Life” is perhaps
just as encompassing. Trees have been charged with
important functions in rituals associated with birth,
marriage, and death and are still used in this way
in many cultures (Genesis 2.9; Porteous 1996:149–
186, Schama 1995:219). Trees matter, which is
perhaps why countries spend a lot of time, effort,
and money both planting them (like in Scotland) and
fighting them (like in Norway).
Both Norway and Scotland are countries on the
periphery of Europe. In a global economy, both
countries are less dependent than earlier on producing
food, and land that was tilled or grazed in the past
is presently being managed without food production
as the main outcome. In Norway, forestry practice is
less contested in general, and both public and popular
focus is on the loss of farmland and grazing land
due to the natural regeneration of trees. This shift
in land-use is happening because farming in most
Norwegian areas has lost its economic importance.
In Scotland, broadleaves are being planted, while
in Norway, broadleaves are being actively fought
through funding and subsidies to maintain historical
rural landscapes (Syse 2001, 2009b). Both Norway
and Scotland have a similar heritage of subsistence
in a relatively harsh climate, and certain general
trends within land use can be found. The afforested
area is increasing, and perceptions of woodland
and forest have changed (Mather 1998:106, Syse
2001). We have two countries and two stories, both
representing loss of a particular kind of nature: loss
of open ground in Norway and loss of trees in Scotland.
But the practical and ideological outcomes of
somewhat similar starting points are diametrically
different.
Both Norway and Scotland were poverty stricken
in the 1800s. The population of the two countries were
approximately the same, and about the same percentage
of people left for America or Canada to improve
their situation (Smout 1986, Østrem 2006). Like Scotland
was ruled by the English after 1750, Norway was
in Union with Denmark until 1814 and then Sweden
until 1905. Norway was in both theory and practice
governed by Norwegians in 1905, and drew heavily on
Norwegian rural patriotic symbols. In the same way,
the Caledonian Forest became an important symbol
of Scottish nationhood. A symbolic cure to recreate—
The Ebb and Flow of Trees and Farmland:
Symbols of Nationhood in Scotland and Norway
Karen Lykke Syse*
Abstract - How does historiography merge with national stories and shape tangible land use and land management issues?
This article explores how two national stories—“The Free Norwegian Farmer” in Norway and ”The Caledonian Forest”
in Scotland—have become influential. More specifically, it investigates how they activate key symbols which are used as
both ends and means in landscape-management policies. Using trees as a starting point, this article will show how afforestation
plans on one hand and schemes to fight brushwood encroachment on the other each are direct or indirect outcomes
of national stories that have merged with historical processes. National stories are defined as accounts used in the past and
present to strengthen the political idea of nationhood. The term “key symbols” will be used as Sherry Ortner defined them:
as elements within a culture ”which … are crucial to its distinctive organization”. This article is based on literature studies,
interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork among people working in agriculture, forestry, and land management and policy in
Scotland and Norway during 2001, 2004, and 2005.
Across the Sólundarhaf: Connections between Scotland and the Nordic World
Selected Papers from the Inaugural St. Magnus Conference 2011
Journal of the North Atlantic
*Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, PO Box 1116 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway; k.v.l.syse@
sum.uio.no.
2013 Special Volume 4:219–228
K. Lykke Syse
2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
220
and in some cases reinvent —the Caledonian Forest, is
to plant trees. The Norwegian cure for the loss of arable
land symbolizing the independent farmer is to keep
the trees away (Syse 2009a, b).
Landscapes of Scotland and Norway are infused
with stories that are used to support ideas of nationhood.
In the following, I will present one Scottish
and one Norwegian narrative relating to trees. First,
the story of “The Free Norwegian Farmer” might
not seem like an obvious story of trees, but I will
argue that this story—albeit indirectly—has been
influential to a managerial practice which involves
fighting natural regeneration of trees and forest
on Norwegian arable land. Second, the story of
“The Caledonian Forest” has been used actively
throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
as an argument to plant trees, whether these trees
have been fast-growing exotic species of conifers
grown for timber, or slow-growing native1 trees. The
way in which the stories have been interpreted and
conveyed, emphasizing certain aspects and leaving
other aspects out altogether, shape the way we relate
to our surroundings2.
The Caledonian Forest
Coed Celyddon—The Woods of Caledon or
The Caledonian Forest —is, as far as we know,
first referred to in Arthurian legends. According to
these legends, Merlin was a wild man of the woods,
and his abode was supposedly in Coed Celyddon
(Jackson 1945). The modern interpretation of these
legends owes much to what the environmental
historian T.C. Smout (1997:5) coined a “masterpiece
of popular ecology”, namely Frank Fraser
Darling’s (1947) Natural History in the Highlands
and Islands. Darling was considered one of the first
ecologists, and he actively used the story of the
Caledonian Forest to encourage Scottish industrial
forestry.
But what is—or was—this Caledonian Forest?
There is archaeological and biological evidence
of a native Scottish forest covering about 50 to 60
percent of the Scottish land surface, albeit as far
back as in the Mesolithic period (between 10,000
and 5000 years ago). However, environmental historians,
archaeologists, and ecologists conclude that
nine-tenths of the forest had gone before 1000 AD
(Rackham 1986, Smout 2003:7, Tipping et al. 1999).
The story of the Caledonian Forest is not just a story
conveying what Scotland might have looked like in
the past, it is also a story of loss and a lament for the
past, and perhaps a past in which the Scottish people
lived prosperous lives in harmony with nature. To
emphasize this point, both the extent and content
of the Caledonian Forest is sometimes exaggerated.
The website of the official Scottish tourist agency,
VisitScotland, notes that:
“Scotland’s ancient Caledonian pinewood
forests once spread across thousands of kilometres
of the Highlands. They now remain at
just 84 sites and cover 180 km2 in the north
and west. However, the forests aren’t just
Scots pine rich. Juniper, birch, willow, rowan,
and aspen trees are all native pinewood forest
species.”3
In Rannoch, a moorland area in the highlands of
Perthshire, the local visitors’ web page declares that:
“The Black Wood of Rannoch is one of the
few remaining patches of the original Caledonian
Pine Forest that once covered the whole
of Scotland.”4
Apparently the Caledonian Forest once covered
most of Scotland with native trees. It is a story told
on television and in the press; one can find it repeated
on the websites of nature conservation agencies and
in literature. It is a powerful tale, and an example of
how it is sometimes conveyed can be found in a book
by Hugh Miles and Brian Jackman, a book which
accompanied Hugh Miles’ prize-winning film. The
introductory chapter reads:
“The Great Wood of Caledon is our oldest
British woodland, a primeval northern forest
which had already been standing for at least
2000 years when Stonehenge was raised …
there was hardly a glen that was not roofed
with trees … When the Romans came to Britain
it became a refuge for the Pictish tribes
who waged guerrilla war on the imperial
legions … Then came the Vikings, and the
war on the Great Wood began … they torched
the forests, and felled the tall trees to fashion
masts for their longships ... Yet still the Great
Wood stretched for miles, a sanctuary for
wolves and renegades alike until the English
arrived to smoke them out … the crushing of
Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Highland rebels signalled
the end of the glory of Caledon. Down
came the mighty trees, felled by the impoverished
clan chiefs, who forced to pay off their
hated Hanoverian landlords, sold their timber
to English ironmasters.” (Miles and Jackman
1991:11–12).
According to the environmental historian T.C.
Smout, this is an example of “history going off the
rails, starting more or less true and crashing in hopeless
error.” Like Ireland and much of Europe, Scotland
was covered in forest, bar the mountain tops
and marshes. This forest varied in species composition,
with mainly conifers in the north and east of the
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
Highlands. Yet the surviving semi-natural remnants
today are no older than broadleaved woodland in
other parts of the British Isles (Smout 2000:37). The
Great Wood of Caledon has become a story used to
convey a lot more than an account of prehistoric
woodland. The Caledonian Forest has become something
to fight for and something charitable organizations
help recreate. The story conveys the idea that
invading forces throughout Scottish history have
contributed to the destruction of this forest. The Romans,
followed by the Vikings, and then the English,
all supposedly cut down parts of the forest according
to popular and semi-popular belief. But why is
it relevant to nuance this story? Perhaps because
what the botanist Oliver Rackham calls “factoids”
and “pseudo-history” wins ground at the expense of
“real history”, and because landscape history is particularly
susceptible to so called factoids. Rackham
(2003:16) says:
“Pseudo-history is made up of factoids. A
factoid looks like a fact, is respected as a fact,
and has all the properties of a fact except that
it is not true ... Pseudo-history is not killed by
publishing real history, this does not lead to a
controversy in which one or the other version
wins. In practice, either the old version is retold
as if nothing had happened, or authors try
to combine the two versions as if both could
be true.”
So what do we know about the Caledonian Forest?
We know that much of Scotland, like Europe in
general, was covered with forest in about 3000 BC.
Climatic changes contributed to the forest declining.
Archaeological evidence like carbon dating shows
that much of the broadleaved wood was felled by
Celtic tribes as early as the first millennium BC. Ro -
man accounts only record one episode when they
actually entered a woodland in Scotland (Breeze
1997:47–51, Smout 2000:39). There are no traces of
Vikings setting fire to pinewoods, and had they done
so, this would have encouraged regeneration rather
than extinction, according to ecologists. The force
of the English after the Jacobite rising in 1745 was
positive rather than negative, as they encouraged the
sustainable use of coppiced oak for the production
of charcoal rather than using Scots pine (Dingwall
1997). The contribution of climate change and overgrazing—
particularly by Scottish peasants’ goats5—
created the open hill landscape that still characterizes
much of Scotland today. Accordingly, the size of the
former native woods of Scotland has been exaggerated
and romanticized. Who was responsible for this
romantization? Some of the blame must be assigned
to the romantic poets. Writers like Burns, Scott, and
Wordsworth partook in expressing aesthetic virtues
of natural woodland as opposed to planted forests.
Wordsworth, for instance, extolled the qualities of the
oak, ash, and holly and despised the foreign planted
trees. In fact, there was a post-enlightenment, postromantic
conflict between a utilitarian and an aesthetic
use of nature, something that has been a theme
in historiography over the past two centuries (Smout
2000:61). Queen Victoria’s appreciation of the Scottish
highlands also led to a romantic admiration, or
“Balmoralization” of Scottish landscapes. Peasant
landscapes were transformed or perceived as rugged
sporting venues for tartan- or tweed-clad aristocrats
and gentlemen passing their time grouse-shooting
and deer-stalking (Gold and Gold 1995:79; Lorimer
2000; Queen Victoria 1868, 1884).
Interestingly, although new ideas about forestry
evolved in the post-enlightenment post-romantic
period, this shift in thought did not seem to be an
immediate cure for the decline of trees in Scotland,
with one exception. In areas where there was an immediate
industrial need for timber, like for instance
the iron-smelting furnaces in Argyll, the forests were
managed on a sustainable level. Bunawe Furnace in
Argyll needed 10,000 acres of oak coppice to operate.
When the furnace closed in 1876, the woods
were at least as extensive as when they opened in
1753 (Lindsay 1975, after Smout 2000:56).
After the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth
century, rocketing timber prices and the
demands of shipbuilding encouraged explorers and
botanists to search the world for even better trees
to plant in Scotland. David Douglas brought the
Douglas fir back from North America to Scotland.
It was a tree that was appreciated for its ornamental
value, but also for its timber qualities. The Sitka
spruce, a native of Alaska, was originally planted as
a rapidly growing ornamental tree, but soon proved
its financial worth. A Sitka only needs about 40 years
of growth in Scotland to become the same size as an
80-year-old Norway spruce (grown in Norway).
After the agricultural depression of the late
nineteenth century, landowners suffered a corrosion
of both political and economical power. Landed
wealth could not compete with the modern industrial
wealth, and increased taxation by the British
government reduced the estate owners’ affluence
even further (Tsouvalis 2000:18). Gradually, landlords
sold their land, probably only after having
sold off other possible assets, such as timber. In
Norway, the forest is commonly termed “the farmers’
bank account” because the timber is a resource
that farmers will only sell if new investments have
to be paid for or sudden expenses incurred. In Britain,
increased taxation may have led to unexpected
results for the government, such as an increase in
deforestation.
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
222
The British ports were blockaded during the
First World War, partly preventing timber imports.
This crisis led to an idea of establishing forests as
a strategic reserve of timber, and the Forestry Commission
was established in 1919. Fifteen Royal
Forests in Britain were transferred to the care of
the Forestry Commission, initiating a vast national
forest. The Forestry Commission’s objective was to
produce timber as quickly and economically as possible.
Capitalism allowed the large-scale planting of
evenly spaced monoculture conifers which would
mature at the same time. These were planted both
in old wooded areas and on open hill land. By 1949,
the Forestry Commission had become the largest
landowner in Britain, owning 1,500,000 acres of
land (Tompkins 1989, after Tsouvalis 2000:70).
Despite this, only six percent of Scotland was
covered with trees by 1960, which did little more
than replace the trees felled during the war years.
The reason for the relatively modest increase in
forest cover is not explained in forestry accounts;
however, the post-war years in general were characterized
by fairly low mechanization, less efficient
infrastructure, and other practical obstacles.
Between 1960 and 1980, forestry management
companies planted many thousands of hectares of
coniferous forest in Scotland, and forest cover in
2000 was somewhere between seventeen and twenty
percent (Foot 2003:178–181). This is slightly higher
than Dingwall’s estimate of forest cover in the
1500s, although the species list is very different.
In 2000, the forest cover was about 20 percent, although
only two percent of this could be termed native
woodland (Smout 2000:47). Future generations
will be able to see whether recent developments in
modern forestry, with its focus on native species,
will make a significant difference or not.
Accordingly, an important reason for the presentday
nostalgia for the past is the very real and devastating
effect two world wars had on the Scottish
forest. The story of the great Wood of Caledonia had
two important functions in post-war Britain. Firstly,
it was conveniently used by the Forestry Commission
to justify afforestation. In doing so, the Forestry
Commission was thinking in utilitarian terms, thus
covering the Scottish hills with fast-growing and
heavy-yielding exotic species such as Sitka spruce,
arguing that tree cover was better than barren hills—
irrespective of tree species (Tsouvalis 2000:1).
As a response to this, the story of the Caledonian
Forest was used by nature conservation groups
and others who opposed the afforestation of exotic
tree species, because the dark blocks of non-native
species conveyed none of the imaginary properties
of the Great Wood of Caledon (Smout 2000:39).
The Forestry Commission, which was responsible
for the majority of the past afforestation schemes
in Scotland, was criticized by both the public and
by the environmental lobby after the intensive afforestation
leading up to the 1980s. The Forestry
Commission saw a need to change, and to create a
new corporate identity to keep up with new ideas of
sustainability and nature conservancy. This change,
coined “a reflective turn”, began in the early 1980s.
It resulted in concepts like multi-purpose forestry,
sustainability, and biodiversity being incorporated
in Forestry Commission’s managerial policies. Conceptual
boundaries between woodlands and forestry
were being re-negotiated and re-conceptualized,
and is an ongoing process. Various “native forests”
have been established in areas where little or no paleontological
work has been undertaken to create or
re-create the Wood of Caledon, using native species
rather than exotics this time round. The narrative of
the Caledonian Forest served as a justification for
two contrary reactions, first afforestation with exotic
species and then, paradoxically, the opposition to
this (Tsouvalis 2000:144).
The concept of “tree-hugging” and “talking to the
trees” has regularly been applied as a term ridiculing
people who relate to nature in spiritual or mystical
ways, but this view has been challenged by the development
of “New-Age” Celtic pagan spiritualism.
In the 1990s, various direct-action campaigns by
environmentalists often had trees as their focus, and
made affection for and connection with trees more
commonly acceptable (Jones and Cloke 2002:37).
Today, organizations such as Trees for Life not only
raise awareness about the supposedly missing Caledonian
Forest, but also for reintroducing species that
were at one time found in this forest; they hope for
the reintroduction of animal species that at one point
inhabited Scotland, such as the beaver, the wild
boar, the lynx, the elk, the brown bear, the wolf, the
reindeer, and the auroch (despite the last mentioned
species being extinct worldwide since the 1600s).
They state that:
“they each play an essential role in the ecosystem,
and there will never be a healthy selfsustaining
forest in the Highlands until all
the constituent species, especially the large
mammals, are back again.”6
To some people, this pre-agrarian wilderness is
what symbolizes the true Scotland. Some of the animal
species that relied on pine woods have become
threatened by extinction, in part because of climate
change, but also because of modern people’s fascination
with introducing new species of both plants
and animals. Species highlighted as threatened by
the environmental quango Scottish Natural Heritage
receive a due amount of consideration in planning
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
and conservation work. For instance, the capercaillie,
sea eagle, beaver, and red squirrel are all species
that have been introduced or re-introduced from
Norway with varying degrees of local consent and
support. For instance, the introduction of Norwegian
beavers7 was highly disputed among landowners in
the Knapdale area, while the re-introduction of red
squirrels was uncontested. The red squirrel is an
interesting example of how both flora and fauna can
be used as a voice for various interest groups. Over
the years, red squirrel numbers have fallen a great
deal, and the American grey squirrel, introduced to
Britain in the early 1900s, is increasing in numbers
that parallel the decrease in the red squirrel. To help
replace losses in red squirrel populations, squirrels
from Scandinavia were introduced into Scotland early
in the 21st century. Red squirrels are protected by
law, and have been included in the Scottish Heritage
Species Action Plan and the UK Biodiversity Action
Plan.8 In Scotland, the highest numbers of red
squirrels are found in coniferous woods, and they
particularly like Norway spruce, which at the moment
is considered non-native to Scotland. In many
cases, these woods represent the exact opposite of
the present version of the Caledonian Forest, which
contains broadleaved trees and Scots pine. Plantations
of Norway spruce provide an excellent food
supply for squirrels. However, some of these forests
are now being felled and replanted with native
woodlands, thus further endangering the squirrels.
Paradoxically, the commercial forestry companies
have started to use environmentalist rhetoric when
preparing their harvest and afforestation plans. They
deliberately emphasize the benefits of spruce plantations
as a good habitat for squirrels, birds, and insects,
thus using the same biodiversity arguments for
planting coniferous forests that environmentalists
use to recreate the Caledonian Forest (Syse 2009a).
The story of the Caledonian Forest is used by
various groups for various reasons. Part of the story
can be confirmed through archaeological evidence
and material remains, part of the story can be
questioned or even brushed off as pseudo-history.
Nevertheless, the story itself holds strong whether
academics believe in it or not, and to many people,
it explains and summarizes a sense of Scottish history
and identity. Although the story about the Caledonian
forest is really about trees, it is also a key
symbol to understand Scottish identity and the recent
call for Scottish independence from the United
Kingdom. The story of the trees is influential to the
idea of the Scottish nation, and the present-day political
need to maintain a separate Scottish identity
influences the way the Scottish people manage their
landscapes—by establishing a material and physical
evidence of the Caledonian Forest. A similar story
can be found across the North Sea. In Norway, however,
the abundance of trees and untameable nature
threatens rather than re-establishes the landscape in
which one of our national stories is embedded.
The Story of the Free Norwegian Farmer
While Scotland was an independent sovereign
state (from the early middle ages to the Act of Union
in 1707), Norway was from 1397 to 1523 in what
was coined The Kalmar Union, with Denmark and
Sweden. The Kalmar Union was followed by the
Danish Union that lasted until 1814. Since the king,
who lived in Denmark, was the sole lord of the
country, and since the Norwegian aristocracy to a
high degree were extirpated by the bubonic plague in
1349, there was no competitive feudal lordship left
in the country. For this reason, the farmers were a
strong and independent group (Imsen 2007:22). This
situation gave many Norwegian farmers and peasants
fairly unique and independent positions which
were incomparable to their counterparts in Scandinavia
and the rest of Europe. In the following, the
term “free” is used as a synonym for a farmer who
is independent and owns his own land, as opposed
to tenant farmers, and is not used as a dichotomy to
serfs. Although serfs (or thrall as is a more accurate
translation of the Norwegian “trell”) were found in
Norway in the early middle ages, it is an altogether
different level of freedom Norwegians refer to when
using the term “free farmer” in everyday language.
Even if the exact figures and levels of “freedom”
are difficult to measure, it would be wrong to say
that the independence situation of many Norwegian
farmers was not unique. Compared to farmers under
feudal lordship in Europe, Norwegian farmers only
answered to the Danish sovereign, and the king lived
conveniently far away.
In the eighteenth century, the idea of the Norwegian
farmer played a leading political and ideological
role, as he became the icon of the nation-building
process. An independent past is an important argument
to emphasize national distinctiveness, especially
for countries which need to mark independence
after a period under the governance of other
nations (Hage 1994). To feed this need, Norwegian
historians and writers created a story providing the
new, self-governing Norway with an historical foundation
and continuity from medieval times through
the time of Union and ending up with the democratic
and consolidating constitution of 1814. For instance,
in 1867 the historian R. Keyser wrote:
“The Norwegian farmer has always been
regarded as the Norwegian people’s main
representative ... In ancient times he was even
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
224
Hulda Garborg is considered the mother of the Norwegian
folk costumes, or bunads as we know them
today (Anderson 2001, Skre 2011). Interestingly,
the image and the icon of the free Norwegian farmer
still prevails in modern Norway. Every constitution
day (17th of May), city, town, and village streets
are full of men and women dressed in Norwegian
regional costumes.9 Roughly estimated, Norwegians
have bunads worth about 4 billion Euros sitting in
their closets.12 Although only a tiny percentage of
Norwegians make their living off the land today, the
affection for rural national costumes points towards
a nostalgic yearning for Norway’s rural past. If Norwegian
farmers are scarce, Norwegians still perceive
themselves as free and self-governing, something
which staying outside the EU indicates. According
to the anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the
bunad symbolizes Norwegians’ personal attachment
to history (Eriksen 2004). Wearing a bunad also
communicates an affinity to a rural way of life lived
in harmony with the other important Norwegian
symbol—nature.
So why this focus on the construction or reconstruction
of national symbols of the past? As
we shall soon see, both the farmer and his regional
dress are embedded in the Norwegian landscape.
The Polish cultural historian Nina Witoszek (2011)
emphasizes the importance of nature and nature
mythologies in Norwegian culture, and the ethnologist
Tove Nedrelid calls nature a building block for
Norwegian nationhood (1988:61). However, it is
not necessarily the wild or untouched nature that
fascinates most Norwegians. On the contrary, Norwegians
like their cultivated landscapes. Because
the arable land in Norway is (and was) so scarce,
Norwegian farmers had to make use of what might
be perceived as wilderness by outsiders to harvest
fodder and other natural resources. An extreme example
of this is that even the two highest mountains
in Norway, Galdhøpiggen (2469 m above sea level)
and Glittertind, have traces of transhumance, like
fences and shielings, and the “wild” nature that Norwegians
like to recreate in is a palimpsest of cultural
and agricultural activity (Nedrelid 1988, 1993).
Nedrelid also writes that in the front line of
new national symbols—next to the Viking sagas,
romantic landscapes, fairy tales, and the pure Norwegian
flag—two important symbols stood tall: The
Free Norwegian Farmer and The Free Norwegian
Nature (Nedrelid 1988). These two key symbols
stood proud for a long while, but now something has
changed dramatically, and Norway’s national symbol—
the free farmer—is becoming disembedded
through the natural regeneration of trees.
According to Statistics Norway,13 as little as 0.3
percent of Norway’s gross national product came
from farming in 1999, and only 3 percent of Norway
the only one. Not only did farmers constitute
the main body of the people and the most
prevalent part of society, the word farmer encapsulated
everything which was considered
free amongst the people; since both distinguished
chieftains as well as the king himself
were farmers.” (Visted and Stigum 1951:9,
author’s translation).
Building on the idea of strong, farming chieftains
from the Viking age, and reinterpreting this
figure to suit the means of nation building, the free
(and proud) Norwegian farmer became the symbol
of the new Norway (Lunden 1992, 2002; Seip
1997). The question of why the farmer became a
national symbol has been posed, and scholars have
suggested that since Norway has few material remains
of a proud past apart from mainly wooden
vernacular architecture, non-material elements like
language, folklore, and traditions became cultural
elements on which to build a new nation. The anthropologist
Per Hage (1994) explores how this
image of the archetypical Norwegian, which was
embodied through a proud inland farmer (preferably
envisioned skiing through a winter landscape), was
less representative than one would think. Interestingly,
the image of the free Norwegian farmer actively
excluded the majority of the population who
in the early 1800s lived along the coast and were
cottars, crofters, and fishermen living on islands,
islets, and Norway’s long archipelago rather than
wealthy inland farmers (Berggren 1984, Gjertsen
1975, Hage 1994). According to the 1801 census, as
many as 65 percent of all farmers were tenants who
were only tied to the land through their willingness
or need to provide labor to the landowner, who in
most cases was another farmer (Lunden 2002:386).
The story of the Free Norwegian farmer, like the
Caledonian Forest, had become iconic and had
grown somewhat out of its historical frame.
While hoards of Norwegians moved into the cities
or fled over the Atlantic to seek a more prosperous
life elsewhere, the free farmer was projected as
a national symbol, and so was his attire. Simultaneously,
the use of regional clothing started declining
from the mid-1800s. Artists started painting laboring
countryfolk dressed in festive regional clothing in
their picturesque rural landscapes from the 1840s
and throughout the romantic period (Christensen
2002, Noss 2003). Moreover, from the mid-1800s,
the regional costumes were coined national costumes.
Around 1900, a movement called Norskbevegelsen
(the Norwegian movement) evolved, and a
central figure in this movement was a woman called
Hulda Garborg (1862–1934), wife of the writer Arne
Garborg. In 1903, she published the pamphlet Norsk
klædebunad (Norwegian clothing; Garborg 1903).
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
something SNH [Scottish Natural Heritage]
decide. At the moment, Beech isn’t native.
But they have since decided that Sycamore
is. Didn’t use to be, ’til about 10 years ago, it
was considered non-native, but they’re moving
on to the fact that Sycamore is native.
They found a 5000-year-old Norway spruce
in a bog up north somewhere. But they still
won’t call Norway-spruce native. So I’m not
quite sure how they decide what is native and
what is non-native!”
However, in a forestry commission brochure, it
seems as if aesthetics is the true explanation:
“Our native tree species—trees natural to this
country—have been linked with Scottish culture
and society throughout history. They are
pleasing to the eye. They seem to ‘belong’ ’’
(Ramsey et al. 1998).
The “native species” are given preferential
treatment; they are planted, tended, and protected
from deer and sheep by plastic tubes or fences. This
aesthetic yardstick defining the true native Scottish
wood is what is taught at schools and universities,
shown on pamphlets from SNH and the Forestry
Commission, and regarded as a correct nature management
policy. Nevertheless, although the aesthetic
seems an indisputable attribute, an interview with a
Scottish forester pointed towards the inherent paradoxes
in the Scottish nation-building project:
“The Scots pine is very pretty and attractive—
there’s half a dozen over there you see?
They’re from German stock, these probably.
Because nearly all the Scots pine that was
planted by the Forestry Commission and the
private forestry in the 60s, 70s, 80s, they were
all German stock.”
In other words, a pragmatic course is taken when
planting, and the particular nationality of a tree is a
cultural decision.
After the author had completed fieldwork in
Scotland and returned to Norway, recent contact
was made by a SNH representative requiring assistance
in finding Norwegian landscape managers
working on juniper management projects. Names of
some people who had carried out work on juniper in
Hordaland County were promptly given. On the west
coast of Norway, juniper is considered a problem because
it regenerates so easily, taking over previously
open grazing land, and they are introducing cashmere
goats to combat the juniper. This was considered
a very successful juniper management project.
However, this was not the kind of juniper management
scheme suitable for Scottish conditions, because
in Scotland, juniper is scarce, yet regarded as
one of the native Scottish species (Syse 2009a).
is arable land. Because grazing has decreased dramatically,
this small arable area is being encroached
with trees, and many highland and lowland grazing
areas have become broadleaved forests instead
(Dramstad and Puschmann 2008, Puschmann and
Dramstad 2009). This decrease in farmland has led
to a change in landscape management. While Norwegian
agricultural policy previously was geared
towards increasing yields and striving for self-sufficiency
(Almås 2002:271), focus is now given to the
landscape itself (ibid.:379).
Both tourist associations and the general public
enjoy the open and grazed landscapes which Norwegian
farming has created through the centuries.
To maintain these landscapes, particularly the
rough grazing areas, Norwegian farmers can apply
for subsidies specially designed to encourage the
aesthetics and biodiversity associated with cultural
landscapes.10 These subsidies can, for instance, be
used for fencing, mowing, grazing by goats or
even Scottish Highland cattle, and maintaining old
listed buildings. Like with the red squirrel rhetoric
in Scotland, the farmers themselves have adopted
the rhetoric of the heritage and biodiversity establishment
who have actively used the term “cultural
landscapes”. The Norwegian farmers’ associations
actively use the term “cultural landscape” as a
reason to maintain subsidies at a high level, and
to argue against the reintroduction or protection of
wolves and other large carnivores, as these make it
unprofitable to keep sheep in some areas.
Nationhood and Native Trees
If trees—or lack of trees—as stated above, can
strengthen claims of nationhood, it follows that flora
can be defined as native or non-native. But how do
we know which is which? For instance, the Norway
spruce (Picea Abies) is non-native to Scotland, but
native to Norway. However, Scots pine (Pinus Sylvestris)
is highly appreciated and unfortunately not
bountiful in Scotland, while it grows in abundance
in Norway—where it is also native.
Anthropologists often talk about “matter out of
place”—that we dislike something if we perceive
it is not supposed to be there. However, when assessing
whether a tree ought to be in a particular
landscape or not, confusion often arises, and it is
no longer so easy to separate the “oughts” from the
“ought-nots”. During fieldwork in Scotland (Syse
2009a), a Forestry Commission officer discussed
native versus non-native trees as follows:
“Non-native is anything that’s not wanted
in a native woodland area. Rhododendron,
Bamboo … we try to avoid it. There’s no age
limit to what’s considered non-native, that’s
K. Lykke Syse
2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
226
The example with the introduction of goats is
not the only means by which Norwegians try to keep
the trees at bay. On the west coast of Norway, there
is a heathland center, which manages a small area
of heath using traditional methods. But even this
limited and very well-monitored area of heathland is
being invaded by Sitka spruce (Syse 2009b). Nature
is incredibly responsive to use as well as lack of use,
and will always reflect management schemes, or
even lack of management schemes. It is possible to
change the landscape, but when the economic incentives
for such change are limited, it becomes even
more challenging to do so. The steep and stony old
grazing areas in parts of Norway which once were
the arena of the independent and hardworking farmers—
icons of Norwegian nationhood—have lost
their systematic context and are now mainly grazed
and harvested for reasons probably far beyond the
comprehension to those that once gave shape to
the land. Maintaining agriculture in these areas is
a question of rural demography rather than food
production. The above-mentioned juniper is not a
species that is threatened internationally, nevertheless
time and effort is spent encouraging its growth
in Scotland. Similar management practices are used
to encourage birds that are scarce in one place but
found in abundance in others, or as is the case in Norway,
encouraging large carnivores like wolves, bear,
and lynx in areas where farmers are given cultural
landscape subsidies to maintain grazing—a policy
which some farmers regard as both a contestable and
expensive way to reintroduce large carnivores in areas
where they have been close to extinction (Skogen
and Krange 2003).
Conclusion
According to the anthropologist Laura Rival
(1998:13), “native trees have come to play an important
role in state-making.” Analyzing why trees have
been given a role as heroes or villains in national
stories such as that of The Caledonian Forest and
The Free Norwegian Farmer and juxtaposing them
with one another explains how history and ideology
are merged and shape tangible land-use and landmanagement
issues. The Caledonian Forest and The
Free Norwegian Farmer have become key symbols
(Ortner 1973) as they have influenced the general
public’s and policy-makers’ ideas of nationhood,
and are used as both ends and means in landscapemanagement
policies. These examples illustrate how
humans attach cultural values to the land, and how
land management is as much a question of building a
national identity as increasing the biodiversity. Certain
trees, animals, and even whole landscapes are
considered more valuable than others. Natural, geographical,
historical, and cultural factors influence
how nature is managed. It would be meaningless to
argue that we should stop managing nature, but it is
important to bear in mind that cultural and practical
assessments are common in all environmental
practice.11 Even when trying to reconstruct “natural
woodland”, environmentalists are doing exactly
what farmers have been doing since the advent of agriculture:
encouraging nature in the manner which is
considered most beneficial at a certain historical period,
after applying practical and cultural reasoning.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Richard Oram, Kristian Bjørkdahl,
Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Michael Bruce, and two anonymous
reviewers for thoughtful comments.
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Endnotes
1As will be argued in the following, the term “native”
when referring to trees is both elastic and changeable.
2The limitation of space demands these two stories to be
presented in a condensed form in the following, and due
to this, a certain simplification of hugely complex historical,
geographical, and cultural issues is required.
3From http://wildlife.visitscotland.com/sitewide/featurerepos/
264892/.
4From http://www.rannoch.net/Black%20Wood.htm.
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of animals that the peasants were allowed to keep by
the landlord. However, this measure did not protect the
forest sufficiently, as shown by Smout (1965) in his article
Goat keeping in the old highland economy. He demonstrates
that goats were a very important animal for highland
families, and the way that they grazed in woodlands
meant that the natural re-growth of young trees would
have been almost impossible. Although sheep have had
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
228
an indisputable role in maintaining the open hills, goats
have a diverse appetite and ability to digest even prickly
species, like gorse and juniper, which sheep avoid.
6From http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/missing/.
7Although there is evidence of beavers having been a part
of the fauna in England and in the southeastern parts of
Scotland, local landowners argue that there is no archaeological
nor historical evidence of beavers having lived in
the Knapdale area on the west coast of Scotland where
they were introduced as a pilot project in 2009.
8See: http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A40765.pdf for Scottish
Red Squirrel Action plan for 2006–2011.
9There are at least 2.2 million bunads in Norway (whose
population is 5 million), so almost 50 percent of all
Norwegians own a national costume. This statistic might
seem strange when considering that the cost of a bunad
is between 2.5 and 6.5 thousand Euros, and even stranger
when the costume is used on average only about twice a
year. The bunad is also—like the Scottish tartan popularized
by Queen Victoria—a fairly innocent national
symbol. However, it is—like a tailored kilt with all the
trimmings—an expensive symbol, so its class-connotations
are referred to more often than its nationalist connotations.
For instance, the Telemark bunad, which is one
of the most expensive costumes, is sometimes called the
Oslo-3 costume because people living in Oslo west end
can afford it, and not because they actually come from
Telemark.
10Such as STILK (Spesielle tiltak i landbrukets kulturlandskap
[special measures for agricultural landscapes])
introduced by the Agricultural Ministry in 1990 and
SMIL (Spesielle miljømidler i landbruket [special environmental
measures in agriculture]) introduced in 2004.
11A highly interesting example of this can be found in
Jørstad and Skogen (2010).
12According to a survey made for Norsk Husflidslag, Olso,
Norway by Norsk Gallup in 2002.
13http://www.ssb.no/emner/01/01/arealstat/.