The town of Tvedestrand has many antique shops. A few years ago, one hot summer, I visited one of them and found a book that depicts a young man’s struggle for existence at fifty degrees minus.

Helge Ingstad’s “Pelsjegerliv” is a description of the author’s experiences as an early fur hunter in the Canadian North in the late 1920s. At the time, the map still had white spots. Wild and tame Indians were a viable rhetoric, and Ingstad dreamed of experiencing the original, untouched experience.

Adventure over safety

The story of Helge Ingstad’s life as a fur hunter is, among other things, the story of a breakup. At the age of twenty-seven, he left his secure legal office in Levanger to realize his dream of a long journey. The NRK radio archives contain lectures and interviews with Ingstad spanning more than sixty years. He is constantly asked why he chose to sacrifice safety for adventure.

Helge Ingstad’s daughter, Benedicte Ingstad, is currently working on a biography of her own father. In the first volume, “The Adventure”, she refutes that her father’s unequivocal dream was to travel north, as has often been described. It is rather a general desire to travel, which more or less accidentally led the author to the icy regions of the Canadian great north. Benedicte Ingstad talks about the book’s iconic status in the family and the fact that she refused to read it for a long time.

A piece of publishing history

“Pelsjegerliv” is the history of Norwegian publishing. Ingrid Ryvarden was Helge Ingstad’s last editor-in-chief at Gyldendal. She says that “Pelsjegerliv” was precisely an important book in establishing Gyldendal as an independent Norwegian publisher after its purchase in Denmark a few years earlier. The book has been published in nearly 20 editions and has sold between 130,000 and 150,000 copies.

My own copy from the antique dealer in Tvedestrand is from the second edition published in 1937.

A different grandfather

Eirik Sandberg Ingstad is the grandson of Helge Ingstad. He currently works as a project manager in the entertainment department of NRK. Oddly enough, it is still responsible for programs where temperatures are below zero. Like Lars Monsen’s wilderness series.

He portrays his grandfather as a different grandfather who told fairy tale stories by the fire. He particularly remembers the stories of the toe that had to be amputated due to gangrene and hunger when the reindeer failed to show up.

Before the hour

“Pelsjegerliv” is an epic book, where the descriptions of nature never become cliché. The book shows a tender, humorous and dedicated author. Ingrid Ryvarden believes that with this book, Ingstad anticipates modern trends in non-fiction, where the aim is precisely to feature oneself in the story. She also says that the book has both page-turning qualities and that you have to be very angry not to be charmed by the story.

I subscribe to this analysis. Run to the nearest antique store or get the new edition of the book.