MEMORIES: A Scary Reindeer Encounter

Roros, Norway ~ source: visitnorway.com

A while back, ladyfi, a blogger friend from Sweden, posted some photos from the Norwegian mining town of Roros and stirred my memory of a big adventure one summer a long time ago.

When I was ten or eleven, we spent a summer vacation in Tenndalen, now a popular ski resort in north central Sweden, close to the Norwegian border, at the time a small mountain community. We took a trip to Roros that summer and, while I don't remember much about the town, I do remember the excitement of crossing the border to visit a "foreign" country for the first time. 

But something happened that summer, an adventure that I will never forget. My dad and I decided to conquer a nearby mountain and set off one morning with our rucksacks packed with food, water, snacks, and warm clothes. 

This mountain was not as tall as the mountains here in California, but still quite a climb. I smile when I look at these pictures; my first perm, and so tall and skinny at such a young age. 

After I posed for dad's camera, no doubt proud to have reached the summit, we started back down. And that's when it happened! I didn't know what it was, the earth shook as we heard a thundering sound, louder and louder as something came closer. I saw nothing before my dad threw me under an outcropping, a large flat rock with room for us underneath, and covered me with his body. 

Then they were upon us, a stampeding, panicked, herd of reindeer came rushing down the mountain, hundreds upon hundreds of them. Wave upon wave they came, these large deer, with their heavy horns. They ran over the outcropping, flew by us, stumbled as they landed, fell, got up again while earth and rocks flew all around, their huge horns flashing in the sunlight. 

It was over as fast as it began. I know that only the quick thinking of my dad saved our lives. We never saw what had panicked the reindeer and caused them to stampede. And maybe that was for the best. 

Ladyfi lives in Sweden, but writes her blog in English. And I absolutely love her blog. Not only does she show the country of my birth to its very best advantage in her beautiful photos, she adds a few sentences of such beauty and wisdom to each post that she takes my breath away. 
                       
Please check her blog out here, you will not be sorry.