BREAKTHROUGH

[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i was 13 when i first heard about aura aura just about the biggest water power project in western europe the job began back in 1913. my father was among the first workers to enroll the next year he wrote my mother telling us all to come up so we sold the place packed a wagon and we're on our way there was plenty of water power in those mountains in the middle of nowhere just waiting to be tamed the trip was hard but with us young ones it was all one big adventure [Music] and then there was a day when we finally came out to the sundance fjord one of those great natural harbors no way so proud of sundal is small now just a few shacks not even a village but it will be a big town someday thanks to the electric force that we will release from those mountains there will be factories and a thriving port and industries that's what my father said in his letter when he told us to join him [Music] my mother had to ask around before she found someone who knew where he was staying [Music] people everywhere two boats filled with new hands were just tying up the place looked like an ant hill and there was hardly a barn or shack that wasn't used for shelter only the first arrivals had been lucky enough to find a room in a farmhouse dad wasn't around when we got there [Music] but then i met kari she knew the place she'd know where we could find him well the cafe was about all the boys had after the day's work a place where a week's pay could go the balls in a couple of hours father wasn't there though [Applause] he was up on the mountain working he was bossing the crew that was putting up a rail line across the plateau it would haul materials for the big dams and tunnels that were going up there [Music] [Applause] oh for us the works up there were a wonderful playground always something new to try and plenty of chances to work off our energy best of all was when we could steal a push car for a ride on the new rails looking back now it's a wonder we went all killed by that time i knew a lot about aura it was a great project all right father had explained it to me and now i explained it to kari high up there in those mountains there are lakes with their waters going to waste spilled all over the mountain flanks we'll bring those waters together waters from six lakes channel them for 10 miles right up to the sundal's yard and then drop them down a 2100 feet long tunnel deep inside the rock and that drop would drive the turbines and produce power it was hard work long hours small pay too small to keep a family the men tried to get better working conditions some got pretty mad finally we all agreed workers and management that the union should be organized to speak for us our man you should have seen that first labor [Music] day [Music] bye [Music] old culver spoke he was a fine old man brothers he said our union works it won't be long before we have an eight-hour day but soon electricity is going to do the job of muscles and there's going to be a five-day week and even vacations would pay oh brothers there is thunder in those mountains every blast up there is a victory for science for progress and for us working man but a few days later everything stopped all work on era all progress europe was at war i was a boy then but by the time work started up again after the war i have become a man an hour a man like father and all the others my first job was with the blacksmith the boys were touchy about those drills if the edge wasn't just right i'd hear about it for a week i got the same way myself when i started in the tunnel it was good work hard work all by hand the way those old-timers could swing a hammer we made good progress until 1919. [Music] when the spanish flu hit us it could finish a man in just a few hours the flu swept the whole camp every day they'd carry men out of the shaft and some days two or three would die [Music] help was needed for everyone those were black days there on the mountain and they kept getting worse the post-war depression had already started we were all out of a job again i made the rounds tried everywhere always the same answer if i had a wife and young ones i could have gotten some relief work but single fellows oh no [Music] i tried everywhere made the rounds of the farms anything spreading manure plowing anything at all for a meal or two but it wasn't a good time for the farmers either up to their ears and debt foreclosures always hanging over them maybe silver foxes might be even interesting work tending foxes but it was no everywhere the farmers figured we should move along now that the job was closed down it made you sick to see all our tools turning into junk i felt i was walking through a cemetery [Music] but if the river wasn't giving us any power at least it was giving us fish i got lots of trout of the last tree you had to hang on somehow if you lost faith you were finished i was lucky i had corey the girl i grew up with and i'll plenty of time to sit with her and to dream about a better future we used to watch those little drops that meant power millions of horsepower wasted running into the sea [Music] [Applause] [Music] some people were putting the water to work anyway i'd watch that wheel spin and think of bigger things somehow their enthusiasm made me feel a little better but otherwise the water was just running to waste a few local power plants that was all it was the hour project which actually helped back everything else in the district who wanted to start other power plants when our power would be so much cheaper when it finally [Music] came [Music] 31 32 33 those were the worst years angry kids cold winters half the country unemployed even the rigged out of hand flooded the banks and washed out bridges and houses just about cleared out the town down at era [Music] but that club did some good know something had to be done they started a flood control project that gave his work for a couple of years at least it was about then that our people in parliament set up an arachimettic the only way out they said was for the government to take over the project three years of hard work and they finally passed the bill all clear for us to go to work but that was the spring of 1940 [Music] invasion power is vital to the war effort the nazis said one year and the job is done one year after having waited for so many years now we were in now harry it was their war effort against us and our allies that one year soon went by not much progress was made the germans finally gave up and i wound up in jail for a long time work sabotage when i got out not much was left hard enough to get together a simple house let alone a power plant tools supplies machines we just didn't have them but then the government took over what the germans had left a dirty job trying to salvage stuff from that graveyard then things suddenly started moving tools machines equipment arriving from [Music] [Applause] everywhere iron compressors and drills and steel trucks and cranes and bulldozers from half the countries of europe and on lots of those crates there was a label with stars on top and stripes below the label of the marshall plan it was hard to believe that all those things were being used on our big job that all these countries were helping us now helping to beat the mountain and helping themselves getting their factories going so we started moving this time fast you watch those modern tools and then you wonder how we made any distance at all by hand it's wonderful to be working with good tools to see the job and away again [Music] we don't have to live in farmhouses either anymore we have our own homes settlements and cottages where we can rest for a new day's work we are a men we work hard but that's what we wanted that's what we've been wanting for close to 40 years now attacking the mountain flanks from many sides high up in the clouds is dangerous work but we like it it will make our already sooner and work for aura is work for us and the strange thing about this hour once it's finished you'll never guess it's there the tunnels will be inside the mountain the turbines the entire works all you'll see will be the power lines coming straight out of the rock that's all the turbines and the tunnels today it still seems like a dream but it won't be long now that day when we'll be mounting those turbines getting them ready and then there will come the breakthrough when water will roll down that 10 mile tunnel for the first time and drop down 2 100 feet to hit out turbines with half a million horsepower we sit on that mountain carrie and i just like many years ago the future we used to dream about then was uncertain now we know that our dream is coming true half a million horsepower more than we need we'll send it over the hills to open new districts start new industry new towns we'll send it to other countries too that's one of the things we in norway will offer to europe electric power from aura [Applause] [Music] so