Geiranger (1950s)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] tourists are like grasshoppers one moment there yeah the next moment they've gone now they've done Ganga a famed Norwegian resort and blissfully later part of another role of pretty snapshots in their pocket but people live in Gehringer for them they're angry is much more than a beauty spot which figures in a travel brochure [Music] Nature has shaped this little community and the people who live here in her own image nature is harsh as well as beautiful and for thousands of years life has been a struggle a struggle that is still going on a struggle for existence for survival but this is not something to talk about you harvest the Heian inaccessible mountain ledges hundreds of feet above the floor several mile from the farm it's not something you talk about life is like that here and try to make the best of it hard work is a tradition and the only way to survive their anger was not designed for easy living there pretty girl the national costume here this is not the folk dancing country light is Stern but not monotonous not down [Music] this is not one of the usual romantic themes this is a picture of guy Ranga at work it's a miracle that people can rest a living here visitors sometimes explain it has in fact taken hundreds of years to clear the land of rock and stone generations of generation the struggle has gone on Stonewall of the front line in this unequal struggle between man and nature sometimes nature strikes with tremendous force and then a fresh start has to be made [Music] but sometimes a man gets the better of nature and makes use of the poles of rock collision protection at least against the snow slides which are such a threat every winter here beneath the shadow of the mountain in this little gully life carries on even here a living is rested from the land [Music] nobody has yet managed to construct a machine that can master this kind of country every year the file slips down every spring it has to be carried out again in many places it is so steep that horses have to give up but the human animal must find a way even if his farm is perched on the eponymous Lynch the soil is not plentiful in this son crack Valley but at least it is bountiful barley is not a crop but a certain amount is grown for the farmers own requirements [Music] it is almost a hundred years since the first team ship entered guy Randolph your many have followed in its wake for tourists from all over the world have wanted to see this so-called wild and uncivilized Valley for themselves [Music] [Music] [Music] of course the guy rang to which the turret saw was not the ordinary workaday guy Ranga for them Beringer assumed a bright new face a face full of smiles the out furrows there was no hint here of a struggle for existence here everything was measured in terms of tourist appeal tell after hotel was erected ready to keep most luxury loving gift modern civilization came to Garriga some of the consequences were good some bad Saturday near 8 the hotels and tourist trip provided a gooding and helped to raise a standard of living [Music] the road that was built to the east brought by Rangda much pleasure to the rest of the world and tourists were provided with another attraction a trip to dowse neba more than 4,500 feet above sea level a journey accomplished in only half an hour by car the hotel situated at the point where the road to death never turns from the main highway enough against snow almost outside the front door even in midsummer [Music] as you would hurry up you'll finally get the feeling of travelling on the roof world above the clouds even when the Sun breaks through the whole of the mighty gearing of your is laid out in miniature balloon [Music] around your the world is winking [Music] there are not many places in the world where skiing and be operated only by half an hour during in midsummer [Music] on the whole are of two categories of tourists in guy ranga taught from the big cruising line of and the utility kind who travel by road and sleep in a tent [Music] Garriga feud has been widely advertised as Norway's loveliest pure busy series run to and fro with tourists keen to see guy rangas wild grandeur as promised in the travel brochures and saw 4,500 feet perpendicularly from the scene waterfalls cascade in all the colors of the rainbow this is the bridal veil here is the bridal veil again this time right from the church door and up to [Music] and these are the school sisters like all sisters they come in different shapes and sizes just across the floor is the war that do the ladies of course was a legend that all seven sisters were madly in love him when none of them could have him all seven cast themselves off the mountain and into the floor a tragic story but epic and grand like everything else in Taronga even the seagulls of tourist minded and show off their tricks day after day all through this year [Music] the influx of tourists creates traffic problems even in little guy Ranga [Music] [Music] tourists come tourists go tourists from every corner of the world do these visitors who are constantly seeking new sights your amusement understand the real guy Ranga having seen the people behind all the tourists love men and women live here who know nothing Carolina's tourist hotels and conducted to us every year there is the same sharp contrast the same grotesque disparity between two totally different ways of life [Music] we're the happier it's a little question and probably nobody knows the answer perhaps rather than engage in a difficult philosophical discussion which is better to give ourselves up entirely to admiring the beauty of the scenery [Music] at last the tourists be like birds - warmer lands and guy Ranga is just another happy summer memory but here winter is already on threshold a cold solitary slow winter and man woman and child has lived the winter through on the rations painfully rested from nature on the ledges and slopes of their fabulously beautiful at granite hard Ganga [Music]