Matvika
0
We are now passing Matvika, (Food Bay) and as the name suggests, this is a particularly fertile spot in the fjord. There were people living here right up until 1961, who subsisted on what the earth provided. The location was particularly favourable for the growing of fruit and large amounts of apples, pears and plums were harvested here. There were even more exotic fruits such as tomatoes and apricots grown here, but it was the goats that provided the main source of income. The farm had hundreds of goats who ran and jumped up the mountainside right up to the summer farm which was a thousand metres up the hillside. There the goats were milked according to traditional methods and the enterprising milkmaids produced both white and brown cheese from the milk. There was little winter fodder down by the fjord, and the resourceful farmers therefore made their very own zip line which was an amazing 1200 metres long for the transportation of hay. To put that into perspective the longest zip line in the Nordics today is in Flåm and is 1381 metres long. The Matvika zip line was reportedly built by as up to as many as 70 men from across the whole area. How many of them took the tour all the way down themselves is not known, but undoubtably it would have been an experience.