I must say that the 4-5 (?) bunkers look much better on old photos than in reality. Currently they are falling apart and I was wondering if they haven’t been destroyed after the war by purpose? Besides of stone walls, not much left from the roofs and other elements of the constructions, like e.g. door frames. The area look cleaned, with not too many visible items laying around. I found some parts from field ovens, buckets, basins, some nails, etc. Everything shown on photos below. The bunkers are not far from each other, and some of them were flooded. There are also few smaller stone constructions on the plateau. I was walking around for one or two hours, taking photos and thinking that it wasn’t a fun to sit in these bunkers during winter time or in full summer when bloodsucking flies are emerging from nearby wetlands. But for sure, it had to be more gruesome in prisoner camps, operating in Norddalen, circa 10 km north in straight line from were I was standing.
Happy with the well done job, on my way downhill I had more time to look at signs of summer slowly exploding in Northern Norway. Although on 500 meters nature was slow with new leaves and flowers, lower in the forest there was a lot of various plants which have just started flowering. Among others I recognized globeflower Trollius europaeus, alpine yellow-violet Viola biflora, bunchberry Chamaepericlymenum suecicum, some geraniums Geranium sp. and forget-me-nots Myosotis sp. Not so good in botany any longer to name them all, unfortunately... Going down was much more pleasure than the way up. It didn’t take long before I was on the bridge and start walking back to my car via the valley. Stordalen has his own history. The local road was built by the German pioneers and Russian prisoners of war, in winter 1944/1945. There are remnants of German pioneer camps on both sides of it, not far from the bridge, and there is also an another camp on slopes of Barras. In the end of the war in Norway, the night from 8th to 9th of May 1945, nearly 60 soldiers from the German army deserted, killing two own officers. Most of them managed to escape to Sweden, but 11 were caught. Four of them were executed by Germans on 10th of May.
The Dirty Digger’s Girlfriend