A New Digging Season

For a little while now spring has been happening in the valleys below the mountains here in Northern Norway. It had as often before been a nice winter, full of skiing and watching the Aurora Borealis, and something a bit out of the ordinary.

One morning early in March we heard unusual sounds moving towards our calm little yard, accompanied by the smell of oil and exhaust.

Suddenly truck after truck, large and noisy military vehicles, parking neatly up next to our house. Soldiers pours off the machines and scuttle off, waddling like armed penguins in their winter gear, to set up camp a few hundred meter in front of the porch. On the other side of the house, across the river, another bunch of guys set up with small tracked personel carriers and snowmobiles, erected another camp.

The U.S Marines had come to play together with other Nato forces.

Now, that was a fun week where we got nothing serious done. We rather spent the days watching the soldiers maintain their vehicles, go out on patrols etc. And when we went skiing across the valley we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a British army camp. I hope next winter will be equally entertaining. But now it is spring, and a few days ago I decided to get into the digger clothes and go smell the soil.

I spent some awesome hours roaming around in a gebirgsjäger camp looking for treasures and good rust. Of course I knew that only the top soil would be soft enough to dig, and sure enough, following a signal I met ice around 15-20 cm deep. Other places even closer to the surface. Maybe I ll remember to go back and check that signal again in a couple of weeks, coz it was a good one :D

The first relic to find its way to my pocket this season was a nice signal flare casing. I haven`t found any good casings for ages so it was welcome. I grabbed with me a Mp 38/40 loader, and I spent a fair amount of time scanning the forest floor to find the rest of the broken Luftwaffe ladle, with no luck. I dug up a metal cutter, which I ll use electrolysis to clean up, and then display it together with some trench-art. Other than that I found a handfull of the usual rubbish, but a beautiful Finnish coin closed the first day of digging.

I ve been out for two more small trips, mostly for recco. On the first site I took the wrong direction and found nothing, so I ll be back there later. The second place I had discovered sketched onto a map, showing a single barrack in the hillside.

It took a little bit of walking but I found it on the corner of a field. The soil there was wet and marshy and the few items I dug up, several full stripper clips, gasmasks and canisters and some cutlery, was in very poor condition. I might go back there later this summer though for a second look when the ground has dried up.

A few of my favorite spots are more inland and was under snow last week, but finally SPRING IS HERE ! :)

First find of the season, a signal flare casing.

Finnish 5 Markkaa from 1941.

From one of the many beautiful winter days we had.