Beskrivelse
The challenge in telling these women’s stories is the lack of their own voices. While male hunters left behind a rich legacy of diaries and accounts, very few records from the women themselves have been preserved. Most of the texts we have about them were written by men – often husbands who described their wives’ roles in their own books.
Nevertheless, there are bright spots. A few women took up the pen themselves, offering unique insights into their polar lives. Wanny Woldstad documented her five years in Hornsund (1932 – 1937) in both diaries and the well-known book “The First Woman as a Hunter on Svalbard.” The German Christiana Ritter’s poetic account of her overwintering in “A Woman in the Polar Night” (1934 – 1935) became an international success. Others, such as Berntine Johansen and Sally Kræmer, had their stories published in magazines, and Helfred Nøis was honored with her own biography, “The Arctic Ocean Woman.”
Content:
Foreword
Our Women’s Contribution on Svalbard
Ragna Nisja Looks Back
– When the Spinning Wheels Whirred
Among the Winterers at Hotellneset
Hansine Furfjord
The Cross in Skansbukta
Hans Furfjord’s Account
Marie from Vaasa
Ellen Nøis
An Interview with Ellen Nøis – Hilmar Nøis’s First Wife
Hilmar Nøis’s Version of the Trip Around Isfjorden, 1921–1922
Hansine Pedersen – The Woman from the Arctic Wilderness
Wanny Woldstad
The Female Trapper Wanny Woldstad Recounts
Wanny Woldstad on Her First Wintering, 1932–1933
On the Way to the Trapping Huts – An Interview, 1958
Wanny Woldstad’s Tragic Demise
An Obituary
Berntine Johansen As a Female Trapper on Svalbard
An Interview with Berntine Johansen in 1935
Berntine Johansen Rescues Two Men from Drowning
An Obituary
Anna Kræmer Returns Home with the Blomlie Expedition
Anna Oxaas
The Nicest Christmas in the Trapping Hut, by Arthur Oxaas
Ilse Grau
Christiane Ritter – A Woman in the Polar Night
Sally Larsen Kræmer
Sally Larsen – A Woman as a Bear Hunter
When Sally Killed Her First Bear, by Waldemar Kræmer
Helfrid Nøis – The Great Trapper’s Wife
Gudrun Andersen
An Interview with Gudrun Andersen, 1955
Ada and Wilhelm Håkstad’s Christmas on Forlandet
Marta Hoff and Bjarne Wiig
