Trees Are A Peacetime Invention

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of visiting the Norwegian National Centre for Foreign Languages in Education (www.fremmedspraksenteret.no) in Halden, near the Swedish border.  While there, members of the center took me and my fellow roving scholars to observe lower and upper secondary schools. The trip provided a good foundation for the workshops that I’m sharing with upper secondary students here and included a fantastic tour and dinner at the Fredriksten Fortress, constructed in 1661 when a new border with Sweden necessitated fortifications.  

I am relatively untraveled in Europe, and I marveled at everything from the thick walls of the gates to the cobblestone streets inside the Citadel to the cannons to the image conjured by our guide of a bakery and brewery serving the fortress’s residents.  The superior photos of my fellow rover, Sarah Benson, will illustrate:

  

I thought that my fellow historians would especially appreciate an astute local-saying regarding history, memory and Swedish King Charles XII, who died in a siege of the fortress in 1718.  Conspiracy theories have surrounded his death since it occurred, and some believe that he was killed by his own men.  The evidence for such a conclusion is shaky at best, but the story brings many tourists to the fortress.  As a result, residents of Halden like to say, “Long live the death of the king!”

            What struck me most, however, was our guide’s observation that “Trees are a peacetime invention.” Fredriksten now serves as a park and amphitheatre, and trees dotted the hillside along the back of the fortress and sheltered the outdoor concert space.  But none were there during the fortress’s fighting days.  According to our guide, trees interfere with sight lines and those we were enjoying had grown since the fortress ceased to serve military purposes. 

            The comment was much on my mind for the following two weeks as my son began to struggle with the language barrier at his school.  I’m not fond of martial metaphors to describe family relations. And school mornings have not been a war.  Nonetheless, battle may come close to being the appropriate word.  His school has been warm and welcoming, and we know we are hardly the first parents to navigate a classroom without the native language.  Still, exhausted by struggling with the challenge of learning a new system in a new language, we have gratefully greeted Friday afternoon, having lived to fight another day.

 

Weekends brought more time in English, our own schedule, and, not least, trees.  We hiked among the trees in the forest above the city.  

We picked mushrooms under dripping branches on a rainy Sunday morning.  

On school days, I would look to the trees after I dropped my son off and marvel at the timely arrival of autumn.  My son brought home pictures of leaves labeled in Norwegian and colored them in red, gold, and brown.

 

A morning came when my son and I walked to school peacefully.  We went through a nearby park and watched the leaves swirl in a pond. And as we went, we talked about inventions.