Raindrop's view

I suspect that most environmental history classes at some point present a question like this one to students: Are people really going to line up for sewer maps the way that they line up for National Park maps? 

The question is not rhetorical.  It is provocative. If everyday people in the industrialized world are going to take better care of the Earth, they probably need to pay more attention to where our waste goes and where our energy originates.  By “pay more attention”,  I mean become fascinated, become obsessed, become curious.  The problem, of course, is that mapping our energy and our waste do not always grab our attention the way that mapping our transcendence and our bravado do.  Are people really going to line up for sewer maps the way that they line up for National Parks maps?  Not unless we find a way to make those sewer maps pretty interesting.

Norway doesn't have all the answers.  But they seem to be on very good track with their manhole covers.  That’s right.  Manhole covers.  Most of the cities that I visited in Norway had a unique manhole cover, one that drew my attention even faster than the admonishment one sees so often on other street covers: “Storm drains to sea.”

I first noticed the covers when one of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants mentioned that she was considering making a documentary film about them.  I was a bit more curious after she mentioned them.  I found this disturbing article about their manufacture, a good reminder that being curious about the conditions of nature often means being curious about the conditions of labor.

I started taking pictures whenever I visited someplace new.  Some mimicked the city crest, like Oslo's shown above.

And Stavanger's

and Kristiansand's

and Trondheim's:

I always imagined a mirror city underground, with all the same personalities of the town somehow reflected -- like Nightmare Before Christmas or, maybe, to be a bit more Norwegian: Bakvendtland.

 

Some celebrated the area's landscape and architecture, like Drammen:

Bergen:

And Ålesund:

Covers like Ålesund's sent me looking for more, and I learned that Norway does not have a monopoly on the concept. Canada has some great manhole covers.  And I'd like to go to Japan for the manhole covers alone!

As spring began, I became a bit obsessed.  “I need a picture of the sewer drain cover!” I told one teacher in Sandefjord.  “Everyone has their thing,” she replied dubiously.

My very favorite appeared in more than one city – a God’s eye view of the town with rooftops and umbrellas mixed in an almost abstract tumble.  This one is from Stord:  

If most made me think of the view underground, this one made me think of a raindrop’s perspective.

With just a few days remaining in our stay, I realize that I missed some.  Bodø's and Lillehammer's were, understandably, covered with snow.  I never made it to Tromsø or Alta, and I think I had a chance for photos in Røros and Verdal, but missed them.

I should mention that I, regrettably, also never made it to one of Norway’s national parks. 

Guess which one will bring me back.