Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

After a night spent diligently delivering Christmas gifts to the homeless children in the small village of Dilijan, just northwest of Lake Sevan, Armenia I was reminded of the time I was on the rescue mission to save the small Norwegian village that had been isolated by the great avalanche of 1962. After the catastrophe a group of us had organized a relief party to take in the needed food and medical supplies. We had to climb over a good portion of the Sor-Trondelag mountains to get to the nearly destroyed village of Os. Once the supplies were assembled, and after I had called in favor from my Lapp friends off we went with twenty fully loaded reindeer. The climb was grueling; straight up for 8500 feet. On one precipice, the reindeer we'd named "Nafjarthar" (after the famous Norwegian troll) slipped and broke its leg. Although I was able to set the bone, we had to send it home, so I put its 250 pounds of supplies on my back and struggled on. I remember one dark night on the way when I showed the Norwegians and Lapps how to start a fire using air pressure only; who knew high school physics would help warm some exhausted Norwegians some day! Of course we reached the stalwart villagers in time and they were able to survive until the Norwegian army cleared a road in. However, on the way back we decided to take a different route. It was longer but less of a climb; those poor Norwegians weren't up to the cold and climb like the Lapps and I were.

When we were about half way home, and after a long day of hiking we stumbled into the legendary Snarlsothur Hot Springs of the Friggudur Valley. This wonderful place is the stuff of legends all the way back to the pre-Christian days of the Cold North. The modern legends proved to be true as we saw the near mythical pygmy hippos of Norway in the warm spring waters. It seems that in the late 1880's a flood in Murkiborg flushed the entire zoo (not to mention the town itself) down the valley, depositing the hippos at the hot springs where they were able to flourish and thrive. I ended up writing a doctoral thesis on this invasive species' success while at Cambridge, but that is another story. HOKE ROBERTSON