Nationale parken in Nordland (Noorwegen)
Nordland heeft twee nationale parken Rago en Saltfjellet/Svartisen.
Rago sluit aan bij de nationale parken in Zweden (Lapponia) waardoor een groot aaneensluitend natuurgebied is ontstaan.
Onderstaande Informatie is afkomstig van het Direktoratet for naturforvaltning
Rago
Rago - Norways most inaccessible national park
Rago National Park is dominated by a wild dramatic mountain landscape
with
deep ravines and great boulders. The flora is rather poor but includes some
rare mountain plants. Wolverine and beaver breed here, while the lynx visits
occasionally. Rago abuts the Swedish national parks of Padjelanta, Sarek and
Stora Sjöfallet, covering a combined area of 5,700 km2.
In the realm of contrasts
Rago National Park, on the watershed between the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic
Ocean, has a magnificent, rugged landscape and is known for its steep mountains and cascading rivers. A scatter
of pine trees grows among treeless upland heaths and smooth rock slabs dotted
with erratic boulders. Countless small rivers and streams pour down smooth,
grey mountainsides. Despite a poor flora and monotonous vegetation, there
are some unusually luxuriant areas where such plants as alpine blue-sow-thistle,
globeflower and whorled Solomons-seal grow. The animal life is poor, but some
species do thrive in Rago, too. Wolverines and beavers are among the "residents".
Rago National Park was designated to preserve a special natural environment
in the mountains of north Norway bordering onto Sweden. It is continuous with
the Padjelanta, Sarek and Stora Sjöfallet parks in Sweden, and together they
make up the largest protected area in Europe. Splendid scenery awaits ramblers
visiting Rago. The landscape is full of contrasts and can offer still woodlands
and smooth rock faces, and also jagged cliffs, thundering waterfalls, glaciers
and snowfields. When the ice retreated from the Rago area at the close of
the last Ice Age it left behind numerous large and small granite blocks which
now form a remarkable element of the landscape as they lie scattered around
in the terrain. Rago, in contrast to the neighbouring Swedish national parks,
has a typical coastal climate with a great deal of precipitation, cool summers
and mild winters. The area that is now a national park was formerly used in
various ways by different groups of people. The Sami (Lapps) once drove their
reindeer through Rago when journeying from Sweden to their summer grazing
in Norway, and people living in the Sørfold district periodically took timber
from Storskogdalen even though the journey to the sawmill was long and arduous.
An attempt was made to work silver and lead near Ragotoppen for a while before
the First World War, but the claims were unprofitable and the venture soon
ceased.
Landscape
The natural approach route for a visitor to Rago is along Storskogdalen, a
valley that takes you from Laksehola in the west between smooth, rock-strewn
mountainsides north-eastwards to a lake called Storskogvatnet. The river flowing
down Storskogdalen from the lake is flanked by pine-clad slopes and precipitous
crags, and on its passage forms magnificent waterfalls and rapids in several
places. East of the lake, the valley continues for some distance until it
meets the steep, grey mountains in the northern part of the park. The desolate,
magnificent Trolldalen valley is also situated up here. The mountains of Lappfjell
and Flatkjølen dominate the landscape in the southern part of the park. Together
they form a partially glacier-covered ridge stretching towards Sweden. North
of Lappfjell is a lake called Litle Værivatnet, from whose banks mountainsides
rise precipitously. At its western end is a pass through which the lake drains
over a more than 100 metre high waterfall to form the Storskogelva river.
A poor flora - but not without botanical delicacies
The plant life in Rago National Park is relatively poor, probably because
the soil contains few nutrients and the climate is severe. Pine dominates
beside the river and lake in Storskogdalen, but upland downy birch gradually
takes over up the slopes towards the tree line. The understorey vegetation
is largely poor. However, exceptions are found and at the north end of Storskogvatnet,
where some goat willow and rowan trees are growing, it is possible to find
alpine blue-sow-thistle, globeflower and whorled Solomons seal. As the summers
are cold, characteristic alpine plants like roseroot, alpine Ladys-mantle,
two-flowered violet and the easterly species, sceptred lousewort, grow all
the way down in the woodland. A typical coastal species, dwarf cornel, is
also common in the birchwoods. In these lower parts of the park, bogs also
form an important landscape element. As the granite in the area produces few
nutrients, they are mostly poor fens where few-flowered sedge is a characteristic
plant. Purple moor-grass and deergrass, both of which are mire plants that
thrive best in a moist coastal climate, are found here, too.
In the higher parts of the national park, there is a typical, sparse alpine
vegetation. Trailing azalea, diapensia, crowberry and stiff sedge are common
in dry places, whereas species like alpine Ladys-mantle, Sibbaldia, dwarf
willow and parsley fern generally grow close to snow patches. The south-eastern
corner of the protected area is exciting for those keen on botany. Thanks
to some exposures of calcareous schist, several relatively rare alpine plants
grow here, including alpine whitlowgrass, thick-leaved whitlowgrass, polar
mouse-ear, Carpathian fleabane and snow buttercup.
In the realm of the wolverine
Sparse vegetation is generally accompanied by poor fauna, and this is also
the case at Rago. Perhaps the most exciting member of the national park fauna
is the wolverine, which has its dens and hunting territories among these rugged
mountains. Lynx also roam here regularly. The elk, a relatively recent immigrant,
is the only member of the deer family that is permanently resident in the
area. There are many brown bears across the border in the vast national parks
in Sweden, and it would be natural to expect that some would occasionally
roam over the mountains to Rago. However, no bears have been recorded here
since just after the last war. Red foxes, mink and stoats are common among
the smaller predators, but arctic foxes and pine martens are rare. The protected
area also houses hares, squirrels and various kinds of small rodents, but
their numbers vary a great deal from year to year. Beavers were released in
1968 but the specie has now disappeared from Rago.
Snow buntings, wheatears, meadow pipits and rock grouse are the most common
birds to be seen on the Rago mountains, but birds are on the whole scarce
in the higher parts of the national park. It is more lively around the River
Rago, where song thrushes, redwings, fieldfares, willow warblers and garden
warblers may be seen. However, the largest numbers occur in the tall-herb
woodland north of Storskogvatnet. Since there are more insects there and it
is easier to find cover, several species of thrushes, warblers, finches and
tits are to be found
there. The dipper favours the river in Trolldal, and bluethroats live in the
willow thickets along its banks. There are not many aquatic birds in the park,
but with a little luck you may see goldeneye, red-throated divers and common
gulls. Common sandpipers nest regularly each year along the Storskogselva
river. In some years, the birchwoods at Rago have relatively large numbers
of willow grouse, and there are black grouse and capercaillie in the pinewoods.
Owing to the many large waterfalls along Storskogselva, the area that is now
a national park originally lacked fish. However, between the two world wars,
trout and char were released and there are now good fish stocks in several
lakes in the park.
Saltfjellet/Svartisen
Saltfjellet-Svartisen - From fertile valleys to perpetual ice
Saltfjellet-Svartisen
National Park was created to protect a rich and varied stretch of country
with fjords, fertile valleys, limestone caves, and perpetual snow and ice.
Svartisen glacier is the largest ice-sheet in Northern Scandinavia, covering
370 km2. The limestone bedrock supports a rich flora with many rare species.
The traditional reindeer-herding areas include an outstanding collection of
Saami monuments.
From fjord to fell and glacier...
Saltfjellet–Svartisen is the most varied of Norway’s national parks.
I stretches from the green but wild Nordfjord in the west over high mountains
and eternal ice to fertile valleys and mountain birch with still rivers. In
the east are the open fells of Saltfjellet with their great glacial sediments.
Northern Scandinavia’s greatest ice-sheet
Covering 369 km2 Svartisen is the largest glacier in the Northern Scandinavia.
In numerous valleys tongues of ice spread down from the ice-sheet to form
valley glaciers, which often calve with a great noise. Svartisen actually
consists of two glaciers, Vestisen and Østisen, separated by the valley of
Vesterdalen, which became free of ice relatively recently. The outwash deposits
of sand and clay are constantly changing as the streams of glacial meltwater
change course.
The limestone bedrock in the central part of the national park produces a
typical karst landscape. For thousands of years water has found its way down
into fissures and has eaten into the rock, forming numerous tunnels and caverns
of all sizes, some of which are over 350,000 years old. The most varied karst
landscape is found in Pikhågan in Glomdalen.
The national park offers vast stretches of undisturbed wilderness free of
any technical interference.
Rare plants and fertile mountain-valleys
The calciferous bedrock supports a rich plant life, including several rare
plants, such as the Arctic Rhododendron. Some of the species are found in
great quantities: the great carpets of Mountain Avens are particularly impressive.
In Stormdalen some 250 higher plant forms have been recorded and beneath the
mountain birch there is a rich undergrowth of tall, unusually fertile plants.
The valleys of Tespdalen and Bjøllådalen are also rich in vegetation.
Saltfjellet seems to act as a barrier for several plant and animal species.
Storlia nature reserve in Nordland has marked the natural northern limit of
spruce as a forest tree for a long time, but it now seems to be spreading
north across the mountain.
This is an attractive area for hunting and fishing. In some valleys there
are many elk, and in good years grouse are in abundance. The national park
offers fine trout and char fishing. There are also wolverine and lynx in the
area.
Use of the mountains in the past
The Saami (Lapps) were the first people to hunt and trap wild reindeer in
Saltfjellet and there are traces of sacrificial sites, pit-falls and fences
for trapping from as early as the 9th century AD. Domesticated reindeer herding
dates from the 16th and 17th century. It is centred on the valley of Lønsdalen,
which is outstandingly rich in Saami monuments.
The mountain valleys also contain many remains associated with the first farmers
in the 19th century. Several valleys have long since been abandoned, but old
mountain farms and hay barns in clearings in the birch forest remind us of
the hard life of these pioneer settlers.
On Saltfjellet there are traces of several ancient trackways, like the old
route from Rana to Salten, now a marked footpath. It was chosen as the route
for the telegraph line in 1867. Stone shelters erected at that time were later
replaced by log cabins, some of which are now used by the Mountain Touring
Association, as well as restored houses of the pioneer farmers in the mountain
valleys.
Zie voor een overzicht van alle nationale parken de pagina nasjonalparker i Norge van het Direcotoratet for naturforvaltning
