Sterling Bear's Holiday Pictures 2

About a hundred years ago Tyssedal was no more than a couple of farms and a beautiful, wild river that ran where we are standing now. Then some men decided to buy the rights to the waterfalls and build a hydro- power plant. Within only a year and a half they had the first part up and running. That is rather impressive if you consider that they had no mashines like we have today. If you want to see some pictures of the building of the old power plant you can go here:

The building behind us is the old turbine hall. Inside there were several turbines producing eletricity to run the first factory in the area. The factory used to make calsium carbide for lamps used in British mines in the early 1900s. This building is no longer used as a production hall, instead it is a part of the museum in Tyssedal, NVIM.

These days the production halls are situated deep inside tunnels in the mountains. The water is channelled in such a way that it hits the turbines in thin beams, almost as thin as needles, but still with enough power to make the turbines spin extremely fast. This is what a turbine looks like.

The eletricity that is produced here provides the power to run the metal factory you can see in the background, Tinfos Titan & Iron, and other factories. Many people in Tyssedal work at TTI, like some of our parents.

Sterling Bear's Holiday Pictures 1

Sterling Bear arrived in Tyssedal safely, if a little later than anticipated. While she was here she met a new friend, Friendship Bear, and she had a sightsing around Tyssedal. Here she is, ready to go.

The first thing we wanted to show her was our sports arena "Tyssohallen". This is where our fotball teams and gymnastics groups practice. People have played foootball here for years and years, but a couple of years ago we got a "real" football field, an indoor hall and a club house. It is all thanks to many of the parents in Tyssedal who not only managed to get the founding for building it, but also put in hours and hours of volunteer work to actually build it. We are very proud of "Tyssohallen", and of our parents.

Sometimes during summer holidays the weather is nice enough for us to have a swim. We can swim in the fjord, but with the meltwater from the glacier it can be quite cold unless the weather has been warm for some days. We also have a small outdoor pool, "badedammen" where we can swim and play.

We play outside a lot. Some of the children in year 5 have a little hut that they have built themselves. There are many other games to play outside too, like hide and seek and climbing trees. Sterling Bear tried a little tree- climbing while she was here.

Sometimes we go to the school yard after school and play a bat-and-ball game we call "langball" with the other children who are there. That way we get to play with children who are both younger and older than we are. Everybody knows everybody here.

When we visit our friends, we often use our bicycles to get around. In Tyssedal there are many steep hills to get up and down, so we really have use for our protection equipment! Here is a picture of the view from upper Tyssedal. It gives you an idea of how steep the hills might be.