Unknown 6 or 8/12-1899
Talvik top

My dear brother!

I'm writing to you today (again), as I think you'd like to hear from me and Finnmarksfjelli. Yesterday I arrived here at Talviktoppen, where I'll be staying for the rest of the winter. I brought my fiddle with me, and today I played it so I think I can live a little up here. It won't be long before the mountain trolley gets the right tune again, when I've gone home.

No, but you can believe the mountains are beautiful now! Shining white wherever you look (wherever you look) and with a blue sky so high and pure that I don't know what to say or do (I don't know what to say or do) when I see all this. Soli se me ‘kje meir i år (we don't see the sun anymore this year), but in the south down with *hinnaleite (‘the distant hill” or ”the distant horizon?) it glows like fire on the days when she goes to the mountains (does she glow like fire on the days when she is/goes behind the mountains). I go skiing every day when the weather isn't awful, and you can imagine that there are plenty of ski slopes. We also have great conditions, so it's a breeze down the slopes. Today I was out skiing from 10am to 1.30pm and had a good trip. When I got back, I was drunk as a skunk.

Nordljos (Nordlys) can be seen most evenings (we can see almost every evening), if the weather is favourable.

Yes, now I can tell you a little about my house. I'm the one at the top, you see (I'm the one at the top). And this is where I'm going to spend the whole winter together with soon one, and soon another of my *fellows. (”And this is where I'm going to spend the whole winter together with soon one, and soon another of my mates). Here's a drawing of the house as it looks from the outside. It's white with snow.

You go in the door and I'll show you where everything is (you go in the door and I'll show you where everything is).

1.. Trop (stairs) up on the roof of the tower where I stand in the evenings and look at the northern lights.
set(northern lights). Ovanum (above) troppi is luka.
2.. The space between the troppi and the wall into the living room is filled with wood and I've always
a sack of coal and my skis.
3. A three-storey shelf where I keep provisions and other small items.
4. Door to the living room
5. Window
6. Board
7. Shelf for cups and kitchenware (kitchen utensils)
8. Kitchen worktop
9. A small low (low) table. Which the kitchen machines stand on
10. Sofa
11. Cabinets for food and instruments
12. Omn (oven)
13. The beds, three in height, I lie at the top and hang my fiddle on the wall there.
you see the nail
14. Bookshelf and cupboard for clothes. Lower down on the wall hang the outer garments.
15. Kjellarluke
16. Phone to Sukkertoppen

17. 18. 19. chairs

In the basement there are only instruments. This is where I put all the equipment. The room is about 8 cubits long and 5 cubits wide, and with the bed walls closed (again) 6 cubits high with the other walls only 5 1/2 cubits high.

And then a little about everyday life. I get up at 7am, light a fire in the oven and boil graut and heat water for breakfast, which I have at about 8.30am. Then there's a skiing trip of about an hour, if the weather is good enough for us to go out, and later we go back to work on our instruments until we have to cook dinner at 1-2 p.m. and supper at 8 p.m. And then one of us has to be on duty in the tower until 12 p.m. so we can go to bed.

But you'll hear more about this later. Now you know where I live.

Din

Shem

The letter is translated by Håkon Haldorsen in collaboration with Johanne Låstad.