Med kart skal landet bygges: Oppmåling og kartlegging av Norge 1773–2016

Abstract

This monumental work provides an institutional history of the Norwegian Mapping Authority (Statens kartverk) from its foundation as the Borders Survey of Norway (Norges Grændsers Opmaaling) in 1773 until 2016. The Borders Survey of Norway was the first permanent militarytopographical surveying institution to be established in the Nordic countries. It was founded 18 years before the better-known Ordnance Survey in Britain in 1791. The book presents the changing role of mapping in society and of the institution from its military origins until the present, when it produces maps and geodata for a broad range of military and civilian purposes, ranging from planning and economic development to seagoing and fishing, as well as people’s daily activities. The book’s title can be translated as ‘With maps the land shall be built: Surveying and mapping in Norway 1773–2016’. The first part of the title is a paraphrase of the prescription in medieval Scandinavian law codes: ‘By law the land shall be built’. The principal author, Bjørn Geirr Harsson, is a geodesist who worked for 48 years (from 1968 to 2005) at the Norwegian Mapping Authority (called until 1986 the Geographical Survey of Norway (Norges Geografiske Oppmåling)). He undertook important work on the determination of Norway’s sea boundaries. He was Norway’s contact person when the Struve geodetic arc was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2005. After his retirement, he was engaged to prepare the national plan for the protection of mapping and surveying heritage (Harsson 2011). Co-author Roald Aanrud (1928–2013) was employed at the Geographical Survey of Norway from 1948. He worked on map construction. After his retirement, he was active in setting up the Norwegian Map Museum (Norsk kartmuseum) at Hønefoss, which was opened by King Harald in 1998. Due to budgetary restrictions in the NorwegianMapping Authority, the museum has been run since 2004 on a voluntary basis by the association Friends of the Norwegian Map Museum (Norsk Kartmuseums Venneforening), with Bjørn Geirr Harsson as its first leader, a position he held until recently. Aanrud died just as the book project was starting up, but his collected material together with material from colleagues, as well as from geographer Ludwig H. Herzberg, provided a solid basis for Harsson’s continued work with the book. When Harsson & Aanrud’s book was published, a comprehensive history of the Norwegian Mapping Authority had long been overdue. The only substantial historical work previously was a chronological account of the first 103 years of the Geographical Survey of Norway by Christian Martini de Seue (1841–1895), initiated on the Geographical Survey of Norway’s 100th anniversary (de Seue 1878). It remained much quoted into the 21st century. de Seue was employed by the Survey from 1868 to 1876. Like most employees at the Survey at that time, he was a military man; he was a member of the General Staff and became major general in 1894. Material from de Seue’s book was used in a short publication that appeared in 1923, updated with additional information collected for a planned but unrealized more comprehensive history of the Survey for the period 1876–1923 (Broch 1923). Plans for publications to mark the 175th anniversary in 1948 and the 200th anniversary in 1973 similarly never materialized, although Aanrud (1998) produced a pamphlet summarizing the history of the Mapping Authority on its 225th anniversary. Harsson & Aanrud’s book is thematically built up. Each of the 11 chapters focuses on a particular theme, which is presented chronologically within the chapter. Chapter 1 deals with the institution’s origins in 1773 as the Borders Survey. This chapter presents the political and military context for the establishment of the Survey under the threat of war between the united realm of Norway–Denmark and it rival Sweden. A retrospective view of existing land maps and sea charts for Norway prior to 1773 is also provided. Chapter 2 is concerned with the Survey’s organization and leadership through time. Short biographies of leading persons are provided in fact boxes. Nineteen organizational charts reflect the institution’s changing tasks. The Survey changed its name nine times until the Geographical Survey of Norway became the established name from 1884 to 1986. Of particular interest is an account of how the Survey’s employees tackled the difficulties experienced during the German occupation 1940– 1945. The director, K.S. Klingenberg, who continued in his position until 1945, three years after reaching retirement age, claimed this prevented Nazification of the Survey, although not all of his employees were satisfied with this explanation. Some of them clandestinely supplied maps to the resistance and on to the Allies, and one