From the Introduction to No Ordinary Seaman

There was something of Norway in my blood and bones. I have always had an overwhelming curiosity about the Norsemen – past and present. And the sea too. As a child, I would daydream about the sea, even though I lived far away from it. I think I equated being Norwegian and being on the sea as one and the same thing.

Norway is the land of my ancestors, a small coastal country of hard granite and barren rock, where ancient mountains tower above deep blue-water fjords.