Welcome to Slåtten

The History of Slåtten

From hay meadow to explorers' retreat

The story of Slåtten begins in 1751, when the owner of the great farm Søre Langset signed a crofter's contract for a small holding "situated in the meadow" – Slaaten. The name reveals its origins: this was the farm's hayfields, and for more than two hundred years crofter families made their living here on the steep meadows of Roterudbygda. The road that still runs through the courtyard is the ancient main road between Lillehammer and Sjusjøen, and the five timber houses from the 1800s form a rarely complete crofter's farmstead – cottage, storehouse, stable and outbuildings.

In the late 1960s, the croft gained new owners who would give it an entirely new chapter: the explorers Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad. Just a few years earlier, the couple had made one of the great archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century – the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, proof that Norsemen reached America five hundred years before Columbus. Much of the follow-up work on the world-famous finds was carried out right here at Slåtten. Helge wrote in his own "writing cottage", where his books still line the shelves, while Anne Stine furnished the farmstead with antiques and wove in her weaving cottage. With them came their polar dogs – Helge himself claimed their forefather was a cross between a wolf and a dog that he had brought home from the wilderness.

In time, the couple spent as much of the year at Slåtten as in Oslo, and when Norwegian national broadcaster NRK filmed a television portrait for Helge's 75th birthday in 1974, the recordings were made here at the farmstead. Today, Slåtten is carried forward by new owners who have invested substantially in restoring and upgrading the old houses – with respect for the history in every timber wall. As a guest, you stay in the middle of this story, among hay meadows, old timber houses and the traces of two of Norway's greatest explorers.