Passage I

Here Comes the Sun

It's winter, and the sun's rays no longer shine directly on Rjukan, a small town in south-central Norway. While all of Norway has precious few sunlit hours in winter, Rjukan is tucked in a valley between two mountain ridges that completely block sunlight from late September to mid-March. Yet despite the mountains, an oval of afternoon sunlight bathes the market square, thanks to the Solspeil—“sun mirror."

After moving to Rjukan in 2001, the prolonged winter gloom alarmed artist Martin Andersen. He wondered if mirrors placed on one of the ridges above Rjukan could change the situation. He learned that in 1913 local bookkeeper Oscar Kittelsen had proposed erecting mirrors for the same purpose, and instead Sam Eyde, the town's founder, had considered the idea. However, Eyde did not follow through on construction of the mirrors, and he abandoned the idea.

One hundred years later, Andersen made the mirrors a reality. Three 550-square-foot mirrors were airlifted to the top of a ridge 1,475 feet above Rjukan. Helicopters carried the heavy equipment up the mountain, moreover, no roads led to the cliffside construction cite. Since a crane would have been too heavy for helicopters to lift, workers used tools such as thirty-foot wooden tripods to install the mirrors.

The three mirrors team up as a group to create a bright 2,000-square-foot ellipse of light in the town square. To keep the light on the square, the mirrors adjust every ten seconds, tracking the sun as it crosses the sky. They're controlled wirelessly by a company in Germany, and monitored, in Rjukan and on the mountain via webcam. The light rays that reaches the town is between 80 and 100 percent as strong as direct sunlight.

In October 2013, residents rejoiced due to the bright light when the Solspeil first shone a bright beam of sunlight into Rjukan. Locals wore sunglasses and lay on deck chairs to soak up the rays. Said one, “Who'd have thought it? I've stepped out to get a bit of sun.”