THE VISIONARY

It's such a simple, prosaic moment. Mohamed Sambou stands by the window in the kitchen of his wife's grandmother, and looks out at the wild landscape surrounding the small village of Snåsa. In his hand he is holding a glass of water. He drinks a sip. Looks at the landscape. Drinks one more sip. The cool, fresh water. Nature. The forest, the mountains.

Then it struck him: “I have to share this, I have to share this with the world.” A number of coincidences have led him here. Now he knows why. A Belgian-Moroccan data engineer in a village not far from Norway's geographic center, gets a Eureka experience from a glass of water ...

THE SCIENTIST

From a lightning in the dense green forest, the sound of metal against metal. A tall man in his fifties is throbbing a thin, meter-long iron pipe into the moist surface. At the tip of the pipe there is a cutting edge. When only a few centimeters rise from the ground, he connects a new pipe to the end.

Hydro geologist Bernt Olav Hilmo lifts a heavy machine, the size of a small outboard motor, over the iron pipe, securing it to the end. He starts it by pulling hard into a string. Soon a thin engine noise sounds through the forest. The vibrating machine dives the pipe down into the ground.

THE LANDLORD

“We mainly deal with dairy cows and forestry. The property is 4500 acres. My mother's family moved here in 1694. So, yes, we have come to Snåsa to stay.”

Landlord Peter Finsås conceals a modest smile behind the coffee cup, which almost disappears in his big fist, and squints against the partially frozen Snåsavatnet. The shadow of a sparrow hawk draws a perfect circle on the frosty ground. Tracks of a hare disappears under a juniper bush in the edge of the woods.