National Wild Salmon Center in Lærdal invites you, in collaboration with Norway's Best, to the Spawning Festival to raise awareness about salmon.
Spawning is the start of new salmon life, is fascinating to watch and takes place in October/November. In Lærdalselvi, it's easy to see what's happening at the spawning grounds if you take a walk along the river.
The goal of the spawning festival is to create experiences and activities that appeal to young and old, that we experience and learn more about salmon in nature and have fun together. Most of it is free, but some you have to pay for. The program includes everything from storytelling about and from the river, spawning walks, a nature trail, lectures about spawning and spawning behavior, to a concert with Tønes himself.
The spawning migration will take place in Sokni and Elling, good spawning grounds just off Kongevegen past Galdane. Other activities will take place at the Wildakssenteret on Lærdalsøyri.
Learn about spawning in exciting lectures:
The title of the “spawning lecture” is: Battle for the ladies or are the ladies in charge? About spawning behavior, courtship, nest building and “sneaky fuckers”.
Anders Lamberg - senior advisor at Scandinavian Nature Monitoring and Morten Kraabæl - senior specialist at Multikonsult, will be giving the lectures.
Anders is a biologist with a focus on behavior. No one has seen and filmed as many spawnings and spawning salmon as he has. He takes care of the salmon. Morten is a biologist with extensive experience in freshwater ecology. He takes care of inland otters, three-spined sticklebacks and harbor porgy.
Anders Lamberg (tv) and Morten Kraabæl.
Time: Friday, October 24 - Sunday, October 26
City: National Wildlife Center, Lærdal
In addition to the program, the exhibition at the Wild Animals Center will be open all weekend with free admission.
Full program
Below you can see the program for each day of the festival.