Life moves a little slower here.
R An authentic slice of Norway, in upper Østerdalen. Rendalen is one of Norway's longest inland valleys: Sølen rising in the east, Rondane to the west, Femundsmarka further east toward the Swedish border. Old roads, marked trails, and the same farms that have been worked here for centuries. It is also one of the most thinly populated places in Scandinavia — 1,850 people in 3,179 square kilometres. The practical version: you have room.
Where outdoors isn't somewhere you go — it's where you live.
Rendalen runs through the heart of Østerdalen, a long valley of deep forests crossed by the Rena, the Glomma and a handful of named tributaries. Our five villages, Bergset, Otnes, Åkrestrømmen, Hanestad and Unset, are spread across the municipality's 3,179 square kilometres.
By area, Rendalen is the largest municipality in Innlandet — and one of the most thinly populated in Scandinavia. About 1.7 square kilometres of forest and mountain for every person who lives here.
To the east stands Sølen, Innlandet's highest peak, watching over the lake that bears its name. To the west, the forests roll toward Rondane. Femundsmarka — Southern Scandinavia's largest continuous wilderness — begins where our eastern border ends.
The landscape underwrites a few specific things. At Fiskevollen, on the western shore of Sølensjøen, about forty households keep Norway's only active inland fishing village in operation since the early 1700s. The cooperative Rendalen Renselskap manages the wild reindeer herd that ranges across our mountains as a shared inheritance, not a private hunting ground. And in Åkrestrømmen, Norske Moseprodukter harvests white moss from our forests and ships it — dyed in forty colours, by the truckload — to florists on every continent.
None of this is on display behind glass. Bergset has the kommune offices, the school, the doctor, the Coop. The annual Veidekulturfestival is an open-air event around hunting heritage held in late October. Jacob Breda Bull, our novelist, set his stories among these same farms and forests over a century ago — the rectory where he grew up still stands.
Rendalen is 1,850 people in 3,179 square kilometres. That is a population density of 0.58 per km² — one of the lowest in Scandinavia outside the Arctic. The practical version: a road in Rendalen with no other car on it is not briefly empty; it is, on average, just empty.
Welcome to one of Scandinavia's best fishing, hunting and nature destinations.
3,179 km² between Rondane in the west and Femundsmarka in the east. The map plots the five villages, the largest local employers, and the natural landmarks the area is known for. Click any marker to read more; use the legend to toggle layers.
On the slogan Many places claim Scandinavia's best at something. On any single variable, someone else wins. The case for Rendalen isn't about a single category — it's that fishing, hunting and raw nature all share the same address.
Read Heritage Fiskevollen on Sølensjøen is Norway's only active inland fishing village. A 1913 archaeological find dated continuous fishing here to the 900s. Forty families still keep it going.
Read
New residents They came for the year. The wooden house in Bergset had three times the floor space of the Berlin flat and a tenth of the noise. Five years later, two school-age children speak a dialect their grandparents can almost follow.
Read
Remote work Fibre runs further into Norwegian forests than most people think. A forty-minute city commute becomes a thirty-second walk to the dock — for the architects and freelancers who've moved their work to Sølensjøen.
Read
Hunting Elk in October, willow grouse in September, fishing year-round. Hunting in Rendalen isn't a hobby — it's how the year is structured. Schools adjust. Workplaces too.
Read
Family life Two primary schools serve all 1,850 inhabitants. Some grades have twelve pupils. What every child here learns instead — neighbours at the bus stop, the difference between an elk track and a moose track — is the other side of that bargain.
Read
Seasons The valley narrows under snow. The church at Øvre Rendal, built in 1759, holds the Christmas Eve service it has held every year since. Outside, the mountains do what they always do — which is nothing, and that's the point.
Read
Cabin to home Rendalen has 2,298 holiday cabins and 1,094 permanent homes. Roughly one in twenty cabin owners eventually swap the second address for the first — slowly, then all at once.
ReadSixty kilometres between the northernmost and southernmost.
Bergset in the north holds the administration. Otnes is the only formally recognised town, sitting by Lomnessjøen with just over 260 inhabitants. Åkrestrømmen, at the south end of Storsjøen, is where the shops and handshakes are. Hanestad has the Glomma valley and the train line. Unset shares its name with the novelist Sigrid Undset (Nobel Prize, 1928).
The administrative heart, where the valley begins to widen.
The only official town. Population 266. Look at the lake.
Where Mistra meets Storsjøen. Shops, hotel, the trail south.
The station village. Where the train still stops on the Røros line.
Sigrid Undset's ancestral name. Quiet farms above the river.
Ten of the businesses that hold up Rendalen's private economy. The mix covers more ground than you'd expect for 1,850 people — industry, food, building, retail, healthcare, hospitality, and one operation that ships colored moss to florists on every continent.
The world's largest supplier of refined white moss. Harvested in Rendalen's forests, dyed in forty colours, shipped by the truckload to florists across the globe.
A retreat centre operating year-round in the silence Rendalen specialises in. Grass-roofed buildings, daily prayers, a long table — and the lake below.
The valley's daily supply line — groceries, household goods, the place where everyone meets on Saturdays.
Foundations, roads, and the heavy work that lets the rest of the municipality happen.
Local meat, processed locally. A short supply chain from valley pasture to packaging.
A specialised addiction-treatment foundation that has been part of the valley's economy and identity for decades.
The valley's builders' merchant — timber, hardware, paint, glass.
The petrol station that is also, in practice, the social hub of two villages.
The valley's established hotel, in Åkrestrømmen at the foot of Renåfjellet.
The other side of building anything here — digging, drainage, foundations.
Other places may be better at one of those three. Not many are home to all three at once, with an active fishing village from the 1700s, cooperative wild-reindeer management, and major protected areas a step from the doorstep.
That's not a superlative. It's a combination — and it's why we still say it.
