THE FAMOUS REINDEER OF BØLA

The reindeer of Bøla is the most famous reindeer of the whole world. It is a rockcarving of a reindeer in natural size, ab. 71 inches in length and ab. 53 inches high.
This lonely reindeer is a fully naturalistic masterpiece, made by a stone-ageman of a well developed sense of form and beauty. It is a classic example of rockcarving in Scandinavia - a well conserved souvenir from the arctic stoneage. It is well known to scientists all over the world, and it is suposed to be made ab. 4 000 years before Christ.
Road 763

THE BEAR

For a long time, the Bøla reindeer was the only rock carving known on the south side of Lake Snåsa, but when the railway was being constructed in 1920 to 1926 a figure of a bear was discovered about 20 metres west of the reindeer. The bear is much smaller, but has been chiselled into the rock in the same manner. It lacks its legs, probably due to repeated freezing and thawing of water flowing over the rock in winter. The river periodically floods, washing over the bear, and this water may freeze.

THE BIRD
This long-necked aquatic bird is carved in natural size, like some of the other figures at Bøla. This surface contains fragments of several figures, particularly birds. Most of the Stone Age rock-art panels in central Norway that depict birds are in the Steinkjer-Snåsa district.

THE SKIER

A man on skis was carved on a rock surface left on the shore when the sea level dropped about 6000 years ago. Research indicates that Stone Age rock carvings were made in the shore zone, which suggests this figure was carved shortly after 4000 BC.
The grooves marking the figure are heavily weathered, making it difficult to see. The carving is of a man on skis, holding a ski pole in one hand. He is depicted in natural size and measures 148 cm from the bottom edge of his skis to the top of his head. When straightened out, the figure is approximately 160 cm long, probably the normal height of a man at that time.
”Northern Europe’s most beautiful figure of a man on skis in full size”, says Professor Kalle Sognnes at the Museum of Archaeology and Natural History in Trondheim. Skiers chiselled in the rock are known from only a couple of sites in Norway, at Alta and two figures on the island of Rødøya in Alstahaug, Nordland, whose interpretation is debatable. Similar carvings of skiers are also known from Zalavruga on the White Sea in north-western Russia. A few of these skiers are depicted hunting with a bow and arrow, and some have ski poles and the same bend in their body as this one at Bøla.