US 9

[Egil Pettersen]

Several months ago there was a discussion here on the details Carl 
Barks (and Don Rosa) put into their stories, and where they picked 
them up. A few of the Norwegian members on this list complained about 
the national costumes that Barks used in the story from US 9, "The 
lemming with the locket". I have a few (?) comments on this:

That glorious time when Donald first visited Norway in US 9 
(reprinted in US 104, US 179 and US 250), is well remembered between 
Norwegian Donaldists. Most of you probably remember the story were 
Scrooge had to follow a lemming to the Norwegian city "Herringtale" 
to catch a lemming that had a locket with the code to his bin around 
its neck. Scrooge got the locket back by the help of his nephews and 
some Norwegian cheese that the lemming could not resist... 

Interesting here is what inspired Barks to draw such exquisitly 
beautiful pictures of the Norwegian landscape. In a letter that 
Mr.Barks wrote to me on March 21st 1978, he said among other things: 


 "I lived four years in Minneapolis, which is the Norwegian capital 
of America, and I was introduced to such Norwegian stapes as 
lutefisk, leftse (?) and of course gjetost." 

So Barks knew something about Norway before he started research. Then 
in "National Geographic" from August 1954 there is an article 
starting on page 153, "Stop-and-Go Sail Around South Norway". This 
article has a lot of pictures that Barks must have used when he made 
US 9, published a year later. F.I, the half-page were the 
ducks look at the blanket of lemmings moving towards the sea, 
is found at National Geographic page 162, a picture from Lysefjorden. 
And-the national costumes Barks used on page 12 in his story is a mix 
of two children in Hardanger costumes from National Geographic page 
161, and two Setesdal costumes from page 176 in the same magazine. I 
wish I had a scanner so I could show you the pictures.

BTW, for Carl Barks´ birthday in 78 a friend and I sent him some 
Norwegian cheese, as cheese is part of the lemming-story. First he 
thought it to be raindeer-cheese, as there was a picture of a 
raindeer on the cheese. Later he told me he really liked the cheese 
and he even remembered the gift when I gave him some more when he 
visited Norway during his European trip.

Erik Horthe
address erik at telepost.no