Cultural Heritage

Bjerkebæk - The home of Sigrid Undset

Situated along Gudbrandsdalsleden
Visit the beautiful home of Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset

Address

Gamle Nordseterveg 1, 2615 Lillehammer

Open

20 May - 30 August, 10.00-17.00

Distance

Close to the trail

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) is among the most acclaimed authors of the 20th century, both in Norway and internationally. She had a rich and manifolded authorship and is especially known for her novels about Kristin Lavransdatter set in the Middle Ages. For her trilogy about Kristin Lavransdatter, as well as for other works set in the middle ages, she received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1928.

Bjerkebæk is Sigrid Undset's home and workshop. She lived here together with her three children in old log houses relocated from two farms in Gudbrandsdalen. Here she created a characteristic home with her own touch, and was quite obviously pleased with the result, both interior and exterior. In 1924 she wrote "The new house has become so beautiful, you won't believe it before you see it. (...) I couldn't make it more perfectly fitted for my own taste".

Undset lived at the site from 1919 until her death in 1949. She chose the name herself, based on the birch threes (bjørk) surrounding the house and the little stream (bæk) trickling through the garden.

In 2007 the site was opened as a museum and reconstructed the way it appeared in the 1930s.