Dombås is the kind of place you pass through, not visit: a small mountain village at 660 metres where the Dovrebanen railway to Trondheim splits from the Raumabanen to Åndalsnes, and where the E6 meets the E136. It has been a transport junction since the railway arrived in 1913, and that role as a crossroads is the reason anything ever happened here at all.
On 14 April 1940, something did happen. The German Luftwaffe dropped 185 Fallschirmjäger paratroopers onto Dombås to seize the railway junction and block the road between Oslo and Trondheim. It was a bold move: control Dombås, and you cut Norway in half. Norwegian infantry and local volunteers fought the Germans for five days in the hills around the village. The paratroopers, lightly armed and without resupply, were eventually killed or captured. It was one of the first real setbacks for German airborne forces in the war, and clearing Dombås kept open the route that allowed King Haakon VII and the Norwegian government to escape via Åndalsnes to England.
Today Dombås is better known as the starting point for musk ox safaris on Dovrefjell. The musk oxen were reintroduced from Greenland in a rewilding project and are now the only wild population in Scandinavia, roughly 200 animals. Guided walks run daily from June to September, covering 7 to 15 kilometres depending on where the herds are grazing, with a 99 percent success rate for sightings. A fully grown musk ox weighs 450 kilos and can run 60 kilometres per hour, so the 200-metre safety distance is not a suggestion.
On 14 April 1940, something did happen. The German Luftwaffe dropped 185 Fallschirmjäger paratroopers onto Dombås to seize the railway junction and block the road between Oslo and Trondheim. It was a bold move: control Dombås, and you cut Norway in half. Norwegian infantry and local volunteers fought the Germans for five days in the hills around the village. The paratroopers, lightly armed and without resupply, were eventually killed or captured. It was one of the first real setbacks for German airborne forces in the war, and clearing Dombås kept open the route that allowed King Haakon VII and the Norwegian government to escape via Åndalsnes to England.
Today Dombås is better known as the starting point for musk ox safaris on Dovrefjell. The musk oxen were reintroduced from Greenland in a rewilding project and are now the only wild population in Scandinavia, roughly 200 animals. Guided walks run daily from June to September, covering 7 to 15 kilometres depending on where the herds are grazing, with a 99 percent success rate for sightings. A fully grown musk ox weighs 450 kilos and can run 60 kilometres per hour, so the 200-metre safety distance is not a suggestion.