Gjende or Gjendin is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

in Vågå Municipality in

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

. It is located in the Jotunheimen mountain range and also inside Jotunheimen National Park. The

proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around th ...

shows typical characteristics of glacial formation, being long and narrow, with steep walls. The lake is in length and only in width at the broadest point. Gjende has a characteristic light-green color resulting from the large quantity of rock flour which is discharged into the Gjende by the Muru river. The river

Sjoa The Sjoa is a river in Innlandet county, Norway. The long river runs through the municipalities of Vågå and Sel and it provides the outlet from lake Gjende at Gjendesheim in the Jotunheimen mountains of Norway's Jotunheim National Park. ...

provides the outlet from Gjende at

Gjendesheim Gjendesheim Turisthytte has been a staffed lodge with Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (In Norwegian, Den Norske Turistforening – DNT) Oslo og Omegn as proprietor since 1878, and is located in the heart of the Norwegian mountains. The lodge ...

, and flows eastward into the

Gudbrandsdalslågen The Gudbrandsdalslågen (or simply ''Lågen'') is a river which flows through the Gudbrandsdal valley in Innlandet county, Norway. The long river runs through a large valley in Eastern Norway before emptying into Mjøsa, the largest lake in Nor ...

river. Gjende lies in the middle of Jotunheimen National Park and both to the north and south of the lake lie peaks with elevations reaching greater than . There are numerous staffed tourist cabins maintained by the Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (DNT); in the west end lies

Gjendebu Gjendebu is the oldest cabin of the Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (DNT). The cabin lies 995 metres above sea level, by the western end of the lake Gjende, central in Jotunheimen. It is accessible by hiking along marked trails, or by boat o ...

, on the north side lies

Memurubu Memurubu is a tourist hut in Norway, at the end or start of the famous Besseggen hiking trail. Memurubu is originally an old mountain pasture dating back to 1872, but has had tourists just as long. Cows are still grazing around the tourist hut, w ...

and on the east end lies Gjendesheim. In the summer boats provide transport between these locations. la2-demis-bygdin-annotated

Name

The name ( non, Gendir) is derived from Norse ''gandr'' which means 'staff' or 'stick'. This is referring to the form of the long and narrow lake. The official name Gjende is taken from the

Gudbrandsdal Gudbrandsdalen (; en, Gudbrand Valley) is a valley and traditional district in the Norwegian county of Innlandet (formerly Oppland). The valley is oriented in a north-westerly direction from Lillehammer and the lake of Mjøsa, extending toward ...

traditional district dialect used in Lom and

Vågå Vågå () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vågåmo. Other village areas in Vågå include Lalm and Besshe ...

. In the Vang dialect the lake is called ''Gjendin'', which is the form you find in

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential pla ...

's name for what is now called Besseggen, formerly ''Gjendineggen'', or ''Gendineggen'' in the older

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

. The name Gjende is derived from the old Norse word "gandir" that can be translated into "straight stick", whereas the lake to the south

Bygdin Bygdin is a lake in Vang Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The is located in the southern part of the Jotunheimen mountain range. The long, narrow mountain lake is located between the large lakes Tyin (to the west) and Vinstre to the ...

can be translated as "bent stick", the two names thereby referring to the shape of the lakes. The lake gave its name to a famous early outdoors man and free thinker,

Jo Gjende Jo Gjende (1794 – 27 February 1884) was a Norwegian outdoorsman and freethinker. He is believed to have been the model for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. He was born in Vågå, the son of Tjøstolv Olsson Kleppe of Sygaard (a well-known rabble- ...

(1794—1884), who had a cabin at Gjende.

Cultural and literary references

Lake Gjende is found in literature and travel books from the 18th century. Together, the Jotunheimen lakes of Gjende and

play in many such descriptions. For example,

's ''

Peer Gynt ''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five- act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed '' Per Gynt'', the Norwegian fairy tale on ...

'' took his famous wild-reindeer ride along "the Gjendin Ridge", a reference to either the narrow Besseggen Ridge - or the Knutshø ridge on the other side of lake Gjende.

Media gallery

File:Lake_gjende.jpg, Lake Gjende as seen from

. File:Gjendesheim Gjende panorama.jpg, Panoramic view on the Gjende lake near

File:besseggen.jpg, Besseggen seen from the east, with Gjende lake to the right and Bessvatnet to the left File:Camping at Gjende.jpg, Camping at Gjende lake. File:Muru_memurubu.jpg, The river Muru flowing into Gjende lake next to

File:Memurubu hytt Gjende panorama.jpg, Panoramic view over Gjende lake near Memurubu

References

External links

Lake depth map of Gjende (Norwegian)Gjendebåtane - "To the heart of Jotunheimen by boat"GjendesheimGjendebuMemurubu (Norwegian only)
{{use dmy dates, date=May 2022 Vågå Jotunheimen Lakes of Innlandet

Name

Cultural and literary references

Media gallery

See also

References

External links