Text: Per Erling Bakke

Adapted and translated into English by Ivar Teigum

The farm Nordgard – Northern – Loftsgard, address no 52 Selsvegen road, is situated north of Otta at the west side of the railway line. The cluster of log buildings date from the period 1750–1800.

Picture from 1917, the farmer and his family, they had seven children altogether. The last farmer died in the year 2000.

Loftsgard is an ageold name at Otta, in the 17. century three farms in a row carried the name, Sygard – Southern – Loftsgard, which later hosted the licenced inn and Grand Hotel, Nordgard Loftsgard, which in the 20. century had a hotel at Mysusetra in the mountains, and Nyhus  New House – Loftsgard where the primary school is situated in our day.

Mysuseter høyfjellspensjonat – high mountain inn, picture from the 1930s.

In recorded history the farm is known from the first half of the 17. century. In 1642 copper ore was discovered near Otta, and a mining company was organized. One of its leaders, the Schichtmeister Nicolaus Grein, bought the Nørdre Loftsgard farm when mining activities were suspended in the early 1680s. His family lost the farm due to hereditary rights, but his sons continued to spend their lives in the Sel community.

In 1940, prepairing for the confrontation with the Germans, the British force established a depot in the Nordgard Loftsgard barn, weapons and equipment of various kinds. In the following summer local people collected carpets and other items that could prove useful throughout the occupation.

Picture from 1998. Jakob Loftsgaard (1908-2000) took over the farm in 1940. After his death what was left of the farm was eventually sold out of the family.

Øyom is the name of the flat area in the northward direction from Otta on the Lågen river. A part both of uncultivated and cultivated land belonged to Nordgard Loftsgard. In 1933 the farmer rented four and a half acres of land to Otta idrettslag – the local sports club, where a gravel pitch was laid out, and with a club house. That was the beginning of what later became Øya Stadium.

Nordgard Loftsgard. Today only an acre of farmland is left.