Anne Stine Ingstad, née Moe, was not born to have a life of adventure. She was the middle child of a proper middle-class family, tucked away in Lillehammer, then a quiet resort town in the mountains. Her father was an urbane lawyer and her mother an elegant housewife. Eilif and Louise Moe perhaps expected great things of their oldest child, Tycho, a restless boy who was never happy unless he was tramping in the woods or snowy slopes. And they certainly maintained the greatest hopes for their youngest child, Ole Henrik, who showed immense talent at piano playing from a young age. Anne Stine, they hoped, would turn into a refined Norwegian mother and wife, a lady whose charms would reflect well on her future husband.
Although affectionate towards all their children, Eilif and Louise couldn’t help but pay the most attention to Ole Henrik in order to nurture his unique gifts. Tycho and Anne thus grew incomparably close and thought of themselves more as twins than anything else. They were often left to their own devices in the snowy hills of Lillehammer. Although Lillehammer today is world-famous due to the Olympics, in the 1920’s, it was a small town buried in the country, isolated and insular, surrounded by unpaved and frequently treacherous roads. Families often worked the same farms over centuries. Children during those days were incredibly independent; parents didn’t worry when their children disappeared for hours at a time to wander in all sorts of weather. Tycho and Anne even built their own cabin on the family’s summer lands in the mountains.
Eiilf and Louise (née Lindeman) were originally from the capital city of Oslo and had moved to Lillehammer in 1915. Educated and distinguished, Eilif cut a dashing figure with his silver-handled walking stick and Chevrolet sedan. Louise was the consummate hostess, and the couple hosted theatrical gatherings at their house for like-minded Lillehammer folk, including another Oslo transplant, the writer Sigrid Undset, who would eventually win the Nobel Prize in 1928. Eilif became her lawyer, while Tycho and Ole Henrik befriended her two young sons, Anders and Hans Svarstad. Anne Stine became extremely close to Sigrid Undset’s niece, Charlotte, a frequent visitor. During the 1920’s, the girls closely followed news of the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and the glamor and excitement inspired them both to be archeologists.
Charlotte, with her academic and eccentric family, was highly encouraged to pursue archeology and the necessary higher education; Anne less so. After she finished her basic education, her parents saw no need for her to attend a university. She instead went to Paris to learn French as a sort of finishing program, before marriage.
Anne also avidly followed the travels of another intrepid explorer, a Norwegian named Helge Ingstad. Helge had grown up in Bergen but seemed permanently restless. He had a taste for adventure and spent three years living with a First Nations group in Canada known as the Caribou Eaters. Anne and Charlote both read his account of those years—The Land of Feast and Famine. His author photograph showed a consummate adventurer, the definition of ruggedly handsome. With Charlotte’s encouragement, seventeen-year-old Anne wrote him a fan letter on Valentine’s Day, 1935. Helge responded politely, and she continued to write him and sent him a photograph. A few of her letters survive, all full of girlish enthusiasm. Helge was impressed enough by her letters that he called upon her family when he returned to mainland Norway. Anne nursed a ferocious crush on him, but Helge was obviously hesitant about pursuing a relationship, given their eighteen-year age difference. He was also “a bit of a lone wolf” as his daughter would later describe him, used to his bachelor life of coming and going as he pleased. Helge got along well with Tycho, but Eilif was understandably skeptical, and Helge eventually wrote to her asking her to dismiss any ideas of marriage due to their age difference.
Her affections were soon divided as well. Max Tau, a German Jewish publisher who worked with her father, was a regular visitor to Lillehammer, and he occasionally brought along Werner von Grünau, a young German aristocrat. Werner and Anne developed a deep attachment, and in terms of age and temperament, he was far more suitable for her. Werner was also more proactive in his courtship and when he proposed, she accepted, politely asking Helge to please forget about her.
Yet, she was torn due to the growing rift between Germany and Norway. The prospect of a future in Hitler’s Germany looked increasingly dismal, and her family were concerned about her being on the wrong side of a border during the war. In the end, Anne Stine spent the Christmas holidays with her very traditional aristocratic future in-laws and got a glimpse of what her future as the daughter of a noble German family. It sent her running, back to Norway, and back into the arms of Helge. Finally spurred into action, with war on the horizon, Helge proposed.