Few, if any, countries in Europe overcame such formidable challenges as Norway in settling the land within their borders. Where Norway"s leaders through the centuries used the story of Stiklestad to unify the country – building a strong national identity around the narrative of a united, independent and Christian country that had left behind its medieval past – its road builders and pioneers later stared down a forbidding Arctic and sub-Arctic climate and the challenges posed by a beautiful, but inhospitable terrain to chisel out routes like the Kystriksveien.