From the Shores of Northern Europe to the Track at UNR
Bailey Shepard presents a photo series of Summer Steinsrud, for whom change is not new. He also finds out about her track success as a young teenager in Norway and her mom’s previous work in a local Reno casino.
Summer Steinsrud, a freshman hurdler at UNR, is already living in her third country at just 19 years old. She speaks English, Norwegian, and French, and she has come to UNR to succeed both on the track as well as in the classroom.
Summer is originally from England (speaking with a very pleasant English accent), born in London and raised a couple of hours south of there in small villages of the South England countryside. She went to primary school there, and had close friends.
When she was nine, she and her family left the quaint English countryside for the cold snowy fjords of Norway. Summer is English, by way of her mother’s side of the family. But she is also Norwegian, by way of her father’s family. So in a sense Summer was coming home to her fatherland, but this was not the culture nor language that she was 100% familiar with. It was not actually the first time that Summer had been to Norway, she had visited her father’s family in the high mountains of Central Norway, reminiscing on the good times playing cards with her grandfather.
Even though Summer and her grandfather did not speak the same language, they were still able to bond through playing fun games together. Perhaps some things in life go beyond language?
Above, images from Beitostølen, Norway, and her family.
“Starting school was scary because I could not speak any Norwegian, and nine-year-old Norwegian kids are not fluent in English yet either. But they (the teachers) gave me Norwegian lessons when the other kids had English lessons,” Summer remembers.
After six months of learning Norwegian, but still using some English in school her teacher told her to come back from winter break and only use Norwegian.
In fact, Summer never went back to an English-only environment until she came to UNR at 19, this past August of 2020. Her language skills also kept growing. Just a few years after starting to learn Norwegian, Summer began learning her third language, French, when she started middle school. When asked if it was challenging learning all these languages, she answered: “not really because I have always picked up on languages pretty well”. Her favorite film is French, “Les Intouchables”, a heartwarming story about friendship and struggle in the modern era.
Learning languages and adapting to cultures was not all that Summer wanted to master in her life at that point. She began taking a liking to track and field as a sport, and it was this choice in middle school that would propel her halfway around the globe to The Biggest Little City years later.
Feeling ready to get out of her rural Norwegian village for the next adventure, Summer enrolled in a sports centered high school in the metropolitan capital of the country, Oslo. “I mainly wanted to get out. It is kind of a pattern for me, we had moved countries, we had moved towns. After three years of high school in Oslo, I had then seen Oslo. I was ready for something bigger.” It was at this point in her life, near the end of high school, where Summer began setting her sights on coming to the United States.
A Family Connection to Reno
Coming to Reno in August 2020 was not actually the first time Summer had been to America. She had visited Florida with her mom in October 2019. But perhaps Reno was destined to be the location in America for Summer to go.
Her mother, Alyson, had left England as a young woman and worked here in a once world famous show titled Hello Hollywood Hello dancing in the show at the Grand Sierra Resort, staying on for two years in the Biggest Little City and making lifelong friends who are still in Reno.
The story has come full circle as Summer recently spent holidays with her mother’s friends who worked with her in the show. But, despite her mother having been here, it was the coaching staff of the UNR Women’s track team who convinced her that UNR was the right fit for her student collegiate career.
A recruiting website connected her with a coach here at UNR and they spoke via Skype.
“He painted a really nice picture of UNR, of Reno, and of the team,” she said. “That it is a very nice family style atmosphere, and that everyone is looking out for each other.”
Summer’s mom did not want to push Reno just because of her having lived here in the past, but with her mom’s old friends still in the area (which helped when Summer could not travel home for the holidays this past December) the decision was made easier. So it was all set, Summer Steinsrud would come to America, to UNR, to run track and study. But, given this has happened during the pandemic, it was not easy sailing.
With Norway on a stricter lockdown, and the U.S. embassy closed in Oslo, getting a visa to come here was not an easy task.
“Oh gosh, that was so stressful! I had my flight booked, but I didn’t have a visa! My appointment was 10 days away to get the visa, but my flight was in less than 10 days,” Summer said.
Luckily an appointment to get her visa opened up and Summer was able to get the student visa just in time to start school in August.
“It doesn’t feel like it is too bad here,” she said of comparing COVID-19 restrictions. “Everything back home is shut down. Here you just have to wear a mask and be careful. At home (in Norway) you can’t go out and eat at restaurants, and at one point they closed all of the indoor tracks. So with the snow and everything, my friends back home are not really enjoying track too much right now.”
When asked about things she misses from home, Summer without hesitation mentioned public transport. Stating how here people will say to ask anytime if she needs a ride, but how she doesn’t want to feel like she is imposing on anyone. “Because everybody drives in America, and I don’t have a car yet. It’s really annoying having to rely on other people. Even when they say, just hit me up anytime you need a ride, you still feel like you are bothering them.”
Summer also mentioned that she misses her parents, Alyson and Ola, and her little sister Thora.
But, as far as things that Summer enjoys here it seems that she is very content in her new home, “I really like Reno a lot,” she said.
“I love the blue sky, and the sun almost everyday. It is dark almost six months of the year back in Norway!” Summer also said that she enjoys campus life here in America, stating how going to university in Norway is more like commuting to and from a job, and how here each university has its own “little bubble” which she really likes.
Summer also mentioned how casual Americans are, as compared to Norwegians. How it is very common for Americans to just strike up a conversation with a stranger, whereas in Norway that is not as commonly done in public. Still she said that Norwegians are very warm and welcoming when you get to know them and that in Norway life can be a lot more relaxed than other countries due to its population being smaller and things less competitive.
Future Plans
As to her future, Summer is majoring in journalism here at UNR. She really enjoys writing, but would also like to experiment more with video media as that is a field that both of her parents have worked in. “My dad founded one of the television channels in Norway, and he has always been around cameras and media. My mother also worked in media as well and that is how they met. They are both very creative people, and I guess I have inherited that from them.”
Perhaps it is premature to ask Summer about her plans for after UNR considering that she is just a freshman but she feels that she would like to return to Norway someday as the quality of life there is “amazing.”
She is torn though because she says she really likes living in an English-speaking country again, as that is her mother-tongue and she feels culturally connected here as well.
Summer chilling on UNR’s campus, Fall 2020. All photo’s courtesy of Summer Steinsrud
