The national saint of Norway goes by many names, and so does the pilgrim path that bears his name. The reasons behind this jumble of names are many. One of them is that this particular pilgrim path goes through two countries. The Swedish abbrevation for “Saint” is “S:T”, in Norway it’s “St.”. The Norwegian name “Olav” is written as “Olof” in Sweden.

In Norway the path has been called St. Olavsleden since the new pilgrim movements started in the late 1990’s. At that time, the path was not marked through Sweden. The three main cities along the path, Sundsvall, Östersund and Trondheim then made a joint effort in 2012 to mark the whole path from the starting point i Sundsvall, and needed a name for it that reflected the international aspect. They decided on the name S:T Olavsleden, a combination of the two languages.

Today, you can find all kinds of versions of the path’s name. It illustrates the Scandinavian side to this ancient travel route.
As the old saying goes: A dear child has many names 🙂