Welcome to the Tholen Clan! My name is Espen Jan Tholen and I'm the leader of the Tholen Clan. We live in Hamarøy in Northern Norway, although other members of the Tholen Clan can be found in all corners of the world. This page is a tribute to myself and my dogs and you may find some information about my mum and dad, Tilly and Harry.My english may not be perfect, mainly because I'm only 1 year old, but our Irish Wolfhound Bonney says I'm coming along nicely... after a few pints.

"The main Man cometh..."

I was Born on a cold and windy winter's day in the city of Bodø, january 2000. Not in a hospital mind you, but in an apartment not far from the hospital that we borrowed from a nice woman called Sigrun Andersen. My parents didn't want me to get born in our own house because that lies more than four hours (by car and ferry) from the nearest hospital and that 's no joke when you get stuck with your head and you need a little assistance... Miss Andersen didn't charge us anything but my parents threw in a nice bottle of Brandy. I needed a little help from the 2 midwives who were brave enough to help me find may way out but all in all it was a good start.
The meaning with this homepage is mainly to spread some nice and positive things about myself and the place where I live. Also there may be some people out there that want to come in contact with my parents, although I can't think of any reason why. Here's where we have our cave, Helland. That's a microscopic little village, (5 houses) on the Tranøy peninsula in Hamarøy.

Helland. Here is were we live, the horses are our neighbour's Sverre and Maria.

My parents are nurses and moved from Holland to Norway in 1996. Of course I had nothing to do with that decsision, me still being in the bag as it were, but their motives originated from a profound longing for freedom and a little bit of extra space to walk their dogs. We live in an area where there's only two living souls per square kilometer so when you go for a walk you won't have anyone breathing down your neck.  
The main interest in my parents life, besides me, are the challenges of exploring the great outdoors of the Norwegian Wilderness and Irish Wolfhounds. They are even planning a Wolfhound Kennel in a couple of years time. The dark wintermonth's up here are not as bad as one may think. The climate is stable in this period, just enough snow to avoid ruining your ski's, and the wonderous, magical phenomena called Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. There is no use trying to describe this, so click on the hyperlink and be mesmerized.
Anyway, these pages will contain some pictures of our family and my old man promised that he will update them regularly. So just hang on, here we go! I would like to introduce some Clan-members.



To the left you see Flipje and myself. Flipje is a Friese Stabij Houn 10 years old. This is a Dutch rase not very well know outside of Holland. But these are brilliant dogs, eager to learn and serve, eat your heart out Border Collie! Flipje had an affair with 'Raja* a border collie from next door. As a result they had six babies that all got new homes recently. To the right we have Bonney, An Irish Wolfhound puppy who only recently became member of the Tholen Clan. She came all the way from Trondheim, from Kennel Charanga
She's our second Irish Wolfhound, The first was a big bozo called Nils. He got himself a heart attack at 6,5 years old. Here's a picture of him and my dad, as well as Tommy our other Friesche Stabij Houn. Sure hope that Bonney will stay around a bit longer than Nils did.

My father, Tommy and Nils

Yes, Tommy, the old son of a gun! Really senile at 16 years of age. He has been around forever like, and when he doesn't get run downr by a an elk or eaten by a Lynx soon, we may well be stuck with him till doomsday.
Tommy(left) an amazing 16 years old
My mother and father are mostly running (or skiing) around in the woods, carrying me on their backs like an indian papoose, or dragging me around in specially constructed (that is, rather flimsy) baby-snowmobile's, freezing my little a.. off from time to time. From here I have a good view on the rest of our furry pack-members who are panting and ploughing through deep snow, snott flying around in all directions.

Behold my horrible snowmobile!

Skiing downhill escalates usually in a some kind off exuberant free-style act with which my parents often fail to impress the members of the jury.