The Norwegian Forest cat is a domestic cat breed that originated in Northern Europe, and one that is naturally at home in cold climates, possessing a long, water resistant coat with an extra layer of insulation provided by a denser, more woolly undercoat. One of the larger domestic cat breeds, the Norwegian Forest cat is a robust and visually impressive cat that enjoys spending a lot of time outdoors and roaming around. They are popular as pets both in their home country of Norway and the other Scandinavian countries, and also enjoy a considerable following here in the UK.
The history of the Norwegian Forest cat
The exact origins of this naturally occurring breed are not definitively known, but there is evidence to suggest that the first cats of the breed’s ancestry were probably introduced to Norway with the Vikings in around 1,000 AD.The cats adapted naturally to thrive in the region’s cold winters, and the breed likely developed from the introduction by Viking invaders of longhaired cats that bred with locally occurring domestic and wild shorthaired cats, to produce the cat breed that we know as the Norwegian Forest cat today.
Norwegian Forest cats were prized for their hunting abilities, and were popular as both farm cats and ship’s cats for this reason. The first Norwegian Forest cat breed association was formed at around the time that the Second World War broke out in 1938, in an attempt to preserve the breed and further its aims. However, these first preservation efforts for the Norwegian Forest cat were hampered by the war in Europe, as the breed interbred in great numbers with non-pedigree domestic cats, leading to the Norwegian Forest cat as a pure breed almost dying out entirely.
After the war, the Norwegian Forest Cat Club made great efforts to preserve and establish the breed, saving this large and noble cat from almost certain extinction. During the 1970’s, the first Norwegian Forest cats were exported to the rest of the world market, and gained recognition as an official breed by most of the world’s formal feline registries by the late 1970’s.
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