40 Fun Facts About Snow Treasure

In Snow Treasure, what do the children build over each spot where they bury gold bricks after a sled run?

Snowmen marked the buried bricks so that Uncle Victor and his mate could find them after dark and carry them to the hidden boat.

In Snow Treasure, what does Peter throw at the German Commandant to draw him away from the hidden gold?

A snowball hit the Commandant before he could uncover the gold, and the furious officer had Peter locked in a cell at the German barracks.

In Snow Treasure, what keeps the village school shut so the children can go on sledding the gold?

A fake epidemic did it: the doctor painted red dots on the smallest children, then told the German commander that lessons could not possibly restart.

In Snow Treasure, the soldier in German uniform who spies on the sledding children is really from which country?

Poland was his home until the invaders captured him and pressed him into their ranks; he begs Uncle Victor for passage to America.

Which American author wrote Snow Treasure, the 1942 children's novel about sleds loaded with smuggled gold?

Marie McSwigan wrote ten children's books and two adult biographies, and said that resourcefulness was the theme running through all of them.

In Snow Treasure, roughly how much is the gold worth that the children smuggle past the German sentries?

$9 million is the value the author's foreword gives for a real cargo of bullion that a small freighter landed in America in June 1940.

A 1997 Scholastic edition of Snow Treasure added a note admitting what about the famous gold-sledding story?

No proof it happened, the note said, after decades in which readers took the tale as fact; an expert on wartime Norwegian shipping has flatly called it untrue.

What is the name of Uncle Victor's camouflaged boat that waits in a hidden fiord in Snow Treasure?

Cleng Peerson is also the name of a real pioneer who led the first group of Norwegians to emigrate to the United States.

In Snow Treasure, which of the four friends who ride the first loaded sleds is Peter's ten-year-old sister?

Lovisa is the youngest of the first four to ride a gold-laden sled, alongside her brother and their friends Helga and Michael.

What is the name of the small Norwegian village where Peter and his friends live in Snow Treasure?

Riswyk falls to the Germans without a fight, and its children then spend about six weeks sledding the gold past the occupiers.

What is the family name of Peter, the boy who leads the gold-sledding children in Snow Treasure?

Lundstrom is also the name of his father Lars and of Uncle Victor, whose plan puts Peter in charge of the sledding teams.

In Snow Treasure, who slips into the German barracks to free Peter from his cell before the boat sails?

Jan Lasek, the soldier Uncle Victor had been holding prisoner, walks in dressed as a guard collecting the supper dishes and leads Peter out.

Which sailor, Uncle Victor's mate, helps him seize the soldier caught watching Peter bury gold in Snow Treasure?

Rolls and Uncle Victor bind and gag the stranger so that he cannot frighten the children or report what they are doing.

Before the sledding begins in Snow Treasure, where have the village men hidden the nation's gold bricks?

A cave of ice and packed snow, built in the woods by the men themselves, held the bricks stacked from floor to ceiling.

When the first gold-laden sleds meet German soldiers in Snow Treasure, what does the captain order his men to do?

Step aside was the order, and the captain even told Peter as he passed that he used to enjoy sledding when he was a boy.

In Snow Treasure, what do the children swear never to do if a German soldier addresses them?

Speak to him and the oath was broken: the first four swore it with their hands on an old family sword, and every later recruit took the same vow.

In Snow Treasure, what does Uncle Victor tell the schoolchildren he is forming, with Peter as its president?

A defense club was the announcement, and 38 children signed up; in truth its members would be sledding gold past enemy sentries.

With half the gold moved in Snow Treasure, what halts the sledding and keeps everyone indoors for three days?

A blizzard buried the valley, and when the runs resumed Peter saw that the German camp had fared far worse in it than the villagers.

In Snow Treasure, what is the profession of Peter's father Lars, who helps plan the gold's escape?

A banker by trade, Lars strikes Peter as far less adventurous than seafaring Uncle Victor, yet it is Lars who wakes Peter one night to show him the secret hoard.

In Snow Treasure, which man who works for Peter's family insists the weather will hold for sledding?

Per Garson trusted his trick knee over the threatening sky when rain looked certain to ruin the sled track, and he turned out to be right.

Where do the Snow Treasure children spend the night after sledding their gold down the mountain?

The Holms' farm sat at the foot of a run of nearly twelve miles, so the children slept there and walked the rest of the way home the next day.

As time runs short in Snow Treasure, who starts hauling gold bricks down the mountain alongside the children?

Their mothers joined in once the captured soldier was sure to be missed, since a search party could have ended the whole operation.

How do the village men in Snow Treasure hide the lone sled tracks the children leave near the gold?

By skiing across them, the men bury the lone trails under a tangle of ordinary tracks; Peter marvels that the adults have thought of everything.

How do the Snow Treasure children keep the gold bricks out of sight while they ride their sleds downhill?

Lying on top of them, belly-down, each child covers a load of bricks, and only two to four sleds go down together so nobody grows suspicious.

What do the people of Peter's village hurry to build the day before the Germans invade in Snow Treasure?

Bomb shelters went up around the village, and Uncle Victor visited the classroom to drill the children in filing into them in good order.

What does Peter's father leave the village to do as the invasion begins in Snow Treasure?

Join the army is what many of the village men did, and before leaving Lars asks Peter to be the man of the family.

Which real Norwegian freighter, whose secret gold cargo reached America in June 1940, inspired Snow Treasure?

Bomma carried the bullion in barrels on deck, each lashed to several empty barrels so that the gold would stay afloat if the ship were sunk.

At which American port did a Norwegian freighter land the mystery gold cargo that inspired Snow Treasure?

Baltimore saw armoured trucks haul the cases off the pier at midnight, escorted through deserted streets by police on motorcycles.

The 1940 gold cargo behind Snow Treasure ended its journey in a Federal Reserve vault in which city?

New York received the bullion by rail in the small hours, and the freighter that carried it over the Atlantic was the first of fourteen such treasure ships.

The author of Snow Treasure worked on newspapers in which Pennsylvania city before writing children's books?

Pittsburgh gave her a start on the Press after she interviewed the visiting head of the Vatican Library and the paper printed her account unchanged.

The author of Snow Treasure came from an amusement park family and did publicity for which Pennsylvania park?

Kennywood was one of her publicity clients, and a later novel of hers housed a homeless family in an abandoned carousel.

A later novel by the Snow Treasure author follows Czechs who flee to West Germany by stealing what?

A train carries them over the border in All Aboard for Freedom, her 1954 novel based on a real escape from Czechoslovakia.

Snow Treasure won a 1945 award voted on by young readers in which region of the US and Canada?

The Pacific Northwest library association runs the Young Reader's Choice Award, the oldest children's-choice book prize in the two countries.

Where did the author of Snow Treasure say she first met the story of children sledding gold past soldiers?

A news dispatch from a wire service set her wondering what kind of patriots those Norwegians were, and the novel was her answer.

Which American actor played the German lieutenant who defects in the 1968 film of Snow Treasure?

James Franciscus, known for the TV series Mr. Novak and Longstreet, took top billing in the film, which was made on location in Norway.

In the 1968 film of Snow Treasure, what happens to the defecting German officer during the final escape?

He is shot and dies aboard the boat in the film, whereas the novel's soldier survives and sails away with Peter and Uncle Victor.

Norway's real gold reserves, the history behind Snow Treasure, sat in a vault in which city until April 1940?

Oslo's vault was emptied on the morning of the invasion: bank staff loaded the crates onto civilian lorries, and the convoy got away north before German troops took the city.

Which king of Norway escaped the 1940 invasion aboard an Allied cruiser that also carried part of the nation's gold?

Haakon VII boarded HMS Glasgow at Molde while the town was being bombed, and hundreds of crates of bullion were loaded alongside him.

In her foreword to Snow Treasure, the author says she turned the real coasting motorship into what kind of vessel?

A fishing smack replaced the real freighter, and she also admitted altering the distance over which the gold was said to have been sledded.

Which Norwegian collaborator's surname became an English word for traitor within days of the 1940 German invasion?

Quisling tried to seize power by radio on the day of the invasion, and within a week The Times had turned his name into a common noun.