The Lofoten Islands - Burned in our Memories!

Several people asked us why we choose to travel to Norway. Today we found the answer. Page 291 of the guidebook says,

 “You’ll never forget your first approach to the Lofoten Islands. The islands spread their tall, craggy physique against the sky like some spiny sea dragon. The beauty of this place is simply staggering.”

 After four days in the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam, we are now starting to realize that we had just landed in a different world.

Our trip from Amsterdam to the islands was a day of its own filled with missed flights, lost baggage, and tests of our ability to hold up under stress. Whether we passed the test is not known but we promised to do better next time. We arrived around 9 PM with the sun still in the sky but covered by clouds and a breezy, chilly gust hanging in the air.

We stayed in the town of Svolvaer at a beautiful hotel called the Thon sitting right on edge of the Norwegian Sea. Being above the Arctic Circle we expected longer periods of sunlight. Malcolm had checked out sunrise and sunset tables and determined that sunset occurred at 9:30 and sunrise at 4:30. What we didn’t know was that our concept of sunrise and sunset being a point in time isn’t totally correct. It’s more like they are the duration of time between events. It was still light until around 11:00 PM and started getting light around 2:00 AM. After some research, we learned some interesting facts about twilight. There are three different definitions of twilight.

 … There’s civil twilight, which begins at sunset, and begins when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. In most cases, this is the time when streetlights are required to be turned on.

… There’s nautical twilight which ends in the evening when the center of the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. The term nautical is important. At nautical twilight, the horizon is such that it no longer exists, and the sea and sky have faded into one, thus precluding the ability to take nautical readings off of the combination of the horizon and terrestrial objects.

… There’s astronomical twilight which begins when the center of the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. Most casual observers would regard the sky as fully dark.

Night technically lasts from the end of civil twilight until the start of civil sunrise. But enough of this technical stuff. All we know was that when it was light at 2 AM, we were thankful for the curtains in our room.

We’d previously heard that the hotels in Norway were competitive with their breakfast buffets. As we went down for breakfast in Svolvaer, we discovered this was true. There were tables set with candles. There was every variation of egg, meat, fish, yoghurt, fruit, coffee, tea, and dessert you can imagine. We cannot remember a better breakfast buffet than what we had this morning, and it was all included in the hotel. What a nice surprise. We did not want to appear to be gawking at the buffet, so we weren’t so brazen as to take pictures. But just know we were well fed that morning. The word for the morning was gastronomy!

Just a sampling

We picked up a rental car and headed south. One hundred and twenty-eight kilometers (80 miles) to the south lay the small town of Å (pronounced Ah.) We discovered that Å is the last letter of the Norwegian alphabet. It is only fitting since Å is the southern-most tip of the archipelago known as the Lofoten Islands.

What we discovered between Svolvaer and Å is indescribable. We’ll let the pictures from this journey do the talking.

Atlantic Cod and fishing. This is the essential Lofoten Islands. Before refrigeration and even before salt drying fish, the secret was to air dry the fish. The islands have the perfect climate for drying fish. With the richest supply of Atlantic Cod spawning between here and the mainland, earlier than 1200 AD fishermen discovered that they could fish the spawn between January and March. With temperatures just above freezing, the fish could be dried outside on wooden racks called “hjell.” It wasn’t economically feasible to use salt until the 1700s. But with this perfect climate right at freezing, the fish don’t freeze, but they don’t rot either. The low temperatures also kept away bacteria that could attack the fish. They just dry out and for some reason, the birds don’t bother it. A thousand years later, this season's fish are drying on the wooden racks outside. Note that the heads are dried on separate rack than the bodies. Stockfish everywhere you looked. Fishing for and drying Atlantic Cod is still a big industry.

The fish are called stockfish. I assumed this was because they were used to make fish stock for soups. I should know better than to make assumptions. They are not only used in soups and stew but there are numerous ways to reconstitute the fish into an edible meat. They are a delicacy in Italy, Croatia and even West Africa. They are the essential ingredient in lutefish, but that’s another story. For us, it was the fact that the fishing industry has basically been unchanged for 1,000 years.

Great pic of dried stockfish.

The fishermen didn’t live here year ‘round.  They came from the mainland but lived on the islands during the fishing season. They built small shacks where the entire crew would live for the season. Boys as young as 14 to old men. For three to four months, they lived together around the clock to go fishing. Can you imagine a crew of six to ten men, no baths for long periods time and living together in small shacks. I know it is a visual I’d probably do well not to draw.

This was a picture of where we stayed.  

Although much has been updated from ancient times, we stayed in one of these ‘rorbeur’ as these cabins are called. The updates include bathrooms, kitchens as well as heat which we were very thankful to have. Here’s a link to where we stayed for more information. https://rorbuer.no/  

As we settled in, the word of the evening was grace. Here’s the view from our window in the evening and again in the morning.

Views when we got there

View in the still morning

 View in the still morning

As we awoke several times during the evening, we were on the watch for the northern lights, but alas, it was not to be.

In the morning, we awoke to a different but equally beautiful view of the mountains, covered in clouds with off and on rain. A beauty in itself and a beautiful drive back to the airport. Just an amazing experience on the Lofoton Islands.

An interesting football field. I don't have a drone so I borrowed this image off the internet and would love to give credit if I know who to give credit to, but  must say it is quite the feat to build this field. If this is not enough, note that it was surrounded by stockfish drying racks. Zoom in on this and look at where the field is built. Amazing!

We visited the Viking museum on the way back to the airport. It was in the exact spot that a Viking long house was discovered in 1989. Unbelievable collection of Viking artifact. I'm sure that some of the history matches the myth. Fun to see and highly recommended.

Look at the reflections in this harbor.

The Lofoten Islands are to be experienced and not talked about and we're so thankful to have had this opportunity.