| Arctic Circle 6.00 | ||
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I
spent midsummer in Northern Norway, in the Arctic Circle in fact.
I flew from Oslo to Tromsø and then my friend B and I hired a Rent-a-Wreck
car and drove to the Lofoten Islands, via the Vesterålen. Look on
a map if you want to know where these places are, they are a long
way from anywhere, truly at the end of the world. Here are some
things I found out:
The midnight sun We went to see a late showing of 'Ghost Dog' in a tiny cinema that looked as though it was the hobby of someone's Dad. The sun was bright when we came out, so we swallowed a load of toffees, jumped in the 'wreck and drove to the coast. The Lofoten islands are mountainous and there are only a few places where you can see the sun trying to set around 12.30am. Imagine the ground as the horizon and your head as the sun; that's how low it got before it started to climb again. There were long shadows, the mountains were all glowing orange where the light hit them, the valleys were all bluey shadows and everything was just...so...still. Wanton brutality At Tromsø's Polar Museum I enjoyed the uncritical exhibits of men clubbing baby seals to death and the many pro-hunting displays including a life sized model of a polar bear shooting itself in the head! This attitude to nature was a constant theme in my travels, for example the Lofoten Aquarium seemed to be sponsored by the Norwegian Fishing Industry and had a pro-whaling display tucked away behind one of the fish tanks and whale meat snacks for sale in the cafe. Light It's the time of the year when it never gets dark when you are so far north. Light makes me feel elated. The perpetual daylight was very weird and fabulous, although I kept waking up at 2.30am thinking that it was time to get up. Most of the time the weather was cloudy and slightly damp, a bit like an early spring afternoon with the sun trying to come out, not something you'd normally expect to see at 3am. By the way, there were no Northern Lights to see, that's not because they weren't there, but because you can only see them on dark cloudless nights. Badass behaviour We went to the Polar Cathedral, in Tromsø, which has amazing 60s architecture that makes it look like an iceberg. We were in time for a service so we stayed and I sang hymns in badly-pronounced Norwegian and took holy communion with a load of pious, rugged-looking locals. I don't believe in god, I've just never done it before, I wanted to know what it was like. I haven't been to church for years. I was surprised at how boring and passive it was. Nobody rumbled me. Bad pizza Peppe's Pizza is the national pizza chain. Their vegetarian pizza features sesame seeds, bean sprouts, and jarlsberg instead of mozzarella. Greenpeace This is the name of a whalemeat tapas dish that I saw advertised in a bar. Poisonous plants Giant Hogweed is known as the 'Tromsø Palm' and it's everywhere. Is it just me who remembers the scare stories about this plant in the late 70s? It's like a triffid, and poisonous to touch too. None of the Norwegians seemed bothered about it. Midsummer We went to a huge bonfire on a rocky peninsula, along with a load of locals. Very Wickerman. Whilst I wobbled nervously over the rocky path to the fire, everyone else nipped past me nimbly, kids, grown-ups, dogs, all so much more agile than me. I ate rømmegrøt, which is a rich sour cream porridge that's very traditional at this time of year. The fire was massive and I was worried that the wind would change and my plastic mac would melt onto my body. Some children played with a fishing line. Artscape Nordland This is a sculpture trail that covers hundredss of miles. We went to see a few of the pieces Most were large stone, metal or granite set in natural beauty and representing some comment about the land. There was often a long drive to visit one piece (50 miles between them was not unusual), sometimes a hike across country too, and it made the sculpture seem very special, like we had come across something very secret and cool. Scenery so beautiful you want to cry at first ... but then you just get used to it. Mountains after mountains, fjords, islands, waterfalls, meadows full of wildflowers, massive glacial valleys, places so isolated one of our constant refrains was "how do people live here?" Peace and beauty was everywhere you looked. I particularly liked roads that wound up high through the tree line and into snow and ice. We passed an icy lake and a cluster of houses still embedded in snow, despite it being June. Kitsch museums The Stockfish Museum is devoted to the dried fish that Lofoten Islanders export to the rest of the world. Ever the delicate urban vegetarian I was appalled by the vats of dried cod heads and the gruesome stinking decapitated fish everywhere, even strung up to the ceiling. We also visited the world's oldest cod liver oil factory, which is probably one of the most disgusting things I have ever witnessed and featured big pots of browny tar with fragments of cod liver floating about in them. I watched a video, or at least I retched my way through it, and gagged at the footage of a guy slurping a big ladle full of the stuff. Cod liver oil taster must be the worst job in the world. |
 
        
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