Lofoten, Norway
As we fell into our bunks last night, the sky was still lit by pink plumes of cirrus and a crisp crescent moon. The ship rode at anchor, safe within a stockade of jagged mountains, the unmistakable sawtooth silhouette of Lofoten. Today we navigated this spectacular peninsula.
We came early into Reine, a fishing harbour ringed by sculpted glacial peaks. The sky was pure china blue, the sea still and clear as we took to the water to explore. Dark red slatted houses perched on wooden stilts above the shore, roofs of green turf or sparkling schist tiles. Smart fishing boats, some of them whaling vessels with the telltale black garter in the crows nest. Eider families paddling along the polished granite shoreline. Fat happy gulls slumped on rock and roof, dreaming of gutted fish. A quiet town, slumbering on the sunniest Sunday of the year.
Before Reine rose, we moved five miles west, a short transit to Norway's shortest village name; Å, a place of superlatives : the finest fishing, the cleanest waters, the oldest geology. The hard crystalline rocks here are more than 3 billion years old, before there was even life on the planet. Å means water, in celebration of the clean mountain lake which drew the first Stone Age nomads. People have lived here for millennia: long before Norwegians were even invented this was a Saami settlement. They learnt to navigate the treacherous waters to risk a rich reward: huge schooling cod which come here every February to spawn. The Norwegians later learnt from the Saami how to build the wooden racks on which to dry the split fish. By the Middle Ages this had become a lucrative trade centre with a global distribution: dried fish and cod liver oil fuelled 80% of Norway's economy for centuries.
To reach the fishing grounds, men in cockleshell boats had to cross the Moskenstraum, a sleeping monster. Woken by the random collision of wind, tide and current, it could become a deadly sea which devoured boats and men. We know it today as the "Maelstrom"; thankfully it slept still as we crossed to Vaerøy, our final island landfall. Here, beyond the Maelstrom, a remote fishing village once thrived on exported cod, and a diet of fish, potatoes and puffins. The community, eroded by hardship and isolation in the 1950s,was finally abandoned. But where their grandparents once toiled to win their winter cod, the grandchildren now return for summer recreation: the smoke of barbecues and the laughter of children rises anew from the old village.
As we fell into our bunks last night, the sky was still lit by pink plumes of cirrus and a crisp crescent moon. The ship rode at anchor, safe within a stockade of jagged mountains, the unmistakable sawtooth silhouette of Lofoten. Today we navigated this spectacular peninsula.
We came early into Reine, a fishing harbour ringed by sculpted glacial peaks. The sky was pure china blue, the sea still and clear as we took to the water to explore. Dark red slatted houses perched on wooden stilts above the shore, roofs of green turf or sparkling schist tiles. Smart fishing boats, some of them whaling vessels with the telltale black garter in the crows nest. Eider families paddling along the polished granite shoreline. Fat happy gulls slumped on rock and roof, dreaming of gutted fish. A quiet town, slumbering on the sunniest Sunday of the year.
Before Reine rose, we moved five miles west, a short transit to Norway's shortest village name; Å, a place of superlatives : the finest fishing, the cleanest waters, the oldest geology. The hard crystalline rocks here are more than 3 billion years old, before there was even life on the planet. Å means water, in celebration of the clean mountain lake which drew the first Stone Age nomads. People have lived here for millennia: long before Norwegians were even invented this was a Saami settlement. They learnt to navigate the treacherous waters to risk a rich reward: huge schooling cod which come here every February to spawn. The Norwegians later learnt from the Saami how to build the wooden racks on which to dry the split fish. By the Middle Ages this had become a lucrative trade centre with a global distribution: dried fish and cod liver oil fuelled 80% of Norway's economy for centuries.
To reach the fishing grounds, men in cockleshell boats had to cross the Moskenstraum, a sleeping monster. Woken by the random collision of wind, tide and current, it could become a deadly sea which devoured boats and men. We know it today as the "Maelstrom"; thankfully it slept still as we crossed to Vaerøy, our final island landfall. Here, beyond the Maelstrom, a remote fishing village once thrived on exported cod, and a diet of fish, potatoes and puffins. The community, eroded by hardship and isolation in the 1950s,was finally abandoned. But where their grandparents once toiled to win their winter cod, the grandchildren now return for summer recreation: the smoke of barbecues and the laughter of children rises anew from the old village.
