Lofoten Islands
This morning the National Geographic Explorer awoke on the “outer coast” of the Lofoten archipelago along the shores of Vaeroy Island. Atlantic puffins and razorbills were spotted from both bridge and deck and on approach to our anchorage the dramatic slopes and ridges above the abandoned community of Mastad were visible. Relics of a prosperous past stood in the form of what today are used as summer cottages, and while a treacherous landing did not allow us to wander the shores of Mastad, some of us enjoyed exploring via Zodiac.
Huge breeding populations of seabirds makes this outermost municipality of the Lofoten Islands the largest aggregation of breeding seabirds on the European mainland and close to 20% of all seabirds breeding along the Norweigan coast. While numbers have dropped dramatically over the last thirty to fifty years there was a buzz in both air and water as multiple species of auks, European shags and white tailed eagles displayed in escalating gales and swell. The colorful history of this remote enclave was focused on both land and sea as the fishery is what sustained these communities and the land based asset of puffins helped to diversify their diet. Both birds and eggs were collected using a breed of dog known as Lundehunder or puffin dog (referred to locally as Mastad dogs because the breed only survived in this isolated hamlet).
Moving further up the archipelago we docked at Reine on the island of Moskenesoy, where mountains rise straight up from the sea. Walking around this fishing village fish drying on racks helped to paint the picture of this area’s past and present and the important spawning grounds of the Atlantic cod. After walking around this incredibly picturesque community we went to the town of A and the Lofoten Stockfish museums to learn about all things cod and what probably is one of Norway’s oldest trading commodities.
After dinner the captain took us into but another fabulous fjord where at the end he poked the bow into the steep and waterfall-filled walls of this fairytale landscape and I became the chosen soul to pick mountain ash from the walls of Trollfjord.
