Lofoten Islands
Close to the Arctic Circle and to the south of our port of departure, Tromsø, lie the Lofoten Islands, our destination for today. At breakfast time we made our approach to the small fishing community of Reine, with its spectacular mountain backdrop of volcanic basalt shrouded in mist. For centuries, cod has been the prized catch of the hardy fisher folk who form the backbone of the community; indeed Lofoten Islands cod was essential to the trade of mediaeval Europe.
In the days before refrigeration, codfish was hung to dry on extensive wooden racks, salted and sometimes smoked and exported via Bergen to the south to the wider world. The demand for this rich source of protein was massive, particularly in a universally Catholic Europe that insisted on abstinence from meat on Fridays and a host of other high and holy days. A taste for dried codfish has remained in some parts of Europe; the several regional variants of bacalhau are a celebrated component of Portuguese cuisine. That trade sustained the Hanseatic League which controlled the trade of northern Europe until its decline in the sixteenth century, a decline in part caused by the Reformation that saw demand for codfish slump in the new Protestant territories of northern Europe. Drying-racks for the fish, known as hjell, and a fleet of fishing-boats bore witness to an enduring tradition as we explored the settlement on foot.
Over lunch we re-positioned to the south, arriving on the island of Vaeroy at the former fishing village of Måstad. Now reduced to a few holiday homes, the village was more active than usual as we had happened upon a convention of Lundehunde owners and breeders, the rare Norwegian breed that translates as puffin hound. The dog was used to hunt puffins, being trained to catch its prey, up to sixty birds a day, without harming them; indeed, they presented them to their owners alive so that they could be prepared for table. Today, it is forbidden to hunt puffin in Norway but the bird is still to be found on the menus of Icelandic restaurants. The dog is polydactile, with an extra toe. Mårstad was the base for some magnificent hiking along an old causeway and for Zodiac cruising in the bay, a classic vik from which the Vikings derived their name. Walkers discovered many interesting summer flowers and could observe black-backed gulls, guillemots and shags.
