Northward Bound

“The stars are putting on their glittering belts. They throw around their shoulders cloaks that flash like a great shadow’s last embellishment.” –Wallace Stevens

A few days ago I got back from my journey to northern Norway and due to a very busy past couple of days, I’m finally ready to tell you all about it!

So last Saturday morning (Oct. 6^th) we got up nice and early and caught a train to Oslo at 5 am and then got to the airport to hang out a bit and catch a plane at 10.30 to Bodø. We arrived to Bodø at about 12.30. Here’s our view flying in. It was a little scary seeing we were going to be landing by so much water. 

From there we walked quite a ways to the town center and to find our ferry. After securing the location and times of our ferry, we hiked to the nearest grocery stores to stock up for the next few days. We got on the ferry at about 4 o’clock and had about a 4 hour ride to the Lofoton Islands. It was a little gray and cloudy outside, but it was a beautiful ride across the open ocean. I definitely got rocked to sleep a couple of time by the ocean waves. On board we met a guy named Tyler from Minnesota. He was traveling around Norway in a camper for a few weeks. He offered us a ride to our cabin, saving us an 8 km walk, which was so nice because we were all exhausted by this time. We stayed in an old fisherman’s cabin on the island Hamnøy. It was such a wonderful and warm change from our typical cold camping experiences. There were 5 beds, a bathroom, a good size kitchen stocked with dishes, and a little living room. The best was though the view of the mountains outside our cabins. Instead of trying to describe how wonderful it was, I’ll just post some pictures.

On Sunday, we took about a 45 minute ride bus to Ramberg, a neighboring island. Here we spent the afternoon exploring one of the many white sand beaches up here in the Islands. The view was incredible from all directions. We hiked out to tip of a point and sat and ate our lunch there. I couldn’t figure out how to do a panoramic photo with my camera, so instead I just took a video to share my wonderful lunch view.

After lunch we hiked back down to the beach and relaxed for a while, built some sandcastles, slept a little. And then we got the idea to go a little crazy and go swimming! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I now can say I’ve been swimming in the Arctic Circle!

Due to a misreading of the bus schedule, half of us ended up taking a taxi back and the other half hitch-hiked back home to our cabin. We spent the night making dinner, reading, playing cards and listening to some music.

On Monday, we got up and hiked around some of the surrounding islands. All of the islands are connected by bridges that look like this.

We ended up on Risør at a beautiful little café. We saw so many cute little shops, museums and art displays along the way, but unfortunately mostly everything was closed for the season, except this one café. It was a beautiful and relaxing way to spend the afternoon. 

On the way back we stopped at the only grocery store and the islands and stocked up for our last few days there. We got back and had hoped to take out a rowboat that came along with our cabin, but that too had been taken in for the season. So, instead, we played some cards and cooked up some dinner. That night around 9.30 we were able to see the Northern Lights right from our own deck. At first they were a little dim because of the all the clouds, but soon they were so bright and took up the whole sky. They rippled and danced in greens and purples. They lasted for about an hour and were so spectacular! Cameras couldn’t really capture them, but here’s a few attempts.

On Tuesday we went to a town called Å. Å is the last letter in the Norwegian Alphabet and Å is the last island in the chain of the Lofoton Islands. It was a pretty cloudy and gray day out and rained a few times, but it was still nice to walk around the old fishing town. We ate lunch right by an old boat and then hiked up to a mini light house. 

That night we had reindeer stew for dinner- so delicious. Then we spent the night watching a movie and cleaning the cabin. We had to get up nice and early- 4 am- to hike to where our ferry would take off to take us back to Bodø. It was about an 8k walk and took us a little under 2 hours to get there. We were very excited to get on the ferry and get warm and sleep a little. Once we got back to Bodø, we stored our packs at the train station and spent the day café hopping in Bodø. That night we boarded the train for a nice 21 hour train ride back home to Bø. We had two transfers along the way and the ride home was so beautiful. I felt like I was on Hogwarts Express in the winter time. There hadn’t been any snow and it hadn’t been that cold in the Lofoton Islands (They are the biggest warm weather anomaly in the world, in fact one of the days we were there it was about 50 degrees F), but on the train ride we went through so much snow. It was beautiful. 

We finally got back home at 7 at night on Thursday. I highly recommend anyone who wants to travel to Norway to be sure to go to the Lofoton Islands- seriously one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been!

This past Friday, for my Individuals, Environs and Society class, we took a hike up to Høyslass, a mountain right behind the school and talked a little about Norwegian fairytales. 

That night I visited my Norwegian friend Christine at the bookstore she works at and talked with her for a while. After that, I went with a couple others to a man named Gordie’s house to make applesauce. Gordie is in the international program and taking classes at our university to stay busy while his wife teaches at another university and travels around Norway performing for the year. His wife is a pretty famous fiddle/violin player. Gordie is originally from Canada, but now lives in Scotland with his wife.

Yesterday I had a day excursion for my class. We went down to Kragerø to visit an old maritime museum and then take an hour ferry ride out to an island known as ‘Spinster’s Island’.  It was very VERY cold on the ferry, so we were all happy there was a lower level we could huddle in out of the wind. On the island we hiked up a lighthouse and then took a walk down to the sea. Finally, we took the ferry back and had a delicious dinner of fish soup at local restaurant in Kragerø. The bus ride back made me realize how quickly it’s starting to get dark here. By 7 o’clock it was already completely dark and I was told every day its gets darker 7 minutes earlier! That’s so crazy!

Anyways, I’ve got an Introducing Norwegian Language midterm this week, so I’m actually going to go spend some time studying. Lots of love to you all! Jeg er glad i dere og jeg savner dere!

-Marissa