Northern Norway T.R.
Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 5:03 pm
Since the weather is keeping us fair-weather skiers out of the Sierra I thought I'd return to our endless summer in arctic Norway back in 2006. Yes, better weather there than here- at least our weather right now. Our boys were 6 and 3 years, and homeschooling gave us the freedom to take off for a year and a half to work and travel in Europe. I'll share a few stories and images from the short backpacking trips we did there.
We chose to head right up to the arctic island chains of Norway on the advice of a Norwegian traveler I'd met years before, who told me that if I really loved sharp rocky mountains so much, I would have to come see the Lofoten Islands. So we did. The second part of arctic Norway we visited was the Lyngen Peninsula mountains east of Tromso. Northern Norway is a beautiful region of forest, tundra, fiords and mountains. We were there for the month of July, and it never got very dark; for instance, we could read in bed without headlamps. It was largely an empty land where we traveled. We saw just 5 other backpackers on our early trips in the mountains of the Lofoten and Vesteralen Islands, and on the Lyngen trip we saw only a few locals. We did see otter, mink, red fox, deer, and reindeer- these last were probably the semi-domesticated version. There are very small but growing populations of Eurasian wolf, and brown bear in Norway, and healthy populations of lynx and wolverine. I will include a few photos of these animals which were taken at the "Polar Wildlife Park." This wildlife park supposedly has the largest area to animal ratio in the world, so we felt okay about going there to see the native wildlife. We had wonderful experiences cycle-touring and rough camping, but our short backpacking trips were the highlights of our time in Norway.
The town below is Reine, and when we saw a photo of it we knew my friend Bjorn was telling the truth about the sharp peaks of the Lofoten Islands. (BTW, this is our first attempt at scanning dusty old slides, and many need cleaning, and a few- like this one, need to be reversed-
oh well)
I short-roped 6 year old Ryan around cliffy spots, which, when climbing in Lofoten, is about everywhere! *Nathan generally stayed in the kid-pack.
We cycle-toured all through the Lofoten and Vesteralen Islands, alternating between causeways, tidal flats, and ferry boat rides. On backpacking trips, we were told just to lean our bikes against the general store- no one will bother them, and they didn't.
We were dropped by boat up the fiord, and hiked to the far side of the island. We overstayed our food supply because it was such a wonderful place- both the beaches and the mountains. So we ended up subsisting on limpets for the last day.
We had seen tiny fish in this lake and tried to catch them with limpets for bait- no luck, but fun trying.
On the boat ride back to Reine.
Cod fishing is one of the staple industries out there.
Cod fish and son.
I climbed a high peak behind the town of "A." Yes, that's the name- A.
Rough camping anywhere you like. Brilliant old law- a version of Sweden's: "allemansrätten (lit. "the everyman's right") ," which means you can camp one night anywhere, even on private farms, as long as you don't set the place on fire, or trample all the crops- that's how it was described to us.
We chose to head right up to the arctic island chains of Norway on the advice of a Norwegian traveler I'd met years before, who told me that if I really loved sharp rocky mountains so much, I would have to come see the Lofoten Islands. So we did. The second part of arctic Norway we visited was the Lyngen Peninsula mountains east of Tromso. Northern Norway is a beautiful region of forest, tundra, fiords and mountains. We were there for the month of July, and it never got very dark; for instance, we could read in bed without headlamps. It was largely an empty land where we traveled. We saw just 5 other backpackers on our early trips in the mountains of the Lofoten and Vesteralen Islands, and on the Lyngen trip we saw only a few locals. We did see otter, mink, red fox, deer, and reindeer- these last were probably the semi-domesticated version. There are very small but growing populations of Eurasian wolf, and brown bear in Norway, and healthy populations of lynx and wolverine. I will include a few photos of these animals which were taken at the "Polar Wildlife Park." This wildlife park supposedly has the largest area to animal ratio in the world, so we felt okay about going there to see the native wildlife. We had wonderful experiences cycle-touring and rough camping, but our short backpacking trips were the highlights of our time in Norway.
The town below is Reine, and when we saw a photo of it we knew my friend Bjorn was telling the truth about the sharp peaks of the Lofoten Islands. (BTW, this is our first attempt at scanning dusty old slides, and many need cleaning, and a few- like this one, need to be reversed-
oh well)
I short-roped 6 year old Ryan around cliffy spots, which, when climbing in Lofoten, is about everywhere! *Nathan generally stayed in the kid-pack.
We cycle-toured all through the Lofoten and Vesteralen Islands, alternating between causeways, tidal flats, and ferry boat rides. On backpacking trips, we were told just to lean our bikes against the general store- no one will bother them, and they didn't.
We were dropped by boat up the fiord, and hiked to the far side of the island. We overstayed our food supply because it was such a wonderful place- both the beaches and the mountains. So we ended up subsisting on limpets for the last day.
We had seen tiny fish in this lake and tried to catch them with limpets for bait- no luck, but fun trying.
On the boat ride back to Reine.
Cod fishing is one of the staple industries out there.
Cod fish and son.
I climbed a high peak behind the town of "A." Yes, that's the name- A.
Rough camping anywhere you like. Brilliant old law- a version of Sweden's: "allemansrätten (lit. "the everyman's right") ," which means you can camp one night anywhere, even on private farms, as long as you don't set the place on fire, or trample all the crops- that's how it was described to us.