Lofoten, will you marry me?
1. It started in a completely different place.
We were on our way home on a winter Sunday,
with cars ahead and cars behind. It was evening
on Norway's Highway 7 and everyone was headed
for Oslo. We had spent the weekend between the
areas of Hol and Aurland; one day of ice climbing
west of the watershed; one day of fresh powder
in the Sudndal valley.
“Should get a cabin up here,” I said to my friend
Sjur, who was driving.
I did a monolog on the topic. I’d really worked
myself up and felt like I was on a roll so I didn’t
wait for an answer.
“They close the road because of snowstorms.
It’s perfect. Just call work on Monday morning
and say, ‘Sorry. Can’t make it. Road’s closed.
Not my fault. Storm. Have to stay here.’
Imagine that? Snowed in. Never coming back!”
“No,” he said.
That was not exactly the answer I was expecting.
“No?”
“We’ll buy in Lofoten, instead.”
“Ok,” I said, waited, and then said, “Where?”
“Henningsvær.”
I couldn’t say ‘no.’
2. If Sjur had been like other friends, that would
have been the end of it. But the next day, I got a long
list of links to real estate advertisements. A week
later, he went to Henningsvær just to look at
a house. That is how we became homeowners in
the Lofoten Islands.
3. Can you spackle the one you love? If so, it
would take many liters of spackle and many hours
of spackling. Inside, we spackled. Outside, there
was wind and rain. Inside too, for that matter.
4. Should you already be in a relationship,
the cinnamon rolls at the candle-makers and café
in Lofoten's
Henningsvær are reason enough to
consider shaking up your life. And if you think your
Gore-Tex clothing and hat are a bit flashy when
you’re sitting at that café, and feel you are being
focused on a bit too much, let me put it in perspective.
On a good weekend, Lofoten can draw
a few hundred visiting free skiers. By comparison,
in 1905, a typical year for the famous seasonal codfishing
rush called “Lofotfiske,” 20 000 fishermen
came to this archipelago north of the Arctic Circle.
They came at about the same time as skiers do now,
between January and April, and brought a whole
little industry with them. In addition to preachers,
merchants, peddlers, cooks, food service workers,
fish buyers from Bergen and the Møre district,
buyers of liver and caviar, and police reinforcements,
the official Statistical Yearbook says the
influx included 13 watchmakers, 21 goldsmiths,
10 photographers, 13 artists and 101 “head buyers.”
The last group was buying the heads of fish, we
presume. So there is room for many more free
skiers in Lofoten. We should all go, until it gets as
crowded as during the old Lofotfiske – when you
could cross Henningsvær harbor by walking from
boat to boat – and the snake oil sellers arrive.
5. There are lots of ways of getting to Lofoten.
The easiest is to already live there, or move there
for good. Personally, I am in love from afar, and
have made it to Lofoten in a variety of ways : by car,
fast boat, Hurtigruten coastal ships, and plane; via
the towns of Bodø, Evenes, Svolvær and Tromsø.
Two means of travel remain :
a Public transport all the way from Oslo :
Train to Bodø, boat to Svolvær, and then bus to
Henningsvær just to see how long it would take.
b A road trip via all of the ski areas in Noway's
Nordland County. (Even if I am going steady
with Lofoten, I can’t forget you Glomfjord.)
6. I don’t have any documents about this relationship,
and have to accept that Lofoten has others
apart from me. There is rock, sea and snow enough
for all.
7. If you are going to work out a relationship
with Lofoten, you have to like weather. Every winter
cars get blown into the sea, sometimes with people
in them.
8. The mountain Geitgaljen. That alone is reason
enough to love Lofoten. How about a sea eagle
above the skier in front of you on the southern run
of Geitgaljen? That must be like a movie romance,
and in Lofoten, no less.
9. Are you also considering Lofoten and marriage?
Just take the trip to the cliff Presten (The Preacher).
In summer, driven people can be found on Lofoten’s
most classic climbing route in these mountains.
In winter, skiers follow the 500-meter couloir down
to the road.
10. I did the aforementioned run on a Sunday in
April. The previous day we turned back from another
trek because of zero visibility and bad snow.
Two days earlier, we turned back because of a big
and slightly too fast slush-slide that covered our
tracks. That day, I’d left my crampons at home.
The conditions
were the pits. It was blowing like
crazy. There was heavy rain. The visibility was poor.
I loved it.
11. Can you grow old with Lofoten? I choose to
think so. Last year, I took the Hurtigruten from
Tromsø to Svolvær in the dead of winter. I sat on
the panorama deck with retirees and Central
Europeans with video cameras. Some solved crosswords,
some crocheted, some took an unintentional
nap. No one said anything. Together, we saw the
world’s most beautiful nature coming at us, drifting
slowly, steadily. The voyage from the north through
the Vesterålen Islands and then Lofoten, past the
Trollfjord and Raftsund, is beyond comparison.
So when I get old, and I mean really old, after I have
put in a few years as a retiree ski bum, I’m going to
buy a cabin on each of the Hurtigrute ships and take
the same trip day after day, back and forth between
Tromsø and Stamsund. There is room on the boat
for you too.
Text: Henning Reinton
Photos: Sverre Hjørnevik
& Chris Holter