Long before it became an obstacle to get from A to Å, the fjord was the motorway which connected remote hamlets with the world outside. In wooden rowboats armed with oar and sail, the Viking settlers of Sunnmæri traversed its widths and lengths. Sunnmøre, as the region is known today, is site to some of Earth’s most spectacular sceneries, all of which can be seen on a journey along the fjord. Continue reading “Sunnmøre: A Journey Along the Fjord”
A crown rests gently on its soft cushion of crowberry bristles. Amid the early morning air tinged with the tang of sun-dried kelp and cracked crab, the urchin’s chassis is an echo of a once underwater aria. In the eons since the Vega Islands were lifted from the ocean, soft shales and hard granite have moulded this Norwegian archipelago into a kingdom whose curling hillsides, sharp peaks, white sands, and capricious coasts have enchanted, protected, and, on occasion, terrified humankind. Continue reading “Vega: Norway’s Island Kingdom”
Those last days on Moskenesøya passed by in a blur. Up and down the stairways of heaven I went, pushing every muscle, ligament, and tendon in my legs to their very limits. More mountains, more ferries, more freedom and air and life for my thoughts: friluftsliv for mine tanker, in the words of Henrik Ibsen. I wanted to disconnect, to feel a genuine calm, to find inner tranquility in the wilderness, to get to know another me.
Continue reading “Moskenesøya: Mountains, Fjords, and Cloudberries”
On the paved road back to Moskenes, I spotted a solo traveler ahead of me. We walked in synchronization, wedged between the mountain and the sea, our footfalls a hundred meters apart, our boots brushing by countless flutes of large-leaved lupine growing wild along the guardrail. I was content with my long-distance companion, and had already begun crafting a persona for this hiking Viking when he turned his head, spotted me, halted, and waited. Continue reading “Idyll on Horseid Beach”
My love affair with Scandinavia began with the Norwegian fjord. I loved the dramatic peaks and drops of those heady mountainsides and the way they plunged into the deep, brackish inlet. Thinking back to my most treasured memories, there is one place above them all: 68 degrees north of the equator, in Norway, is a pelagic paradise, where the land slices into the sea, sharper than the claw of a lynx. Snapshots from Lofoten dangle in my mind’s grotto, forming a dazzling mobile of rosy euphoria and estival gold. It was the very first days of August, 2014. I was twenty-four, and anticipation was the only thing I knew. Continue reading “Å i Lofoten: At the End of the World”
