Hurtigruten Day 3 - On to Lofoten

Beautiful scenery all the way north

The weather held as we entered Day 3. While there were a few clouds on the horizon, they were accompanied by plenty of sunshine. We seem to be bringing good weather to the Nordland. The ride continued to be smooth with blue skies and sunshine.

As we cross the Arctic Circle

Our first point of interest was crossing the Arctic Circle which happened early in the morning. We all entered the contest to pick the exact moment of crossing. At midmorning we passed Fugleøya, the bird island. Some 30,000 puffins and razorbills nest on the west side of this island. Unfortunately, we passed on the east side, so all I saw was three puffins flying past the ship and about 100 gulls following a fishing trawler sharing its harvest. An unusual geological phenomenon of the island is a sand river. About a third of the way up, sand makes its way out of the hillside. According to our guide, geologists are not sure the origin of the sand.

Fugleøya

The white spot is the river of sand

At about 10:30 Jim and Marcia left us on a boat to visit one of the largest glaciers in Norway. During their ride to the glacier they were treated to some good views of sea eagles. They disembarked at the glacier for a short bus ride where they had some excellent views. Then it was a long ride over the water to rejoin us in Bodø where they found Finnish friends waiting to greet them. The friends has come from Finland to do some fishing near Saltstreumen.

Cherie and John opted for the RIB tour to Saltstraumen. RIBs are special Zodiak-type boats that carried them up the channel to Saltstraumen, perhaps the largest whirlpool in the world. This is an amazing site which we viewed from the bridge on our previous visit. The previous blog entry is here. The whirlpools are created by the tides rushing through the channel at millions of gallons per minute reaching speeds of seven knots per hour. The whirlpools can be ten meters across and five meters deep. They are exciting enough that Jules Verne used it as a model in one of his books.

A lot of planes

While the others were off on their adventures, Linda and I took a shuttle to the Aircraft Museum. Bodø has a long aviation history and one of the longest runways this far north. The airfield was important during the Cold War as protection in the Arctic. Those of us old enough to remember when Francis Gary Powers was shot down flying his U-2 spy plane over Russia in 1960 probably don’t remember that he intended to land in Bodø. The museum is excellent divided into military and civilian sections. The military section begins with a graphic showing the world’s first aerial bombing over Venice in the 1850s. The display included about 20 planes of various ages and interesting display panels. One diorama used peepholes of varying heights to show the view of a battlefield as you would see it from ground level a balloon and an airplane.

Diorama of Bodø harbor during the war

In the civilian section, we saw several early flying attempts, both failed and successful. Several panels and planes showed the development of air transportation including one mockup of an early passenger cabin. It was a good way to spend the afternoon even though the hour and forty minutes we had to spend there was way too short.

Probably Stamsund

 

Our first stop after Bodø was Stamsund on Lofoten Island. Three groups left the ship there to do one of the Viking tours A couple of decades ago, a farmer discovered the remains of a Viking longhouse atop one of the hills of his farm. Since then the house has been recreated and tourists can visit the replica and enjoy a Viking meal. Those who took one of the tours enjoyed one of those options along with a lovely bus ride on these beautiful islands. The ship headed on to Svolvær where we would spend a couple hours while the Viking tours caught up. Linda and I had spent three days on Lofoten six years ago, so it was fun to wander the streets a while enjoying the small town atmosphere.

A sailor's wife waving goodbye

Entrance to Svolvær harbor

Svolvær

A small market

Just to prove we were there

The hotel we stayed in on our first trip

Racks drying cod for sale down soutn

After leaving Svolvær, our ship took a short ‘detour’ to visit Trollfjord. Barely a two kilometers in length and less than 100 meters wide, Trollfjord is perhaps the narrowest of Norway’s fjords, barely wide enough to accommodate our ship, the Kong Harald. The other big cruise ships we see from time to time certainly don’t fit and would be much too long to turn around even if they did. A bit of evening sun on the mountaintops above us highlighted the stark beauty of the sheer walls rising over 1000 meters above our heads.

The crowd at Troll Fjord

This is it

Close to the edge

The end of the fjord. It is less than two kilometers.

After two late nights we headed to bed earlier to try to catch up on our sleep as we truly reached the land of the midnight sun.

Nazi Forts in Norway

Unlike the Swedes, the Norwegians fought the Germans in World War II. It did not take long for the Germans to defeat Norway, but the Norwegians take great pride in the extent of the underground warfare that continued until the end of the war. We visited a museum dedicated to just that in the Oslo castle complex overlooking the harbor. Designed to force visitors to walk all the way though (like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC), we were able to learn the story through photographs, newspaper clippings, and dioramas with sound effects. They include the story of Vidkun Quisling who cooperated with the Nazis and ruled the collaborationist government for them. His name has come into common usage to mean traitor.

Posters from the Nazi fort in Bud

Norway was perhaps the most heavily occupied nation in Europe with one soldier for every eight Norwegians. The Nazi force included at least 6000 SS officers. None of this prevented the Norwegians from mounting a resistance movement intent on destroying Nazi fortifications, their heavy water plant and helping captured Allied soldiers get to England.

The Germans built a string of forts along Norway’s coastline. Convinced that the Allied invasion would come through Norway, they  wanted to be ready. We saw two of these forts on our travels, the first was during a lunch stop at Bud. Lunch was a nice piece of salmon. The view from the fort location shows why the Nazis chose this location.

We took a tour of the site before lunch. Our tour guide was much too young to remember anything from the Cold War, let alone World War II. Nevertheless, he did know the story. During the tour we were able to see where the Nazis lived and worked. While not a glamorous outpost it was certainly better than being on one of the fighting fronts, especially better than the Eastern Front where soldiers had to fight both the Russians and the cold. 

 Most of the grunt work building the forts was done by slaves brought in from Eastern Europe. They were fed enough to survive, barely, and provided enough clothes to act as a covering, but not enough to protect from the cold.

Working Clothes

The second fort we saw was at Unstad in the Lofoten Islands. This is so far north one wonders what the Nazis were thinking. Even if the Allies invaded that far north it would have taken months of fierce fighting to get anywhere close to Germany. We did not enter this fort even though tours were available. By this time, we were more interested in other aspects of life on the Lofoten Islands today. Nevertheless, it is an interesting example of the lengths to which the Nazis went to protect the Norwegian Coast.

Unstad coastline

Fort Unstad

Troll Fjord in the Lofoten Islands

The fjord is so narrow that the Hurtigruten and other tour boats nearly scrape the sides when they venture inside. It is a fjord which implies a dead end, so the only reason to go there on one of the big boats is to show off to the passengers. Our trip was on a much smaller boat with room enough for only 30 or so passengers.

Our regular style worked here again. After breakfast we walked over to the embarkation point, paid our money and walked on board the boat almost as it was leaving the dock. The weather was cloudy with rain in the forecast, but we chose to forgo the rainsuits. That turned out to be a mistake as we were sitting outside and it did rain. After getting wet, we decided to put on the rainsuits. Linda had no problem, but the large size barely made it over my shoulders. At least it kept me dry. 

The ride to Troll Fjord was uneventful. We did drop off a group of cyclists who were planning to ride back to Svolvaer. We had quite a bit more room without the group and their cycles, something we would appreciate later. 

We arrived at Troll Fjord in fog, barely able to see the power plant in the distance. Norway has many of these type of power plants which send the water down tubes to the generators. This avoids the scars caused by damming rivers, but still leaves room for controversy about the ugliness of the huge pipes running down many Norwegian hillsides and the resultant loss of waterfalls.  

One of the few disappointments of the Norway trip was the lack of birds. But we did see two special birds on this trip. The first were the black guillemots playing in the fjord. Swimming, flying and sitting on the edge of the cliffs, they did a good job of showing themselves off.  

We even saw some trolls.  

 The excitement was yet to come. On the way back to Svolvaer, we stopped to do some fishing, if you can call it fishing. The tools consisted of one pole and four hooks with some bait. The mate dropped the line and immediately pulled it out. First case brought up two fish, the next only one, but it was a big one that went home with someone. Five fish later we were again underway. 

When we got to within a half hour of Svolvaer we again slowed and the mate began to feed the gulls with treats, not fish. We actually thought that was the point, but shortly the real star appeared on the horizon.  

When the eagle approached, the mate threw a fish out and the eagle swooped down to scoop it out of the water. I got a couple of good pictures, but not the great one. In the process, I did learn more about the camera and proper preparation. Next time will be better.

Oh yes, the Hurtigruten is a fleet of ferries that ply the route from Bergen to the very top of Norway. They have twelve boats on the six-day route stopping at each place the same time each day both directions.