The Lofoten Islands

Norway week 5

We booked a bed in a hostel close by the ferry port in readiness for an early morning crossing. It was ideally placed, practical and the beds were comfortable. However, with the benefit of 24 hour daylight, roadworks started up just outside as we went to bed around 10pm until 6am, the grinding, vibrations of scraping back the road and re-surfacing reverberated through the building through out the night. It wasn’t a great start to the next day…

Puffy eyed and (me) feeling a little grumpy we set sail…first finding seats with a reasonable view, then getting coffees and yoghurts from the buffet…but before I could sit down and start my breakfast I was in the grip of the mountain seascape all around me. It was simply breathtaking. Vertical mountain ranges shooting straight up from the sea, in deep purples, auburns and ochre. The sea changing colour from shades of cerulean blue green to deep violets and almost black. Everything shape shifting as we sailed past…I spent the entire three hour trip sketching in my books moving between the front deck and back, watching Bodo recede and Lofoten grow. Davie spent much of his time tucked up inside…and when he did venture out he spotted a whale straight away. We saw it breach the surface a couple of times and blow water spouts and then simply disappear. Such a magical treat.

The excitement grew as we drew closer to the harbour at Moskenes and the scale of the mountains became more apparent as houses, bridges and roads gradually came into focus but appeared minutely small against the towering backdrop. There’s been a lot of wows for me on this trip but that journey into Lofoten, is probably top of the list.

We spent a week exploring the islands and I continued to draw the fascinating mountain formations. We visited preserved quaint old fishing villages, discovering surprising scenery round every bend and watched sea eagles lazily fly over fjords. On one walk we came across four waxwings in a tree just a few feet from us, close enough to see their peachy bouffants and all their markings including tails that looked like they’d been dipped in pots of bright yellow paint.

I’ve also enjoyed discovering the arctic wildflowers that are in full bloom just now…it’s always a thrill for me to meet a new plant for the first time and try and work out what it is.

The fish racks are a stand-out feature on Lofoten, fascinating but thankfully most had been divested of their stock. Some still remained, hanging bodies macerated by the winter winds, heads in open grimaces reminiscent of Munch’s scream.

The Lofoten Gallery in Henningsvaer is a gem of a place with a collection of 19th-20th century paintings from the golden era of painting on the islands, depicting the landscape and lives of the fishing folk inhabiting it. I was also inspired by the large scale watercolour paintings, by contemporary Swedish artist Lars Lerin, made during the ten years he lived on the islands…also documenting the landscape and the now more industrial fishing industry.

In a museum of a completely different kind we came across some of the oddest things. The war museum in Svolvaer houses the collection started by one man in the sixties which consists of hundreds, probably thousands, of items related to the German occupation of Norway in World War II. The SS had headquarters in Svolvaer and seemingly had everything they used stamped with their own insignia or the swastika, from crockery to cigarette packs and lighters…to their own special edition Christmas baubles! These for me sat in stark contrast to the contents of another cabinet, the tiniest hand stitched books and an over patched set of pyjamas that had belonged to Kari (a female Norwegian prisoner held in the SS prison Grini) on which she embroidered ‘I want to go home’. Kari survived, by the way, living into old age.

The long road north…

Norway week 4

This was the week for waterfalls…of all shape and sizes. Some close up and personal, others shimmering in the distance, sunlight catching the snow-melt pouring down the mountains.

It was wet and misty when we visited the Vøringfossen. Twisting trees eerily emerged through swirling mist. With such low visibility, and unable to see the other side, the crazy split bridge felt like a walk up into clouds and though we could hear the rush of the deep dropping water beneath us we couldn’t see it. Just as well…I’m not sure how my acrophobia would have coped!

Only an hour later, we were sat high in the mountains having coffee outside in the baking heat of the sun looking at a brilliant blue sky, and I sat drawing the sweep of the snow covered landscape stretched out before us.

Our journey took us back down into lush green valleys and a stop off to see one of Norway’s oldest stave churches at Borgund. It’s extraordinary and tickles all the senses. For a start, there’s the pungent smell of recently burnt timbers but is in fact the pine tar that’s been liberally applied for centuries to preserve the wood. This also creates it’s strange, molten texture and burnt umber colouring. And it’s tiny, a squish for just a few people inside.

It was a beautiful scenic drive through fjord valleys and high up into the snow covered mountain tops again with breathtaking vistas of changing peaks. I loved the tortoise shell mottling of umbers, siennas and ochre coloured heathers and grasses emerging through the melting snow after a long winter; and the purple-blue haze of the mountains disappearing into the distance. At one time, the sun piercing through scattered clouds spotlighting glaciers in the distance.

Lunch one day, beneath a raging waterfall, its cascading passage carving great undercuts beneath the snow shelf edging far into the valley below.

In stark contrast to this drama was the brief stop in Trondheim with its graceful river and colourful old warehouse buildings duplicated in its smooth surface. A hotel treat and an excellent Thai dinner…with an indulgent hour for me in the art shop replenishing my stock.

It took us five days driving from the pastoral landscape of Hjelmeland through the dramatic western fjords, mountain passes, across the vast tundra and into the arctic north to reach Bodo…our departure point for the Lofotens.

A cabin in Hjemeland.

Norway week 3

After visiting Stavanger we stayed a couple of days in the small town of Jorpeland…finding a little bakery that became our regular coffee spot. The weather started to improve and I enjoyed a walk across to a nearby island. It’s now a leisure park but had been inhabited since the Iron Age right up to modern times when it was used for summer grazing for farm animals from the mainland. One horse loved it so much he would head down to the waters edge each Spring, in readiness to be rowed back across by boat!

An hour or so further north we booked a fancy cabin for a week’s stay in Fister, a tiny fishing village on the west coast overlooking the Fisterfjord. It’s incredibly peaceful and serene. The landscape here is much gentler and being on the coast more open than the Lysefjord. Across the water a flotilla of islands stretched far away underneath an endless sky. I set up a mini studio and spent hours watching that sky…drawing and painting. Porpoise regularly patrolled each evening and bats flitted about above the verandah.

It was interesting too to see the various boats passing by, many locals choosing to commute on water rather than on land to the other islands and to work in Stavanger.

We explored, walking nearby and driving across to one of the islands. We walked around a lake listening to all sorts of birdsong but the birds themselves remained elusive to our eyes. On the way back we spotted a mink and sat a while to watch it rock-hopping its way along a water’s edge.

Well rested, restocked and everything washed, we set off again for the long drive north though some of the most incredible landscapes I’ve ever experienced.