We had been working our way generally north along the Norwegian coast, mostly cruising Norway’s inside passage, ever since leaving Geirangerfjord. However, we took a different direction after leaving Narvik. We sailed southwest and then circled back north to enter the Lofoten archipelago, a large array of mountainous islands extending many miles out to the west from the main Norwegian coastline. Our destination was the fishing town of Leknes.
After docking in Leknes we boarded a bus to drive through two or three of the islands en route to Svolvaer, another fishing town. The scenery along the way included striking mountains and cliffs edged with flatlands. Not much agriculture, but plenty of commercial fishing along with crafts and trades needed to support the fishing communities. And a bit of tourism thrown in for good measure.Svolvaer includes homes, shops, and public services such as schools, but the fishing industry dominates the town. Here we see two large buildings designed for fishing boat maintenance and repair. Waterways to the buildings are not visible from this angle, but each building houses either a dry dock or a ramp for pulling fishing boats up out of the water. And the buildings typically include industrial bridge cranes large enough to lift an entire boat as needed. There were at least two other buildings of this size and purpose over to the left, off camera.Here is a closeup of part of the ridge behind Svolvaer. Notice the pinnacle with a forked prong on its top (center of the photo). The two prongs of the fork are perhaps 10-15 ft tall and 5 ft apart. Local lore has it that if a couple is serious about marriage, the young lady climbs to the top of one prong and the young man climbs atop the other. When he is ready to propose, he leaps over to the other prong to join the lady to prove that he is serious. An interesting romantic story, but nobody mentioned any failed attempts.A nice array of yellow flowers spotted while walking about town. Given the cloudy and showery weather, I don’t think they ever needed to water the plants.Norway is often portrayed as Lutheran, or at least the state church is some variety of Lutheran, but other denominations turn up from time to time. Here, for example, is a local Methodist Church.Part of the harbor at Svolvaer. The empty frames on the other side of the water are racks for drying cod. Fishermen catch large quantities of cod in the spring, gut the fish and cut off the heads, and tie fish together by the tail to hang over the racks. Since seagulls and other sea birds don’t have feet equipped for perching, they can’t perch on the racks to eat the fish. Meanwhile, the sun and wind gradually dry the fish to create what is known as stockfish. Guides told us that these fish are still a major Norwegian export, especially to Mediterranean countries. We were too late in the season to see many fish being dried, but we did see a few at a later port of call.Norwegians love their trolls, but I can’t tell if the love reflects a cultural heritage, the interest of tourists, or both. Many of the stores catering to visitors (a.k.a., tourists) have several sizes of trolls on hand: small trolls to sell and larger trolls to attract attention and for tourist pictures. This larger troll in a local shop was just right to attract attention to the small trolls for sale in the background.While in Svolvaer we took a boat tour of nearby Trollfjord. To get there, we had to cross this inlet, which was large enough for some wind and waves. We were grateful not to get seasick.Trollfjord is a narrow fjord with an almost hidden entrance. Legend has it that a giant troll became angry for some reason and tried to split a mountain with a blow from his axe. The result was Trollfjord, a deep, straight cleft back into the mountains. Trollfjord’s entrance is on the far side of the point in the middle of the photo above.Here is a view down the length of Trollfjord. Is it my imagination, or is Trollfjord darker and more shadowed that other areas we visited? At its narrowest point the fjord is only a few hundred feet wide, while the cliffs on either side are hundreds of feet tall. Trollfjord is ringed by mountains with snowy alcoves or cirques; this terrain was alpine in appearance in comparison with the glacially-rounded mountains of mainland Norway.We did not see any whales, seals, or walrus on this part of the cruise, but we did see white-tailed eagles, also known as sea eagles. Here is an adult white-tailed eagle perched in a tree overlooking Trollfjord. I tried to find this in the Merlin bird app on my phone, but for some reason it could not come up with any birds of this size.Two fledgling white-tailed eagles perched on a ledge overlooking Trolljord. The adult in the previous photo was positioned to keep an eye on the kids, and there were other adult eagles soaring overhead along the fjord.Small hydroelectric station at the end of Trollfjord. A penstock brings water down from about 1600 ft above this level, so while there may not be much flow there is plenty of pressure to drive a turbine. Powerlines carry the electricity up the slope and out of Trollfjord, probably to feed into the national power grid. Norway has plenty of hydroelectric power and the potential to develop even more, so electricity is plentiful and relatively cheap compared to other countries. This was the end of Trollfjord, so we turned around, sailed back to Svolvaer, and took the tour bus back to our cruise ship.
Nice. Good info. Thanks.Sent from my iPhone
another wonderful piece!