Hurtigruten comes to Stamsund

Continuing on the Lofoten theme of the last couple days…

The Hurtigruten is a daily coastal ferry that runs the length of Norway from Bergen in the south to Kirkenes, far into the arctic circle in the north. Stamsund is one of it’s ports of call. And twice from there, I’ve caught a ride south. The first time to Bergen in summer 2001 and the second to Trondheim in spring 2007.

A full price ticket and cabin is quite a fee, but with a student discount (many things in Norway have a ‘student’ price) and being willing to sleep somewhere on the floor for a couple nights, it can actually be one of the cheaper ways to get up or down Norway. Anyhow, the journey is so spectacular that there’s not much time for sleep anyway, though the ticket lady gave me quite a funny look when I said I didn’t want a cabin. “It’s a 3 day journey…” she said. “Yep, I’ve got a sleeping bag.” I replied. “Ok then, here’s your ticket.” And that was it.

I’m amazed at the skill of the captains. They bring this huge ship to port better than most people can park a car! It’s simply incredible to watch them navigate this giant boat like it’s some little toy. Most of the modern ones have propellers in the bow which help them turn the ship around. But on some of the older ships, they drop a front anchor, hit the throttle and spin the ship around the pivot point, then arrive absolutely perfectly. So cool.

Hurtigurten arriving at Stamsund as viewed from a nearby mountain one spring evening…

Lofoten travel photo: Hurtigurten coastal ferry arriving at port in Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Cody Ducnan Photography

Lofoten travel photo: Hurtigurten coastal ferry arriving at port in Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Cody Ducnan Photography

Lofoten travel photo: Hurtigurten coastal ferry arriving at port in Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Cody Ducnan Photography

Lofoten travel photo: Hurtigurten coastal ferry arriving at port in Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Cody Ducnan Photography

A Death in the North

Lofoten Islands travel photo: dead beached whale at rugged coast near Eggum, April 2007. Cody Duncan photography

Hmm, another Lofoten post. Perhaps I’ve been at moderate latitudes for a bit too long and need another journey north. I had actually planed to travel to Lofoten around the new year to experience the polar night and the first coming of the sun, unfortunately, German class has put a ruin to those plans. Perhaps next year if I’m lucky.

(April 2007)
A day of nice weather gave me the itch for some change in scenery from Stamsund. I had never been to Unstad, so I decided to head there for a night or two. I figured the journey would take a good 4-5 hours as I would most likely have to do a fair bit of walking as I imagined traffic to be quite sparse to a tiny coastal village of only a few people. But as luck would have it, I caught a ride out of Lekness with a guy who was going all the way there, cool!

(More below, including a few a couple pictures that some might find disturbing…)
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Lofoten Coast

(April 2007)

One stormy spring evening I headed out of the warmth of the Stamsund Vandrehjem to take some photos of the coastline. I stood watching the waves crashing among the rocks for a few minutes until I was confident of a certain rock that would provide a close location to the sea but keep me and my camera dry. The first photo is from that location.

The second photo is of that location, about in the center of the picture, completely covered by a large incoming wave about 3 minutes after I had moved for a different angle.  Would have been a quick ‘hop, skip and a jump,’ and still probably a wet Cody had I remained there…

And yes, in the Lofoten, the color can be that different just by turning 90 degrees.

Lofoten Stock photography: Stormy waves crashing against rocks, Stamsund, Lofoten islands, Norway. Cody Duncan Photography

Lofoten Stock photography: Stormy waves crashing against rocks, Stamsund, Lofoten islands, Norway. Cody Duncan Photography

Wanderings: Vestresand, Lofoten, Norway

April, 2007:

After a couple days of hanging out in Stamsund I got the itch to head off to Henningsvær for the day. Not especially far, distance wise, but with the Norwegian speed limit making a snail look like a formula 1 racer, it would be a few hours journey. I was lucky to catch ‘the boss’ as he was heading into Leknes, so that saved some time walking along the road trying to get a ride; I’ve made it half of the 16km on several occasions before getting picked up; not much traffic during April in this part of the world. Once in Leknes I didn’t really find a good spot to catch a ride, so I headed a few km down the road and waited at the pullout of a bus stop.

Now, in the Arctic, April can still be considered ‘winter.’ Though the Atlantic gulf-stream keeps the islands surprisingly mild for their latitude, one will still want a good jacket or two or three when outside. Anyhow, after sitting around for a bit, an old couple stops to pick me up. In my poor Norwegian I tell them where I’m headed and am told they’re going about half way there, cool! I hop in the car and immediately go from Siberian like temperatures (ok, only around freezing or so) into the Sahara desert which was their car. Having on several jackets and layers of pants, I immediately started to feel myself cooking. So there I was, cruising down the highway at 37.2 mph thinking that my plans for the day maybe weren’t so good after all and how could I get out of this overly hot car.

25km and an hour later, I say my thanks and happily hopped out and into the (refreshing) cold.
At the rate things were going, I figured I’d be hard pressed to make it to Henningsvær and back, so I figured some random wandering would have to suffice. Across the lake was a cool mountain I could go up, but it seemed to be a little more effort than I was interested in. I could also continue walking down the highway and hope to get another ride, but not having a map, and no longer really sure how far Henningsvaer was, I decided to head back a few miles along the road and out to the coast on the north side of the island. Plus, it was sunny there anyhow.

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Lake Steriropoten, Alstad, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Lake Steriropoten, Alstad, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Another two hours later, I walked into the tiny village of Vestresand. Still being winter with the grass still brown, it really looked like a place that had been all but forgotten. I though about stopping into the only store I saw and getting a bar of chocolate to cure my grumbling stomach, but decided against such an idea when I calculated what the markup would be out here in the nowhere lands on top of the already steep Norwegian price for chocolate (and everything else for that matter).

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Cliffs above village of Eggum, Lofoten Islands, Norway

The Lofoten economy runs on basically two things: German tourists in the summer and cod stockfish in the winter. The Lofoten islands are the winter breeding ground for Atlantic cod and Norwegian fishermen have come to Lofoten every winter for a thousand years to fish for them. In the summer, one sees the empty wooden racks, called flakes, that are used to dry the cod. But during the winter months they are filled with fish in various stages of drying. It is a rather unpleasant experience to walk underneath a rack full of fresh fish and be ‘dripped on.’ I wont go into details, but the seagulls seem to follow you after such an occasion, even after several days and washings of the clothes. Most of the fish get shipped off to Italy, Spain and Portugal, while the leftover heads are bought by various African countries.

Back to my wanderings: Vestresand seemed like some quiet ghost town out of a movie. Hardly a person around and nearly perfectly quite. I spotted some old drying racks covered with some old netting at took a wander for some photos. The winter of 2007 was a poor year for stockfish in the old ways. A combination of depleted fish stocks, commercial trawlers and a large processing factory in Stamsund (which also imports cheaper cod from other countries, so I’m told) meant that many a cod rack was left empty. And in Vestresande, this seemed especially true.
Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Old netting hanging from unused stockfish drying rack, Vestersand, Lofoten, Norway

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Old netting hanging from unused stockfish drying rack, Vestersand, Lofoten, Norway

By now, the day was getting late and I figured I better walk back to the highway to start making the journey back. Even though the days of late April are quite long, the traffic (or rather, the 15-20 cars per hour) declines pretty quickly after about 5 in the evening. Luckily, I caught a ride pretty quickly and made it to Leknes in one trip. Now the hard part. It always seems like a black hole of cars while trying to get to Stamsund. I’ve stood on the side of that bloody road for nearly two hours in a horrible storm while car after car passed, and nothing (though I can’t blame them, I probably wouldn’t pick me up eithe,r being completely soaked and looking like a wet dog). I find there’s always a psychological element to hitching as well. I think its much easier to be on some deserted road and get passed by 5-10 cars in an hour as opposed to standing on a busy road and get passed by 100’s of cars, which can be utterly depressing at times. Anyhow, I resorted to walking back to Stamsund and after about halfway I finally got a ride into town and relief for my tired feed. A few days later I would try again, and make it to Henningsvaer.

Lofoten: Two years ago

While the summer of 2006 was the ‘best in 50 years’ in southern Norway (as I was told), the sun didn’t seem to make it up to the arctic circle and Lofoten very often. Blue skies are boring anyhow…
View towards Henningsvær from Stamsund.

Stormy sky over mountains of Lofoten islands, Norway. Cody Duncan stock photography

Winter and Summer

Stamsund

Stamsund Lofoten Islands

© cody duncan photography. Panoramic photograph of Stamsund, Lofoten, Norway

Stamsund

The first time I saw this view (without the snow) was in the summer of 2001, sometime around 2:00 in the morning. It’s from a little mountain on the way to Steinetinden. It’s a very easy hike in summer, which gives an amazing view from the summit. When it’s covered with fresh snow, it’s a bit more difficult, but the view is better and worth the effort, though one wrong move near the top would mean a fall of around 700 feet.

© cody duncan photography. Stamsund, Lofoten

fallen giant

I don’t think this would be considered part of the average Arctic whale watching tour. It was a grizzly and unexpected scene to come across while on an overnight hike along the Lofoten coastline.

dead whale, Lofoten Islands, Norway

stamsund

7 shot pano of a wintry Stamsund, taken while on the way to Steinetind on a cold snowy spring day.

Stamsund Lofoten Islands

Lofoten

Such an amazing place…

Summer 2006:
lofoten1.jpg

Spring 2007:
lofoten2.jpg