Skrol­s­vik, Har­stad – 01st Novem­ber 2016

Tue
1 Nov
2016

We came to Skrol­s­vik on our way south, a litt­le vil­la­ge on the sou­thern end of Sen­ja. Skrol­s­vik used to be a fishing vil­la­ge in the past, as most small places here. Nice­ly loca­ted bet­ween moun­ta­ins, enligh­ted by the mor­ning sund – north Nor­way can be so beau­tiful!

The old shop (Gam­mel­bu­tik­ken), nowa­days a muse­um, was ope­ned by the owners, Kris­tin and Gun­nar, espe­ci­al­ly for us. A litt­le time machi­ne, put­ting us 90 year back in histo­ry, into tho­se days, when fisher­men from the outer islands came in with their rowing boats every now and then to deli­ver their catch and to buy flour. Their wives would stay for 3 days to bake bread, as the­re was an ovn in the shop, which the fishers did not have at their homes. And if the wea­ther was bad, 3 days could quick­ly turn into a week or even more. Dif­fe­rent times … life is cer­tain­ly easier today.

Of cour­se, the­re is ple­nty of natu­re around Skrol­s­vik, skog og fjell (wood­lands and moun­ta­ins) and you can do dif­fe­rent hikes. If we only had more time!

But we had plans for the after­noon. The pas­sa­ge to Har­stad went under the most beau­tiful noon sun­light. Else­whe­re you would pro­ba­b­ly call it mor­ning light or evening atmo­sphe­re or wha­te­ver, it does not mat­ter, it means all the same here and now. It was almost dark as we ente­red the har­bour of Har­stad clo­se to 4 p.m.

Some of us went to explo­re the aspects of zivi­li­sa­ti­on that Har­stad has to offer, like shops and cafés. Others ven­tu­red on a litt­le bus tour to visit some muse­ums on the near­by Tron­de­nes pen­in­su­la. We lear­nt that Har­stad used to be the cent­re of poli­ti­cal and eco­no­mic­al power in north Nor­way over many cen­tu­ries until it was quite recent­ly out­do­ne by Trom­sø. The famous viking chiefs who kil­led the chris­ti­an king of Nor­way St. Olav lived here. Later, they built a beau­tiful church here, the lar­gest one in Nor­way north of Trond­heim for a long time. And during the war, the Nazis built some migh­ty guns as part of their coas­tal for­ti­fi­ca­ti­on.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

After a cosy evening in port in Har­stad, we con­tin­ued sou­thwards to get to Raft­sund and Troll­fjord during day­light. The wea­ther is sup­po­sed to remain nice! Yeah! 🙂

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