Trom­sø, Kvaløya – 05th, 06th Novem­ber, 2016

Sun
6 Nov
2016

(05th, 06th Novem­ber, 2016) – Whe­re were we … yes, Lofo­ten. It has been a while sin­ce. A lot has hap­pen­ed in the mean­ti­me, more about that later. Let’s get on with the blog, with the jour­ney, which took us back north, to Trom­sø and sur­roun­dings. A natu­ral sto­po­ver on the trip up to Spits­ber­gen.

And defi­ni­te­ly worth to spend more time the­re than just an hour bet­ween flights at the air­port. „Paris of the north“ may be a bit exag­ge­ra­ted, but it is a nice place, it has life, it is a good place to be. The old polar muse­um and the modern arc­tic show cent­re Pola­ria are natu­ral places to visit for any high lati­tu­de enthu­si­ast.

The waters near Trom­sø are now regu­lar­ly visi­ted by Orcas during their sea­son, as we saw so beau­tiful­ly just recent­ly. An orca safa­ri from Trom­sø has good chan­ces to make for a gre­at day, as it is curr­ent­ly.

And then the­re are the nor­t­hern lights. Of cour­se you need a bit of luck. You just won’t see any­thing wit­hout a clear sky and some elec­tro­ma­gne­tic acti­vi­ty in the magne­to­sphe­re. But chan­ces are good, at least if you have a few days.

We had just two days in Trom­sø, but the timing was good. No com­plains about the nor­t­hern lights it is defi­ni­te­ly a good thing to be able to get around quick­ly and to keep a good eye on the local wea­ther. Whe­re is the sky clear, whe­re do you have good sce­n­ery tog­e­ther with the auro­ra? And not too much arti­fi­ci­al light? That is actual­ly not that easy at all. It is good to know the places or at least to have a tho­rough look at the map. And the­re is also the opti­on to join a gui­ded nor­t­hern light cha­se by bus, which they offer regu­lar­ly in Trom­sø. That is not a bad opti­on at all, they know their busi­ness and they allow for sur­pri­sin­gly much time for obser­va­ti­on and pho­to­gra­phy when Lady Auro­ra is dancing.

Gal­lery – Trom­sø, Kvaløya – 05th, 06th Novem­ber, 2016

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

Within the few hours of day­light, we even got a litt­le extra by sur­pri­se. On the out­side of the lar­ge island of Kvaløya, to the west of Trom­sø, the­re is the litt­le island Som­marøy. Red light of the low sun over the who­le sce­n­ery with the sea, fjords, lots of small islets and stun­ning coast­li­nes. I was thin­king … Som­marøy, Som­marøy, I have heard that befo­re, and not too long ago. And yes: this is whe­re Wan­ny Wold­stad was born in 1895. The woman who later refer­red to hers­elf as the „first woman as fang­st­mann in Sval­bard“. Fang­st­mann is Nor­we­gi­an for trap­per. She expli­ci­te­ly used the male ver­si­on of the word. And nobo­dy in the very male arc­tic sce­ne of the 1930s or later would ever mind. Ever­y­bo­dy knew her about her adven­tures as a polar bear hun­ter in Spits­ber­gen. Recent­ly, we had a chan­ce to visit the hut in Hyt­te­vi­ka that she used during five long arc­tic win­ters. And now we saw the house whe­re she was born on Som­marøy.

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