Livin’ it up in Lofoten

While the last post was certainly fun, Lofoten has more than birds going for it. So, despite my definite personal preferences, I’ll be moving away from birds this post to explore the rest of Lofoten. The birds around here certainly have the right idea, though (sorry, I know I mentioned them again, I just love birds, okay?). It is a wonderful place to be. The deep fjords, the mountains spiking above the horizon, and the little windblown trees down by the edges of the rocks. There’s a certain resilience to the land here, and it lends the scenery a sort of rugged charm. The villages here are similar, close-set little clusters of fishing houses set along the coast, tucked into coves, or sitting in a little meadow. It’s not what you’d expect from a place above the Arctic Circle, but it feels almost cozy in nature. There are some great cinnamon rolls in Norway, though, and I feel at home most places with good cinnamon rolls, so it’s not all that surprising. These were also probably the best I’ve ever had, which is a high honor considering my high standards for cinnamon rolls.

The great part about the cinnamon rolls was that we had access to them on the grounds of our hotel. We stayed at Nusfjord, an old, converted fishing village, which had pretty much everything I wanted from a hotel. The grounds were amazing, and were restored from the original town, which meant that pretty much every old building on the property maintained its charm. So much so, in fact, that it was named a UNESCO world heritage site, and rightfully so, it was wonderful. There were even old, rusted cranes for unloading fishing boats set up around the village’s docks, and the houses used for the rooms (at least, the ones near the old harbor) were old Rorbuers, traditional restored houses with beautiful red siding and white trim the fishermen from the village’s early days lived in, often set up on stilts and balanced partially over the water. Despite containing modern conveniences, the living room still had the old walls intact, and contained restored items from the village, like an old wood stove, boat oars, and woven wall decorations. The food was amazing too. The village had three restaurants, and each one was wonderful. There was a pizza place with some amazing flavors, which, despite being amazing, was the least impressive on the property (you should still go if you don’t have time for the next one), a fancier place, which served some really great meals if you have the time to sit down. The best (and, oddly enough, the fastest of them all was a bakery from the time the village was just a center for fish exports around 1877. They’ve had a LONG time to perfect their cinnamon bun recipe, and I will say, they did not disappoint. These were the best Nordic cinnamon rolls I had on this trip, which is quite impressive, considering just how many I ate and how many places I tried them. In case you were wondering, Nordic cinnamon rolls are just inherently better than the U.S. ones (which I’ll still happily eat, but they really just don’t stack up). Norway doesn’t waste time overloading the rolls with goop and adding stupid amounts of frosting and instead goes straight for improving the dough and adding extra spices. They’re halfway between cinnamon rolls and cardamom knots (which are softer and more spiced, making them truly wonderful) and take the best aspects of both. They aren’t too sweet, but have a nice, subtle flavor that I could eat for hours. The flavor of the spices, the soft, moderately sweet dough, and the carefully chosen spices come together to create one of the most amazing pastries I have ever had. You might notice I spent half a paragraph ranting about them, and I’m still not convinced I did them justice. Seriously, just try one. They’re amazing.

Nusford, as I said earlier, wasn’t just there for great cinnamon rolls, though. The town used to be one of the world’s largest cod exporters before being converted into a hotel, and you can look through the old relics of that time in one of the warehouses, too, which was converted into a museum for that very purpose. Fish presses, buoys, mechanical fish-cutters, conveyor belts, fish racks, old, rusted cranes for unloading fishing boats… You name it, if it was related to the cod industry, they had it. The village was filled with some of the coolest-looking houses in Norway, too. Every hotel room in the old town area was set up in a restored rorbuer, a traditional Norwegian fishing house. These little houses with red siding and white posts are common in the region and are often set up in little clusters down by the water, and I loved how simple and beautiful they were. They’re old fishing houses, and the design hasn’t changed all that much since they were first made, which is a good choice; it already looks nice, why change it, right?

As was probably implied by Nusfjord’s impressive preservation efforts and reconstruction, the area of Lofoten is a place of history. Norway still benefits greatly from its oldest traditions, and the fishing industry is booming, though it is now focused on salmon and relies on commercial fish farms, where it used to focus on catching cod from fishing boats. This link to the past has led to some amazing preservations and reconstructions, of which Nusfjord is only one, but the most impressive has to be the Lofoten Viking Museum. While there is a modern section with a gift shop and some preserved Viking artifacts like bridge timbers, nails, glasses, and even a sword hilt, the real reason to go to the museum is the reconstructed longhouse set onto the top of the hill near the museum. While the rest of the museum showcases artifacts, the longhouse is one in its own right. The doorframes are covered in intricate carvings, and the longhouse is filled with period-appropriate decorations. There’s more, too. It contains old-style Viking clothing inspired by what was found on the site (the longhouse was rebuilt next to the flagstones of a former longhouse in the area, which is where most of the artifacts in the museum were found, and some of the wooden poles are still there from the original), display gear designed in the style of period-appropriate Viking armaments and armor (unsurprisingly, they got the helmets right, not a single one had horns), and, most impressively, an exhibit related to Viking weaving, which was clearly of excellent quality. The looms were advanced for the time and well made, and the museum curators even found an old playset for a strategy game similar to chess buried in the ruins, with ornately carved wooden pieces included. While they are often viewed as savages by the public, what I saw here definitely proves that assumption false; the longhouse was filled with objects of art and beauty, and the design, while simple, was very clever and adorned with beautiful art, if a bit lacking in ventilation for the woodsmoke used to heat the place (it isn’t as heavily used any more). I must imagine more Vikings than the stories tell you simply died of smoke inhalation and lung disease, but I entirely understand why that isn’t included in most explanations of Viking times; it is somewhat depressing, after all. Once you left the longhouse, which I was sad to do, it was really cool in there, you got to walk through a field for livestock of the same species that were there in Viking times (horses and sheep, mostly) to reach a lower area with recreated Viking activities. There was a range for axe-throwing, which I really enjoyed and am debating taking up back home, as well as an archery range (I already do archery, but I shot a round anyway. It was fun) and, most impressively, a 1/3 scale Viking longship (does it still count as a longship, considering the reduced size? Perhaps a shortship? I’m not entirely sure) that they used for rowing on the nearby lake. Even at a reduced scale, though, it was an impressive ship, and rowing it was surprisingly difficult, so the Vikings must have been fairly good at coordination (if they saw how bad we were doing, they probably would’ve killed us) to get those ships to work at three times the size (yes, I know they used sails most of the time, but still).

Now, obviously, I didn’t get killed by a boarding party of Vikings on the longboat, as I’m still here writing this, so I should talk about the rest of what I did in Lofoten. One night (sort of, we never saw Lofoten in darkness due to the effects of the arctic circle in the summer), we went to dinner in one of the coolest little towns in the whole area… Hamnoy, similarly a tiny fishing town, with rorbuers as the primary housing there. It is exactly what you think of when you think of a Norwegian fishing town; a tiny place tucked inside a fjord inlet, surrounded by mountains and set onto a small rock outcropping jutting inwards, sheltered from the wind by rock formations along the back side. There’s another nearby town called Reine very close by, but this one was prettier, and I have something else to talk about with Reine, so I’ll talk about Hamnoy first. Hamnoy was an amazing little place, with clear waters surrounding it and stockfish-drying racks set up. These racks were actually really cool, despite sounding underwhelming when I first heard about them. They are huge wooden frames set up along the edges of the road, and are nearly omnipresent in Norway, often with piles of salt under them from the fish-drying process, and even a fish head or two still hanging (we were there outside of drying season, so what was there was just what was left over. During winter, nearly every spot on those racks is supposedly full of hanging fish). There was no parking in town, so I had to go across a small concrete bridge to reach the town for dinner. I don’t remember exactly what I had but what I do remember is that the view from the top of the bridge into Hamnoy was beautiful. A tiny town nestled into an inlet with a giant mountain peak behind it. It was incredibly beautiful, and I loved that town enough that I would happily go back.

If you’re wondering what there is to do in Lofoten besides eating cinnamon rolls and walking around fishing towns, I’ve got another option for you. The terrain and beautiful scenery of the archipelago, unsurprisingly, lends itself to hiking. I have two options for you in this region, so I’ll start with the easier of the two hikes, more of a walk really. We took the ferry from the port in Reine, a larger town farther down the road after Hamnoy, across the water to Bunes Beach. We arrived at an island only accessible by ferry. Bunes Beach, which is extremely quiet because of the limited schedule and capacity of the ferry. We walked along the shore near the weirdly crystal-blue water (it looked like the Caribbean, but there was no way you could get me to swim there, I’d die of hypothermia near-instantly) through a field of wildflowers, taking in the sites of the island. There are a few locals who live on the island, so there are a couple of houses there, but otherwise, it is nearly empty, so it is a lot of fun to just relax and walk around the island. Eventually, we came to a branching path and went over the hill to where we were really going, the beach. We went down the other side of the hill into a giant flat beach, covered in white sand, wavy grass, driftwood logs, and, interestingly enough, old buoys. There were giant, rusty metal spheres embedded halfway into the sand on this beach, and I have almost no idea how they got there, but it was really cool to see them lying around, and they were enormous. Larger than my head, by a long shot, so they probably came from a large ship of some kind or a set of lost fishing gear. I would’ve stayed on the island for a while longer, but it was really windy, and I had to catch the ferry to get back to the mainland. I sat on the pier for a while, but the boat eventually came, and I headed back to the car.

If you want something more difficult than Bunes Beach, I’d recommend hiking at Offersoykammen. It’s a short hike, but don’t let that fool you, it is very nearly straight up. The hike is, for that reason, a large time commitment, as it is difficult, but the view at the top is more than worth it (It’s also worth taking the intended route instead of going on what you think is a trail that ends up taking you through the forest and forcing you to climb over multiple fallen trees. I didn’t make that mistake. What’re you talking about?). After the detour, I finally got onto the main trail and was looking forward to an easy hike (the guidebook said it was easy, but it seems the Norwegian definition of an easy hike is a little different than mine). After nearly literally hiking through the underbrush, it wasn’t like it could get harder, right? Right? Spoiler alert, it did, but on the bright side, I saw a Hawfinch in the woods in between climbing over fallen logs. The hike is a winding trail with some rocks I had to climb over,  which I was initially excited for, but two false summits later, it kind of got old. After some hard work, though, I finally reached the top and got to take in a full panoramic view from around the peak. The water below is incredibly beautiful, tinted with rippling green and blue, and the rolling fields are scattered with little villages set into coves, accenting the landscape with little pops of red and white among the natural colors. I was high enough off the ground that the houses seemed no larger than clusters of flowers, and it felt like I was inside one of those terrariums with the tiny landscapes made inside of them. What’s more, each little area on the ground was surrounded by a little wall of cliffs, which, while impressive from the ground, were even more impressive from the top of a peak where you can take it all in. It was a struggle to get there, but it was well worth the wait, and I am glad I pushed through and made it to the top. If you go, I wish you luck, but it is well worth it, if you give up and see the photos afterwards, you’ll be incredibly disappointed you didn’t push through. So, if you can, push through it and take an adventure, the view is more than worth it, and you’ll need to burn off the ridiculous number of cinnamon rolls you’ll eat. How do I know you’ll eat them you ask? I explained it before, but I will say this: I just know.

While I loved birding in the Lofoten Archipelago, I must say, there was a lot more to do here, and you’ll want to enjoy it all. Lofoten is an experience, and everything there contributes to the amazing environment. The little villages, the friendly people, the amazing cinnamon rolls that I REALLY wish I could’ve brought home, all of it. Even before I came, I knew Norway was on my bucket list, but it was there for the things you’d think of before you went. Viking history, cool birds, fjords. Little did I know, the real charm of Lofoten came from the little things in between. The secluded beaches, the cinnamon rolls, the people, the views from the top of the hikes, things like that. I realize that’s true of most places, but even more so here. As I said before, it’s not just a place, it’s an experience, and one I feel like as many people as possible should have. So, do yourself a favor, get out there and explore the Lofoten Archipelago. You’ll thank me.