The grey weather stayed with us as we left Trondheim behind and it didn’t improve as we headed north on the next part of our journey to see the Midnight Sun.
Our first stop was at the huge Okstindan nature reserve between the towns of Mosjoen and Mo-i-Rana.
This gave us chance to have some lunch and stretch our legs a bit, as well as shop for some locally made gifts, such as knitwear, jewellery and glassware…
I was also hoping to see some polar bears, but Mum said they lived even further north than we were…
…and the only wild creatures that we saw were a load of midges which took great delight in biting Mum, even though she was covered in insect repellent…
We did see a lot of piles of small stones in one area, however, and found that it was traditional to add another stone to any one of them and so we did just that – though after all this time I can’t remember why!
Then we were back onto the E6, an amazing road which starts at Trelleborg on the southern tip of Sweden, heads west into Norway, then turns north, and eventually east, all the way to Kirkenes on the border with Russia. It’s a total distance of 1899 miles/3056 kilometres. It replaces a narrow old road which had many twists and turns and used to involve several ferry crossings as the only way forward, so that many towns and cities along the coast of Norway were more accessible by sea before the new road was built.
Then, when we were almost at the point where the E-6 crosses the Arctic Circle, our courier told us that much of the modern road had been built during World War II when Norway was under Nazi occupation. The Nazis wanted a good road to make it easier to move their troops up and down the country. To build it, they used prisoners of war – mainly from what was then the Soviet Union, but also from Yugoslavia and Poland – as slave labour. Thousands died in the terrible conditions and, when World War II was over, this memorial was built in June 1945 at Saltfjellveien so their sacrifice would not be forgotten.
We stopped for a few minutes and got off the coach to pay our respects.
And it was only when we set off again that I realised that the memorial was built right on the Arctic Circle and so we’d crossed over it without me knowing. That was a bit of a disappointment, because – as I said in my last post – I was expecting something magical. Even though it was a gloomy day, I’d convinced myself that the Arctic Circle would have a white background, sparkling with snow and frost crystals which would shimmer with all the colours of the rainbow.
Instead I found that there’s nothing there at all – it’s just an imaginary line drawn on maps of the world and connecting the points that lie two-thirds of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole. Even so, everyone on the coach got a certificate to say they’d crossed over it – everyone except me, that is, and I didn’t get one because only my mum knew I was there…
After that, our next stop was the town of Bodo where we were to spend the night…
…and have our first taste of reindeer stew…
But the weather was so awful that we never went out of the hotel after our evening meal. Instead we sat in the bar and had a glass of wine, followed by another early night. And I began to wonder if we would actually see the Midnight Sun when we finally reached the North Cape – or would we have to send post-cards home that said it didn’t shine for us?
You’ll be able to read more about our journey in my next post. Meanwhile take care, stay safe and I’ll talk to you again soon!
Follow my next blog: 218. MY MUM THE STORY-TELLER – PART ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
08/09/2022
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 