Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Travel Story

Wild at heart

Northern Norway, part 2

The Lyngen Alps, known as the Arctic Eldorado, is one of Norway’s wildest mountain chains, 70 kilometres southeast of Tromsø. Extreme sport skiers and mountaineers alike make pilgrimages to this non-commercial mountain region. Serendipity and kind locals lead me to legendary goat farmer, Bjoern Birkebaek.

"The mosquitoes are bothering the goats up at the summer farm. I’m herding them home at midnight, would you like to come along?" Birkebaek asks. "I really hope the goats haven’t climbed too high though."

In his wooden Nordland boat, the boyish farmer rows us across Jaegervatnet to his secluded farm. We pull the boat ashore. The Norwegian mountain goats come galloping, hearing Birkebaek’s voice. He talks to them in gentle and affectionate tones. "All animals must have love. It’s an incredible life living with animals," he smiles tenderly.

Shaggy, black, brown, and white goats surround us. They nibble at my anorak and eye me closely. Their horns make me nervous. Strangely it’s like being in a crowd of people; all very distinct personalities.

"There’s no milk, she’s empty!" I laugh falling over on the barn floor. The goat I’m (not) milking turns around and gives me a "well get on with it!" look. Milking mountain goats here, Birkebaek’s humour, the fairytale aspect of it all strikes me as hilariously funny.

Milking done, Birkebaek swings open the barn door. No need for herding, the goats simply follow him through the dense forest. They soon disappear. I’m alone on his rustic, hand-carved farm.

Store Jaegervasstind (1,545 m) beckons me. At 2 a.m. I wade through what feels like a palm jungle and climb to the foot of the mountain. The mosquitoes and black flies spoil the gilded idyll. I’m swallowing them and they’re splattering my notebook. Wind rustles through the trees like whispering schoolgirls. A chorus of cuckoo birds sing all hours. Thundering waterfalls pound the mountainside.

I’m relieved to see Birkebæk two days later. He tells me troll stories in a grandfatherly voice. I haven’t slept much so I laugh all the way back to his main farm. Then it’s goat cheese breakfast and catching the morning bus to Tromsø, then the Finnmark Plateau.

There are approximately 30 different types of mosquitoes in Norway, 20 of them found in northern Norway. They’ve all bitten me twice. The air is black with mosquitoes on Beskades, the stormy section of Finnmark Plateau. I’ve bussed it from Tromsø to Alta, and further to Gargia Fjellstue, 25 km south of Alta between Kautokeino. I’m hiking back the dusty dirt road down from Sautso Canyon, a common Finnmark Plateau mountain trip.

A German mobile home drives up. Suddenly a stocky man in cardigan, dress pants and shoes hops out. He waves me over and I show him my German map explaining the hike, the routes, distances…

"Das is Expedition!" he dismisses me, smiles and walks away.

The encounter reminds me of the chilling German wartime occupation of Norway. Finnmark was a strategic location, allowing Germans to control allied convoys between Britain and Murmansk and base submarines and destroyers in her ports.

In the summer of 1944, Germans retreated from advancing Soviet forces. They practiced their "scorched earth" policy, burning more than 10,000 Finnmark houses, schools, hospitals, churches and sinking large sections of the fishing fleet. Approximately, two-thirds of the Norwegian population was evacuated south by force.

Stunning photographs of adorable penguins bring me back to the present.

I’m studying Lofoten photographer Kjell Ove Storvik’s latest exhibition at Gargia Fjellstue. He shyly addresses the audience at the exhibition opening that night.

Storvik’s passion for discovery has led him to the North Pole, Northern Canada and Russia. Like many Norwegian born-adventurers I know, he prefers life on the margin. Meeting and living alongside penguins in the Antarctic, he says, was an especially intense experience.

"One day, I heard a beating sound, it was getting louder… It was the beating of my heart."

 

LYNGEN ALPS

TOP THREE: Jiehkkevàrri (1,833 metres)

Fugledalsfjellet (1,680 metres)

Store Lenangstind (1,596 metres)

SIZE: 879 square kilometres (municipality)

FARMS: 120 & 12 reindeer units

KNOWN FOR: Shrimp

MIDNIGHT SUN: May 18-July 24

POPULATION: approximately 5,000 (municipality)

GETTING THERE:

Fly or take Hurtigruten or bus to Tromsoe change to bus to Svendsby

WEB: www.destinasjontromso.no

www.nord-troms.no

www.lyngen.kommune.no

FINNMARK

CULTURES: Sami, Kvens and Norwegian

SIZE: 48,637 square kilometres

LATITUDE: Same as Siberia, Greenland and Alaska

OLDEST: Stone Age remains date 8,000 years, South Island

KNOWN FOR: Finnmark Plateau

MIDNIGHT SUN: May 16-July 26 (Alta)

POPULATION: 74,087

GETTING THERE:

Fly, take Hurtigruten or bus to Tromsoe, then bus to Alta and beyond.

WEB: www.gargia-fjellstue.no

www.visitnorthcape.com

www.ain.no

www.fascinatingland.com

Sonya Procenko is an international writer and sometime mountain nomad. She wandered Norway with Bruce Chatwin on her mind— " The Songlines ", " In Patagonia " and " What Am I Doing Here ".