Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Lofoten Island, July 13-20
After 3 weeks of going a new place almost every day, I was ready for some down-time. Lofoten Island is not a typical island vacation. . . . that is to say, it is not a tropical, beach getaway. Lofoten is quite famous and popular with artists because of its special scenery and light quality. It consists of sharp mountains jutting up off the sea, and is quite a bit above the arctic circle, so there are many weeks of midnight sun in the summer, including durning the week I would be there.
Terri McFarland and I flew from Oslo to Bodø, and then took the passenger ferry, the hurtigbåt, to Svolvær on Lofoten. We had not much to see but hours to kill in Bodø, so we bought some Norwegian wool yarn and Terri reminded me how to knit. The boat ride was very rough. The steward made everyone in seats towards the bow move back into the belly of the boat because it was so rough. The boat, large as it was, would dip beneath the horizon in the giant troughs between the waves. Not my favorite, but Terri, a film major at NYU for a while, was busy trying to get video documentation at the windows while also trying not to get knocked over by the bumps.
We both had rooms at the Lofoten Kunstnerhuset, a big house with rooms and artist studios in Svolvær. Terri was looking forward to some outdoor landscape painting. I was looking forward to sitting down and reviewing my notes and making some drawings. I got the better end of the deal because it rained the whole time. Nonetheless, Terri was quite happy because the artist studios on each end of the house had banks of windows on 3 sides, so from our hill she had a 360 degree view to paint from, though it was grey. One of my favorite things about Lofoten was the way the grass would spill rom the big cracks in the boulders and bedrock, these thin wedges of meadow sandwiched in. Terri, being a landscape architect and avid gardener, loved the fact that meadows seemed to crop up in every possible patch of ground and sod roof of Lofoten, and she especially liked quizzing me on the names of the wildflowers. As for the midnight sun, we only got midnight rain and midnight fog. It never got very dark though, so it could be just the same view at noon as at midnight.
On July 17, we went to Strønstad on the other side of the island to visit a local, widely known, Norwegian woodcarver, Arthur Johansen. Arthur and his wife Thune(?) live at a beautiful small bay facing the northeast, the direction of the midnight sun. Arthur was very welcoming. In fact, he drove into town about 40 km to pick us up. He showed us all around his wood carving shop. He makes some tourist trinkets, but also makes many commissioned picture carvings showing scenes from the sea and from people´s lives for commemorations. He and his wife had us over in the house for several hours. They really wanted us to try dried salt cod, the thing that drove (drives?) Lofoten´s economy. It is dried in the winter on giant A frame racks outdoors. It is so tough and fiberous, it is not easy to yank off a little strip. Then it takes an endless amount of gnawing to soften it and get it down. It took me about 5 minutes to consume the tiny sliver I agreed to eat. It was like purgatory chomping this tough string that tasted like low, low tide. I had quite a bit of coffee and water after, but couldn´t quite shake the taste. It was great fun visiting Arthur nonetheless. We stayed until around midnight, still hoping to see the midnight sun. There was a beautiful pink glow behind the clouds close to midnight. Our hosts showed us lots of pictures of both midnight sun and the winter´s norther lights to show us the effect of the famous Arctic light.
Otherwise, I had a nice week of walking, drawing, reading, baking, and knitting. We took the famous coastal steamer, the Hurtigruten, for one all-night stretch from Svolvær to Finnsnes. Going up through the fjords we had some amazing scenery, and again something close to a midnight sun with a brilliant 2 am dawn. It was not so great for sleeping because we were deck passangers, meaning no cabin.
Terri McFarland and I flew from Oslo to Bodø, and then took the passenger ferry, the hurtigbåt, to Svolvær on Lofoten. We had not much to see but hours to kill in Bodø, so we bought some Norwegian wool yarn and Terri reminded me how to knit. The boat ride was very rough. The steward made everyone in seats towards the bow move back into the belly of the boat because it was so rough. The boat, large as it was, would dip beneath the horizon in the giant troughs between the waves. Not my favorite, but Terri, a film major at NYU for a while, was busy trying to get video documentation at the windows while also trying not to get knocked over by the bumps.
We both had rooms at the Lofoten Kunstnerhuset, a big house with rooms and artist studios in Svolvær. Terri was looking forward to some outdoor landscape painting. I was looking forward to sitting down and reviewing my notes and making some drawings. I got the better end of the deal because it rained the whole time. Nonetheless, Terri was quite happy because the artist studios on each end of the house had banks of windows on 3 sides, so from our hill she had a 360 degree view to paint from, though it was grey. One of my favorite things about Lofoten was the way the grass would spill rom the big cracks in the boulders and bedrock, these thin wedges of meadow sandwiched in. Terri, being a landscape architect and avid gardener, loved the fact that meadows seemed to crop up in every possible patch of ground and sod roof of Lofoten, and she especially liked quizzing me on the names of the wildflowers. As for the midnight sun, we only got midnight rain and midnight fog. It never got very dark though, so it could be just the same view at noon as at midnight.
On July 17, we went to Strønstad on the other side of the island to visit a local, widely known, Norwegian woodcarver, Arthur Johansen. Arthur and his wife Thune(?) live at a beautiful small bay facing the northeast, the direction of the midnight sun. Arthur was very welcoming. In fact, he drove into town about 40 km to pick us up. He showed us all around his wood carving shop. He makes some tourist trinkets, but also makes many commissioned picture carvings showing scenes from the sea and from people´s lives for commemorations. He and his wife had us over in the house for several hours. They really wanted us to try dried salt cod, the thing that drove (drives?) Lofoten´s economy. It is dried in the winter on giant A frame racks outdoors. It is so tough and fiberous, it is not easy to yank off a little strip. Then it takes an endless amount of gnawing to soften it and get it down. It took me about 5 minutes to consume the tiny sliver I agreed to eat. It was like purgatory chomping this tough string that tasted like low, low tide. I had quite a bit of coffee and water after, but couldn´t quite shake the taste. It was great fun visiting Arthur nonetheless. We stayed until around midnight, still hoping to see the midnight sun. There was a beautiful pink glow behind the clouds close to midnight. Our hosts showed us lots of pictures of both midnight sun and the winter´s norther lights to show us the effect of the famous Arctic light.
Otherwise, I had a nice week of walking, drawing, reading, baking, and knitting. We took the famous coastal steamer, the Hurtigruten, for one all-night stretch from Svolvær to Finnsnes. Going up through the fjords we had some amazing scenery, and again something close to a midnight sun with a brilliant 2 am dawn. It was not so great for sleeping because we were deck passangers, meaning no cabin.
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