ISLANDS OF DELIGHT
By BARBARA McKECHNIE
THE bus for the aircraft called for us at 6 a.m. and we bumped along the shores of Tromso-Sund to Skattora flying-boat base. It was a perfect morning ; the great Sandringham swung motionless from the buoy, and, once passengers were aboard, it soared effort- lessly into the air. In a few minutes we were looking down on the wreck of the Tirpitz,' its upturned keel a small dot amongst the pattern of mountains and islands fringing Norway's coastline. Then, rising steadily, the aircraft turned towards the Arctic Sea, and for an hour we skimmed past an ever-changing panorama of mountains and fjords in innumerable blues and browns and greys. Then far ahead the red roofs and green farms of Harstad came into sight, and the bay rose slowly to meet us. With a sudden hum the great flaps curved into position ; the aircraft poised for a second, swooped gently, and a sudden rush of spray past the window indicated that we had arrived at the Lofotens.
The islands are divided into two main groups. The northern, known as Vesteraalen, contains the islands of Andoy, Langoy, Hadselay, North Ostvaagoy and West Hinnoy, covering an area of about t,000 square miles, with a population of some 30,000 centred chiefly around the shipping and fishing villages of Andenes, Sortland, Stok- marknes and Harstad ; the southern group, known as the Lofotens, embraces the remainder of Ostvaagoy and Hinniiy with the islands of Vestvaagoy, Flasestadoy, Muskenesoy and an archipelago of more than a thousand islets grouped together under the names of Vaeroy, Rost and so on. Kabelvaag, the old capital, and Svolvaer, the present-day capital, are situated on Ostvaagoy, but, taken as a whole, the area and population of these islands are smaller than those of the northern group though they give the whole their name. The Lofoten mountains are a partly submerged range of gneiss, granite and gabbro which stretch for more than 120 miles like a great wing- shaped wall some sixty miles from the mainland, just below and above latitudes 67 and 68. Their form is the same as that of the Coolins, and the same influences are at work ; a drift from the Gulf Stream warms the coastline so that the climate is comparatively mild, and sheep and cattle remain on the hills during winter. The peasants, generally speaking, earn their living as fisher-farmers, while the main industries are shipping, shipbuilding and, of course, fishing on a large scale with factories to handle such products as fish-oil, fish-meal, fresh, frozen and airdried fish ; the nose must, in fact, become accustomed to fish and more fish and rack upon rack of drying fish.
Only five of the islands have motor roads of any length, and these skirt the sheltered eastern shorelines ; inter-island communication is, of course, by sea. But whether by sea or by pleasant dirt roads, travelling in the Lofotens has an individual loveliness and freshness. Moisture-laden breezes and sun give the mountains rich and delicate tints not found elsewhere. At their feet the roads run between the deep green of seaweed and the bright green of spring grass, past little red farmhouses with green turf roofs. Dun-coloured Norwegian ponies graze in the meadows ; the morning air is heavy with the scent of flowers, and fields and ditches are a golden blaze of kingcups. Weather-beaten old peasants wave cheerily to passing vehicles, and family groups, often accompanied by a dog or pet
" lamb, work in the long chocolate-brown furrows cutting chunks of peat for next winter's fuel. By shores and jetties fishermen tend their -nets to the sharp chirp of oyster catchers and the mewing of gulls, while always in the background as far as eye can see the main Lofoten peaks rise in a blue haze like jagged black teeth from snow-filled gullies, and down their sides the silver threads of high waterfalls drop to the thin green strips of farmland at their feet.
There are some traces of German occupation, but little destruction or disfigurement. The Germans thought, for instance, that the main Allied invasion might take place from Harstad (the equivalent of Scotland's Scapa Flow), and the hills and plateau behind the port are a mass of land-mines and fortifications. In one place we passed a Russian P.o.W. camp ; in another large dumps of German search- lights ; in some woods serried ranks of heavy guns awaiting removal or dismantlement. At Svolvaer it was the same ; the damage to oil tanks and refineries had been done by our attacks in 1940; the German fortifications were intact. One family I know escaped to England in 1940, and lived there for six years. On their return last year they found their property, even to a white Persian cat, unharmed; in fact it was generally conceded that the occupying forces behaved reasonably, and were too stunned at the news of surrender to destroy anything—with the result that except for sitch war relics the islands are unspoiled, and there is plenty of Rod, plenty of work and a general air of contentment and well-being.
In these latitudes at midsummer the sun shines for twenty-four hours a day, and no regular routine such as we know seems to exist. It's quite normal to get up in the early hours in bright daylight to catch a boat, and the daily call of the " Huttigrute " express steamers is an event not to be missed. We went one Sunday morning from Sortland to Svolvaer through what is probably the loveliest of all Norwegian fjords, the Raftsund and Trollfjord. We boarded the 'Midnight Sun' at 3 a.m. amidst terrific excitement of passengers and friends on the wharf and the usual bustle around the arrival of an important ship. It was too lovely to go below, and we drew out a couple of chairs on deck. The sun was high in the heavens, casting a gloriously soft pearly light over the hills, and making the rusty buoys near by glow with an unearthly richness of colour. A few fishing smacks rolled lazily at anchor, and the gulls perched on their masts didn't know whether to regard it officially as the start of a working day or not. Presently the steamer pulled out and sailed slowly down the fjord. She was not a streamlined modern motor- ship, but a peaceful "push-me pull-you" creation of 1910, and a more pleasant means of progression early on a sunny Sunday morn- ing cannot be imagined. The waters were very calm. On the one hand lay a long range of mountains whose misty blue rock and shimmering snow peaks seemed to ebb and flow and melt into one another in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of soft shapes and colours ; on the other, low emerald green farms smiled against a background of brown hills. It is only since the advent of these steamers that the fishermen and local people have ventured abroad at night ; before, they dropped anchor to make way for the trolls and mountain giants.
We had some glorious mountain climbs—Raeka, Svolvaergjeite, Higravstind, Gjeitgaljartind—as well as some good scrambling. At first there are baby bogs Of bright green and patches of moor dotted with white cloudberry flowers and clumps of dwarf cornel to be crossed ; then exhausting and extremely steep grass slopes on which nodding pink campions, solomon's seal and yellow sedurns tempt the climber to rest ; then old patches of crisp snow on moors of bear- berries and dwarf juniper, and then the snow level where, at the foot of a couloir or the tongue of a glacier, the serious business begins. I think my favourite climb was Gjeitgaljartind. It was a perfect day. We started early and climbed in the cool of the morning. Our crampons bit crisply into the glacier, and we soon crossed three large snow basins and zigzagged up their steep connecting slopes, roping up a very steep shoulder which led to the summit ridge. This consisted of a flat patch of snow and a great square table-top of rock on which we could walk in comfort and look down on the fjords and • valleys nearly 4,000 feet below. The colours and lights were beyond description, and everything was so clear that it was possible to see an incredible distance. We sat on the top and sunbaked for hours photographing and absorbing the details.
Svolvaer, with its mountains, fjords and farms, is the haunt of painters ; and it is usual to take a boat out in the evenings after dinner to watch the light effects of the midnight sun on the islands and sea. Our motor launch coasted along little bays and tiny rocky islets. At this time of the night warm shore breezes are heavily laden with the scent of pines, and even the wild eiderduck will venture within a few feet. After a while we swung out to sea in a wide arc away from the towering precipices of Vaagakallen and steered towards the mainland. It was after it p.m., and a few high streaks of black and gold swept across a sky of palest blue, merging into greens on the horizon. Along this rose the whole array of mainland peaks, deep blues and greys and gleaming white, with the scarcely rippled sea between turning towards pale golds. Behind, the sun was still high above the Lofoten peaks, and their deep purple shapes were silhouetted against a dark red haze broken into belts of gold beneath the sun, and above was an opalescent glow which quickly merged into the more distant blue. These lines and shapes and lights and shades were broken and woven together by clouds fringed with transparent gold which swept across the sky, carrying the colour with them and yet leaving it behind. A silence fell on the occupants of the boat before this midnight fantasy ; even the engines seemed hushed as she skimmed over its reflection in the water.
After days on the mountains and nights out at sea, by way of relaxation we visited the Bird Mountain at Rost. As we approached its rocky shores the air was filled with the calling and mewing of countless thousands of sea birds—kittiwakes, razor-billed auks, guillemots, puffins and so on. This was their home, and on shore their presence made itself felt. Thousands of kittiwakes, the only true oceanic gull, nested so closely along every possible ledge, nook and cranny that the sunlight on their lovely white heads and mantles of pearly grey broke the darker shades of the solid rock-face behind. They were a noisy colony, and yellow bills showed bright orange tongues as gull upon gull held forth to all and sundry. On larger jutting-out ledges up the mountain-side were families of razor-billed auks and guillemots, their smart black backs and dinner-jacket fronts giving an impression of dignity and respectability. And nesting still higher, in burrows that made the terraced grass-slopes look as if they had been riddled by rabbits, were colonies and colonies of puffins, who eyed us in mild surprise. Puffins are not nearly as timid as auks, and in slow stages it was possible to approach quite near—to see the aristocratically large beaks, tipped with vermilion and crossed with bars of yellow, and the vermilion-coloured feet on which the birds shift their weight somewhat pompously from side to side as they walk.
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