Six Weeks in the Arctic, Svartisen to Hellåga on Sjonafjord

Zagan the motorhome’s getting his feet right under the Norwegian table, enjoying another official, free aire right alongside the Sjonafjord in Helgeland, just below the Arctic Circle (N66.31385, E13.28438). There’s a free service point here, alongside the artiest public loos ever built – a flowing glass and wave-like concrete sculpture alongside us, as well as picnic tables and steps down to the sea to make fishing that bit easier. Norway, we salute you!

The Helgelandskysten National Tourist Route welcomes the motorhome dweller!

Today we finally left the Arctic, crossing the invisible circle via a ferry. A small metal globe on a nearby island marked the spot as the boat’s tannoy bonged into life, confirming we were back in ‘the south’. We spent six weeks above the line, six wonderful and surprisingly warm weeks since we visited Santa’s village at Rovaniemi in Finland, learned about the Sami people and the Vikings, celebrated with fizz and reindeer steak at the North Cape, gazed out across a white sand beach at the midnight sun, enjoyed cracking free camping on Senja, bounced up and down the dramatic Lofoten islands, seen the Northern Lights, and finally gazed in awe at the Svartisen Glacier before leaving the Arctic via a ferry from Jektvik (see below!). Six weeks in which we’ve laughed at road-mad reindeer, craned our necks at sea eagles high above, spotted a clumsy elk, caught a bucket load of pollock in a maelstrom and had lots of laughs with lots of fellow motorhome-dwellers. It’s been a blast, a smashing adventure for us.

OK, enough reminiscing for now. Nipping back a couple of days: we were asleep, completely alone, below the Holmvassdammen. Or, more correctly, we were awake, half the night, flinching at the about-to-collapse dam-breaking silence. Ju had pondered what would happen if a large chunk of glacier fell into the far end of the lake: would it breach the dam? Almost certainly not was my thinking, but the seed was set for a night’s fearful imaginings, knowing a gazillion tonnes of water brooded above, desperate to wash us down the valley. I must get my copy of Feel the Fear and do It Anyway when we get home and re-read it! 5am came round and I pulled back the curtains to see nothing. White. Fog smothered us in a cotton wool embrace. I imagined leaping from the van naked and running about: no-one would ever see me (there was no-one for miles anyway), but would I ever find Zagan again? Come 9am when we finally woke, the fog was gone, but as we were still blissfully alone, we had a cheeky naked run round Zagan again, giggling like nippers. You’re safe, we took no photos!

The following morning, dressed, we walked up and across the dam again for another look at the Svartisen Glacier

After a bit of al fresco bacon cooking (I’m loving our camping stove!), we set off back down the tourist road, thinking about a similar semi-official road we’d travelled in Switzerland after a star-filled night alone beneath glacial tongues. This time we needed to exit the scene via the construction tunnel, an unlit pot-holed thing which we were most grateful wasn’t full of fog as we bounced down it with main beam picking out a path. Out and into light, a few km of open air lifted us before we were back into tunnel, 8km of it, this time well lit and flat. Norway needs these holes clawed out through rock for traffic to flow, but entering them feels like stepping into claustrophobia. As the light washes over us on exiting each of them, the sky and mountains feel wide-open, lifting and limitless.

Coming to Norway? You’ll see a fair bit of it from the inside!

Just a few km further on, alongside the Holandsfjord, we pulled into a picnic area Ju had scouted out as having good views of the Svartisen Glacier, this time looking east, with the Engabreen tongue crashing down close to the green seawater below. The glacier itself’s 142 square miles in size, simply enormous, and all we could see of it were these fingertips of blue ice, seemingly snapshots of avalanche from above.

The sight was too enticing to leave, and the tourist office on site confirmed motorhomes and caravans could stay at this fantastic place (free of course), so we cooked a few biccies and slept, soundly this time, (N66.72461,E13.69811) using the service point (also free) in the morning before driving south to yet another viewpoint a couple of km down the road.

You could take a boat to the base of the Svartisen Glacier, or why not instead go kiss a moose?

Views to the Svartisen Glacier to the East

Go Zagan, go!

The sun shone for us today

Close up of the Engabreen Tongue

Pulling our eyeballs from the blue ice, Ju turned Zagan’s wheels south and we flowed along down the coastal route south, taking in a couple of ferries to bring us here. The plan now is to head for Mo I Rana, an hour’s drive inland, to stock up on LPG and then either rejoin the E17 coastal route down to Steinkjer, or pile down the faster and cheaper E6. Norway’s tourist info folks produce fantastic brochures for each region, and we picked up one for Helgeland on the ferry, so we’ll interrogate it later on and decide whether to go fast and loose, or slow and easy!

You know when you’ve been on tour too long when: you’re drying your washing as you queue for a ferry?

Crossing the Arctic Circle! Can you see the globe? No?

Here it is!

The E17 along Sjonafjord – a bit narrow in places…

Inside one of Norway’s sculpture toilets!

Cheers, Jay

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