Svolvær and Stokmarknes, Norway: February 1, 2025

Svolvær Port at 9:01 am

Beautiful pre-dawn light at about 8:00 am as the ship approached Svolvær. The ship eased toward port and our 9:00 am. arrival. The Svolvær name is a "blend of svalr meaning ‘chilly’ and vær meaning ‘fishing village’."

According to Hurtigruten information,

During World War II, Germany seized several fisheries in Svolvær to steal stocks of fish oil to produce highly explosive nitroglycerin for bombs and shells. During Operation Claymore, a successful Norwegian/British raid carried out on 4 March 1941, code books and wheels for the Enigma machine – a cipher device the Germans used to encrypt top-secret messages – were discovered. From these, the Enigma code was finally deciphered at Bletchley Park in the UK. It marked a major turning point for the Allied war effort.

Still, the Gestapo kept their Lofoten headquarters in Svolvær. The town has the most surviving examples of German bunkers and tunnels in Norway. https://www.hurtigruten.com/en-us/ports/svolvaer

Soon after arriving at Svolvær, we boarded a bus to the fishing village of Henningsvær located about 20 km southwest. Henningsvær consists of several small islands and islets off the southern coast of the large island of Austvågøya in the Lofoten archipelago. We had beautiful morning light, beautiful weather, and beautiful reflections. We didn't have quite enough time though and it was soon time to get back to the bus. On our return to the ship, the bus driver drove us through some of the small streets of Kabelvaag. Kabelvaag was the first major town to ever exist in northern Norway – a full 700 years before any others grew to a size worth recording. It looked interesting, but the bus driver made no stops.

Back at the ship, we enjoyed watching a flock of beautiful Eider Ducks swim below us. The males are white backed and the females are deep chestnut brown. When they dove as a group we could track their progress by the white backs of the males who looked like they were flying beneath the water while the females disappeared.

A fishing boat departed Svolvær heading west into the setting sun.

Our ship, the Trollfjord, departed a couple of minutes later at 1:00 pm. On the way out I finally had a good opportunity to see and photograph The Fisherman's Wife at the entrance of Svolvær's harbor. Her hand is not raised in a wave. She is shielding her eyes from the light while she scans the horizon for any sight of her husband, father, son, returning safely from the sea. Women were subsistence farmers and men were fishers. They depended on each other for survival. If a fisherman didn't return, the wife might need to quickly marry again in order to save herself and her children. We saw similar statues in several of the coastal towns we visited.

Continuing north, the Trollfjord took us by her namesake. The first photo is of Trollfjord. The ship inched toward the entrance but did not go in. The ship does enter and go some distance during the summer sailings. Then it turns on a dime and exits the Trollfjord.

The Holiday card landscapes were taken across from Trollfjord near the island of Ulvøya.

We needed to keep our luggage confined to two backpacks and two wheeled bags so I didn't bring a tripod on this trip. As the ship traveled north it made a 3-hour stop in Stokmarknes. We arrived at 5:00 pm. We put on our shoe spikes and began a city walk. It was dark and cold and we quickly turned back toward the ship. That's when we saw the foggy shapes of the aurora borealis above us and reflected in the water. We were on the backside of the Hurtigruten Museum where the walkway had a railing. The first three photos were taken from that spot. Half frozen we returned to the ship and I grabbed a wider lens and a bean bag and went up to the top deck where I took the last photo of the aurora over the distant mountain.

A truly amazing day start to finish.

Next stop: Tromsø at 8:00 am