I have not often declared out loud my love for an inanimate object. I have been lost on mountains plenty of times, but never alone, and never north of the…

As they sometimes do, chance events conspired against me in Hammerfest. If I believed in karma, which I don’t, preferring to work on the principles of consequence and blind chance,…

The town museum in Kirkenes didn’t do at all badly, considering the various different forces dragging on its objectivity. To try and understand it, you have to first try and…

I got a lift back into town with a friendly German called M, who worked with the huskies as a guide and trainer. He had baseball cap and long sideburns,…

Three hours or so up a track into the forest and I found a tiny wooden cabin, like in a Jack London story. It can’t have been more than six…

The Pasvik valley is the last place in Europe where you can find brown bears. My new friend from the tourist office had told me that they were hibernating so…

‘I had an argument with a man in here not so long ago’, the lady in the tourist office in Kirkenes told me. ‘He said, “There is something beyond here,…

The Northern Lights showed themselves conveniently on the first evening after we crossed the Arctic Circle. They were only dim, and, far from the fluorescent green sheets I was expecting,…

Smartly dressed from the ankles upwards, the staff at supper wore a mixture of sports sandals, trainers and heavy shoes with Velcro over the tops. It was rather charming the…

The MS Midnatsol was a most commodious vessel, the newest of the Hurtigruten coastliners. With a restaurant, café, two bars and a Jacuzzi it was in fact almost a cruise…