I loved the Polar Museum in Tromso. Mainly because I have a childish fascination with old-school heroes, and also in a small way because it is the sort of museum…

I was talking to a Dixieland jazz player, in his sixties, in a bar in Gamla Stan. I told him how much I was enjoying hearing band jazz played live,…

I think Stockholm is one of my new favourite cities. It has a peculiar layout, scattered across a number of islands, and a subtly European feel to it too. I…

I spent last night on a sleeper train from Narvik to Stockholm. Seemed a pity to be in Scandinavia and not at least have a look in at Sweden. Narvik…

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…