Polar Night in the Northern Norway

Polar night has intrigued me for years. Basically the sun does not rise above the horizon; during the day there is still twilight for some hours. This winter I finally had a chance to join a one week sailing trip with s/v Rembrandt Van Rijn in the North of Norway.

I had hoped to see aurora borealis, sunrise or sunset colours lasting for hours, and orcas. We didn't have that much luck. Over the period of 10 days, I didn’t see the aurora borealis with clear skies. Not even once due to cloudy skies. This is not usual. Due to the clouds the sunset, or sunrise, colours happened just two-three times. But, what a treat is was each time! We did see orcas, humpback whales, white-tailed eagles, cormorants and gulls. In addition there were other treats which I had not thought beforehand.

Moon and the mountains in the late morning

The first day out in the fjords: very poor visibility, snowing, a couple of fishing boats, hundreds of gulls, no whales. Indeed, it’s very dark when it’s cloudy during the day. In the afternoon, though it felt like evening, we stopped in an abandoned island and did some snow-shoeing. Eerie place - there is still the church and some buildings; but not even footprints of animals. What is somewhat surprising is the amount of light-pollution that exists even in such a far-away place.

After several cloudy days it was like a miracle to see the full moon next to mountains, and to see some clear sky. This sky and the clouds really got the winter colours I had been hoping for: purple, red, orange and even a bit of yellow. So beautiful.

Once these colours faded away the orcas came to the scene. They were swimming in their pods. Majestic. There were a couple of young orcas, and one very tiny one, probably it was born a couple of days earlier. The group around the baby pushed it to the middle of the group, to be protected from any kind of outsider. There were several orca pods in the fairly close vicinity. All after the herring.

There were a couple of white-tailed eagles, or sea eagles as they can also be called, flying around. One of them came down pretty near to our ship. Beautiful to see such amazing birds.

One of the afternoons we stopped in a small very quiet fjord for the night. But before that we went out with snow-shoes. We walked in between the mountains, lights off, for probably two hours. I had decided to leave the camera gear in the ship. There are moments that it’s best just to enjoy and live the moment. I still remember the faint silhouettes of the mountains in the darkness, the untouched snow, the wind in my face, the quietness, a river in the distance. We stopped for two times to just feel and listen to the sub-Arctic winter. Priceless.

The sun rose above the horizon on the January 15 for the first time. For 15 minutes. We didn’t see this phenomena as it was cloudy. It takes sometime, more than the 10 days I was there, for the body and mind to get used to a low amount of natural light.

Compared to Svalbard it is very easy to be on the shore in Norway; no need to worry about polar bears. Meaning that it is easy to go alone without a rifle. One of the days there was a purple light in the mountains. I had never seen such a light. I stopped on a mountain and enjoyed taking photos of the scene. To see it with own eyes was unreal, needless to say the photos also look unreal. Once the light changed to a normal colour I went down to the shore and walked for a couple of hours. Enjoying the scenes, stopping, taking photos, wondering,… perfect moments.

Our expedition leader was Birgit Lutz accompanied by Arjen Drost. Both are very experienced in the polar regions and expeditions.

All in all the voyage was very special thanks to the polar night. At the same time the polar night made many things more difficult. Not to mention the cold conditions.

Noctilucent Clouds and Bears in Finland