Bucket List Biggie – Tromsø

View from Tromsø

Tromsø, Norway is one of the few places you can fly to directly from Svalbard. It’s a place I have always wanted to visit, so it made sense to make a quick stop on our way home. I was attracted to Tromsø was that it is famous for Aurora Borealis. 

Aurora Borealis in Tromsø; Photo: visitnorway.com

Not gonna happen in June, but it’s still a beautiful place.

Approaching Tromsø 

So, we flew from Svalbard to Tromsø on a flight that was also headed to Oslo. Because there is no border patrol or customs in Svalbard, everyone had to deplane, claim baggage and go through all the checkpoints. Then, they had to reboard. I am glad we were just taking the one leg.

Passport stamps

Although, generally, customs and immigration is pretty easy in Norway (in some cases, too easy, but I will cover that in another blog), there was one issue we had to deal with at every airport. 

Scott and I both travel with several cameras and big lenses, plus I had my computer, some small cameras and a spotting scope. In the U.S., they x-ray the camera bags and occasionally ask us the let them inspect them. In Europe, we had to take ALL the cameras, lens and electronic equipment out every single time. 

So, if you plan to take lots of camera equipment, budget some extra time. 

While Svalbard doesn't have immigration officers, it does have security officers. They spent over 20 minutes with my bag. What a pain! But, in the scheme of things, a minor inconvenience.

Back to Tromsø. I had opted to stay at the Scandic Ishavshotel, a downtown hotel that looked very pretty online. 

Scandic Ishavshotel

And, indeed it was pretty, with a beautiful view of the harbor. 

Tromsø Harbor

But, we had a rental car and I failed to determine in advance if there was parking. There was not. We had to park in a pay-by-the-hour lot several blocks away. We spent most of our time out of the city, exploring, but it still cost us $50+ a day extra and was a pain to get back and forth.

But, that’s my only complaint about this otherwise lovely town.

Tromsø

The ninth most populous municipality in Norway with 75,638 residents, Tromsø is the third largest city north of the Arctic Circle, following Murmansk and Norilsk, Russia. Most of Tromsø, including the city center, is located on the island of Tromsøya, 217 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Of course, following Svalbard, that’s pretty southern!

Because we were above the Arctic Circle, we continued without night for the three days we were in Tromsø. The midnight sun is above the horizon from May 19 to July 27 (71 days), but there is no real darkness between late April and mid-August. The polar night lasts from November 28 to January 14 (48 days).

It looks like this day and night

The Gulf Stream keeps Tromsø warmer than many places farther south, resulting in milder winters and more trees than usually found that far north. It was quite pleasant while we were there.

Tromsø Harbor

The city is named after the island of Tromsøya. The last element of the city's name comes from the Norwegian (øy) or Danish (ø) word for “island,” but the origin of the first part is uncertain. 

Tromsø; Map at right: Google Maps

One theory is that "Troms-" is derived from the word "straumr," which means "strong current." Another theory is that the name comes from a nearby mountain known as Tromma (“the drum”).

Bridges and tunnels reach the city

The area has been inhabited since the end of the Ice Age. Nearby archeological excavations have turned up artifacts and remains of buildings estimated to be 9,000 to 10,000 years old.

Downtown statue (with a bird hat)

The city built its first church in the late 1500s and, in 1794, despite being home to only 80 people, Tromsø was issued its city charter. In 1848, the Norwegian teacher training college was moved to Tromsø. By 1850, Tromsø was the major center of Arctic hunting. 

In the 19th century, Tromsø was known as the "Paris of the North." It really wasn’t. The nickname reflected that the people in Tromsø appeared far more sophisticated than visitors from the south typically expected them to be. 

Insult or compliment? Who knows?

By the end of the 19th century, Tromsø had become a major starting point for Arctic expeditions, including those of Roald Amundsen. The Northern Lights (Auroral) Observatory was founded in 1927. 

When Germany invaded Norway in 1940, Tromsø served briefly as the seat of the Norwegian government. Even though the Germans eventually captured all of Norway, Tromsø escaped the war unscathed. At the end of the war, the city received thousands of refugees from nearby areas that had been devastated by German forces using scorched-earth tactics. Expansion after World War II was rapid. Several rural municipalities were merged with Tromsø in 1964, creating today's municipality and almost tripling the population - from 12,430 to 32,664.

Tromsø Airport

The Tromsø Airport, where we arrived from Svalbard, opened in 1964. 

The University of Tromsø opened in 1972 and later expanded through two mergers; with University College Tromsø in 2009 and with University College Finnmark in 2013. 

The Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway's central governmental agency for scientific research, mapping and environmental monitoring in the arctic and the antarctic, was moved to Tromsø from Oslo in 1998. 

The city center has the biggest concentration of historic wooden houses north of Trondheim, where they coexist with modern architecture. The houses date from 1789 to 1904, when building wooden houses in the city was banned.

View across the sound

The Polar Museum, Polarmuseet, which we did not visit, is situated in a wharf house from 1837. 

Polarmuseet

Tromsø Cathedral, Norway's only wooden cathedral, built in 1861, is located in the middle of the city.

Tromsø Cathedral

Arctic Cathedral

The Arctic Cathedral, a modern church built in 1965, is on the mainland, facing the sound and city. The design is typical for the era, reminding me of the U.S. Air Force Academy chapel back home, which was built around the same time.

We visited for a lovely pipe organ concert. 

The Arctic Cathedral has daily concerts in the summer

Because of the ice-free Norwegian Sea and mild westerly winds, winter temperatures in Tromsø are moderated and extremely mild for the latitude. 

We had some rain and fog

Tromsø is the northernmost city on earth where the average yearly low is above freezing. Recent years have seen warming, and there has been no overnight air frost in June since 1997.

Summers are rather cool, with large variations in precipitation from year to year and from month to month. The highest temperature ever recorded was 86.4° F in July 1972.

While we were there, it ranged from fog to rain to sun, all with cool to moderate to warm temperatures.

More than 100 nationalities are represented in the population; the most prominent minorities are the Sámi, Russians and Finns.

Sámi are an indigenous from the northern parts of modern Norway, Sweden, northern Finland and Murmansk, Russia. Today, roughly half live in Norway. The Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders.

Sámi Reindeer product store; we looked, didn't buy

Traditionally, Sámi fished, trapped, herded sheep and, most notably, herded reindeer. Today, about 10 percent -- 2,800 people -- commercially raise Reindeer for transportation, food and hides. By law, the Sámi people are the ONLY people allowed to practice this profession.

These animals are not the short, chunky Svalbard Reindeer; rather, they are the taller, slimmer, more classically built Mountain Reindeer.

The Svalbard Reindeer, left, is quite different than the Mountain Reindeer raised by the Sámi

The Sámi people were originally called Finns by Norse speakers. As Old Norse gradually developed into the separate Scandinavian languages, Swedes apparently took to using Finn to refer to inhabitants of what is now Finland, while the Sámi came to be called Lapps. In Norway, however, Sámi were still called Finns at least until the modern era (reflected in local names like Finnmark, Finnsnes, Finnfjord and Finnøy) and some northern Norwegians will still occasionally use Finn to refer to Sámi people, although the Sámi themselves now consider this to be an inappropriate term. Finnish immigrants to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries were referred to as Kvens to distinguish them from the Sámi Finns.

Sámi petroglyphs, some 10,000 years old, can be found near Tromsø.

Ancient petroglyphs

Until the mid-1300s, the Sámi and the Norwegians occupied very separate economic niches. The Sámi hunted Reindeer and fished. Norwegians, who were concentrated on outer islands near the mouths of the fjords with access to major European trade routes, farmed, fished and traded with the south. In 1349, however, the majority of Norwegians were killed by the plague, which they contracted from fleas arriving from the south. Because the Sámi lived in remote communities and were only weakly connected to the European trade routes, they largely escaped the plague.

The massive population drop left farms vacant and tax coffers empty. Local authorities offered incentives to the Sámi to settle the farms, a trend that continued as late as the 1700s. 

Typical Norwegian farm buildings

Then, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Norway invested considerable money and effort to wipe out Sámi culture. They pressured Sámi to convert to Christianity, forced the children to attend state schools, outlawed the Sámi language, required knowledge of the Norwegian language and a Norwegian name to buy or lease state lands, allocated the best and most useful lands to Norwegian settlers and even subjected the Sámi to forced sterilization starting in 1934. During World War II, the Germans destroyed all existing houses and visible traces of Sámi culture. As recently as the 1970s, a law limited the size of any house Sámi people were allowed to build.

Historic Sámi family; Photo: Wikipedia

To make up for past suppression, Norway, Sweden and Finland now make an effort to build up Sámi cultural institutions and promote Sámi culture and language. In 2005, the Finnmark Act was passed in the Norwegian parliament giving the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Provincial Council a joint responsibility of administering Sámi land areas previously considered state property.

We saw little evidence of the Sámi culture in and around Tromsø, although we did stop at a Sámi store that sold all things Reindeer.

So, what did we do in Tromsø?

Norwegian shrimp with mayonnaise

The first night, we had a lovely – if overpriced – seafood dinner a few blocks from the hotel. 

One evening, we attended a farm-team-level soccer game across the sound at the local arena. It was fun, but I found the local crowd oddly unenthusiastic about the team. 

I am not sure if it was cultural (I swear I HAVE seen Norwegians screaming at World Cup games) or if they just aren't that fond of the local team. They lost, by the way.

We also found time to walk a bit around town and visit the aforementioned Arctic Cathedral.

The next two days, we left the "urban" center and explored the wild areas around the city. 

We had a Jaguar!

Despite the crazy expense of parking, we were glad we had a car. I think Norway is one of the those places where it is imperative that you be able to drive on your own in the countryside.

First, there is a LOT of countryside. Norway is a land of mountains and fjords. So many winding, twisting, jagged fjords that no one actually know how many miles of coastline Norway has. So many winding, twisting, jagged fjords that it could take hours to drive to a place you can see right across the water.

Second, you never know what you might see – read on to find out about that – and you never want to miss something because you have to get back on that bus.

View from the road along a fjord

And, third, Norway has great roads (with some awesome tunnels and bridges) and not much traffic. Just be prepared, you may need to drive through a very long tunnel (some with roundabouts or intersections inside them) or you may have to take a ferry to reach your destination (more on that below).

Tromsø depends upon bridges

The first day, which was intermittently rainy and sunny, we traveled up to the lovely little town of Sommarøy …

Sommarøy

… then down along several fjords to Lyngseidet, where we took a ferry across the Lyngen Fjord …

Ferry from Lyngseidet to Olderdalen

... and drove back up and around to Tromsø…

Norwegian countryside

Although the weather was a bit dicey – some rain, some wind – the drive was lovely.

First thing that happened was one of the best. Just seven miles out of Tromsø, we turned a corner and encountered two Mountain Reindeer standing in the middle of the road. 

Mountain Reindeer

They were the only Reindeer we saw, but they were in the same place when we returned the next day to the same spot. This time, however, they were tucked away in the trees and I had to work to find them.

Grazing the next day

Even though Reindeer are herded in northern Norway, they are free range and are still considered wild game. Reindeer meat is sold in supermarkets, Reindeer skin is used for clothing, shoes and rugs.

Reindeer are known as Caribou in North America, although the Norwegian Mountain Reindeer are just one of the 14 different subspecies, of which two are now extinct.

Huge antlers; Photo: Scott Stevens

Male and female Reindeer can grow antlers, although the proportion of females that grow antlers varies greatly in population and season. 

Antlers are typically larger on males. And, although different subspecies have different-sized antlers, in general, male Reindeer have the largest antlers relative to their body size of any deer species. (Moose have bigger antlers, but much greater body mass.)

Just as with Svalbard Reindeer, male Mountain Reindeer use their antlers to compete with other males during the mating season. In early winter after the rut, males lose their antlers, growing a new pair the next summer with a larger rack than the previous year. 

Female reindeer keep their antlers until they calve. Cows with antlers are healthier than those without antlers and calves born to mothers that do not have antlers are more prone to disease and have a significantly higher mortality. This is because antlers are critical to reaching good forage.

Mountain Reindeer

Although their coats are thick and lush in the winter, they get pretty scruffy in the spring and early summer when they lose their light, long hairs and sport just a short, dark coat. They have large feet with crescent-shaped, cloven hooves that facilitate walking in snow, bogs and swampy areas. 

His coat is part winter and part summer

The pads of the hoof change from thick and fleshy in the summer to hard and thin in the winter, reducing exposure to the cold ground. Additional winter protection comes from long hair that covers the pads so that Reindeer walk only on the horny rim of the hooves.

Just chillin' in the road

Reindeer can see light with wavelengths as short as 320 nm (the ultraviolet range), considerably below the human threshold of 400 nm. This helps them to survive in the arctic, because many objects that blend into the landscape in light visible to humans, such as urine and fur, produce sharp contrasts in ultraviolet. A study at the University of Tromsø confirmed that arctic Reindeer’s eyes change in color through the seasons from gold through to blue to help them better detect predators.

Hooves built for snow, bogs, swamps

The oldest reindeer fossil was an antler of a tundra reindeer from the Pleistocene period 680,000 to 620,000 years ago. At one time, Reindeer occurred as far south as Spain, Italy and southern Russia.

Humans started hunting reindeer in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods and humans are today the main predator in many areas. Norway and Greenland have unbroken traditions of hunting wild reindeer from the last glacial period until the present day.

Reindeer are ruminants, having a four-chambered stomach. In the spring, summer and fall, they eat willow, birch, sedge and grass and in the winter, they eat mainly lichens. During the arctic summer, when there is continuous daylight, Reindeer change their sleeping pattern from synchronizing with the sun to sleeping when they need to digest food. A variety of predators prey on Reindeer, including Brown Bears, Wolverines and Wolves.

Summer grazing is easier than winter foraging

So, after we saw the Reindeer, what else did we do?

Visiting the beautiful countryside was on our agenda

You’ll have to wait for my next blog.

Trip date: June 15-July 4, 2019