Where the mountains met the midnight Sun
There are some places that announce themselves with drama. Others reveal their beauty slowly, almost reluctantly, as though testing whether you are prepared to stop and pay attention. Skulsfjord belongs firmly in the latter category.
After leaving Tromsø and crossing onto Kvaløya, I found myself heading deeper into the landscape I had travelled so far to experience. The roads became quieter. Settlements became rarer. The mountains grew larger. Before long, civilisation felt reduced to scattered houses clinging to the shoreline, dwarfed by vast walls of rock and lingering snow. This was the Arctic Norway I had imagined whilst planning the trip back in England; remote, wild and wonderfully unconcerned with human affairs.
I stopped beside a small fjord enroute to Skulsfjord - it began to feel a bit more Arctic
All that stood between the cabin I had booked and the fjord was its boathouse. All that stood between me and the cabin was a reindeer sauntering around exactly where I was supposed to park my car. I sat back at the wheel; I was in no hurry and needed to take this all in. This was not a staged moment, nor a wildlife excursion. Simply Arctic life carrying on about its business whilst I sat grinning like an idiot. It was one of those moments that makes you realise you are a long way from home.
One of the locals welcomed my arrival
The fjord stretched away in front of me like a polished sheet of glass, reflecting cloud, sky and mountain in equal measure. My arrival was met by a still warm early evening air. There wasn’t a human in sight, and my ears were filled with bird song, chatter and chirps. Happy birds, going about their uninterrupted lives living on and around Skulsfjorden, which opened out directly onto the Arctic sea.
Eventually, Mr Reindeer moved on to find even more scrummy grasses and I was able to park and unpack, but before doing so, I grabbed my video camera - I wanted to film this - my first ever Nordic cabin! It was not luxurious, nor did it need to be. A simple wooden shelter, raised - presumably to elevate it above snow packs in winter - and looking out across the water. Backed by mountains on every side, it was more than enough; boasting a long balcony overlooking the garden where there sat a firepit and the fjord beyond. Indoors was the obligatory log fire, comfortable airy living room and a spacious kitchen/diner. It lacked nothing, and would be my home from home for the next few days before I would be on my travels again.
Around the Cabin
An Evening Without Darkness
Later that evening I wandered down to a small jetty protruding into the fjord. It was half past ten at night.
Back home in Britain, people would have been drawing curtains, switching on lamps and preparing for bed. Here, however, the day seemed unwilling to surrender. The sun still hovered above the horizon, casting a soft golden light across the higher ground while the fjord itself slipped gently into shadow.
What struck me most was not the scenery itself, spectacular though it was. It was the stillness.
The silence was not complete; nature rarely deals in absolutes. Seabirds wheeled overhead and occasionally called across the water. Gentle ripples brushed against the shoreline. Somewhere in the distance a boat moved slowly across the fjord. Yet compared with the constant background noise of modern Britain, the place felt extraordinarily peaceful. The world appeared to have slowed down.
The mountains rose directly from the water with a solidity that seemed eternal. Snowfields lingered stubbornly amongst the higher slopes despite the warmth of summer. Above them drifted soft clouds catching the Polar sunlight.
I had arrived with cameras, lenses, filters and all the usual paraphernalia photographers convince themselves are essential. Yet standing there on that jetty, looking across the fjord, I felt remarkably unconcerned about photography. For perhaps the first time on the trip, simply existing in the landscape felt enough. That is one of the great gifts that nature occasionally offers. The best locations are not necessarily those that produce the strongest photographs. Sometimes the most memorable places are those where the desire to document gives way to the simple pleasure of observing.
Skulsfjord was one of those places.
Skulsfjord from the sky
Mountains Reflected in Silence
Eventually, of course, the photographer in me reasserted itself.
The foreground rocks scattered around the jetty immediately caught my attention. They were substantial granite forms, weathered by centuries of wind, frost and sea, their surfaces etched with textures and colours that seemed almost painterly. Beyond them sat the calm water of the fjord, and beyond that, a magnificent range of peaks rising into the Arctic sky.
What captivated me was the sense of scale.
The mountains dominate the landscape, yet the water somehow softens them. There is no struggle between the elements here. Rock, water, sky and light exist together in an almost perfect balance.
As the evening progressed, the water became increasingly smooth. Reflections stretched lazily across the fjord's surface, blurring the boundary between reality and mirror image.
At one point I noticed a small red building standing on stilts over the water some distance away. Against a palette of blues, greys and greens it appeared almost improbably vivid, like a brushstroke of colour added by an artist who feared the scene had become too subtle.
Elsewhere, isolated boats drifted peacefully at anchor beneath mountains glowing amber beneath the midnight sun. The contrast between the harsh geology and the tranquil waters created an atmosphere that was difficult to describe but impossible to forget.
Photographs can record these moments. They struggle, however, to convey how they feel. The gentle movement of cool air across your face. The distant cries of seabirds. The subtle awareness that the sun should have disappeared hours ago and yet remains determined to linger. The sensation of time stretching out before you. Despite my best efforts, I don’t think my literary skills can do it justice, hence - as my homepage explains - I attempt to share my experiences through the medium of photos, writings and videos. All these help to create my little notebook of memories.
A different Norway
When I finally returned to the cabin, the sky still retained colour. Darkness never truly arrived.
I remember standing outside on the raised balcony one final time before heading to bed and looking across the fjord. The mountains were reduced to vast silhouettes, still visible beneath a sky that refused to become night. It felt strangely dreamlike.
The following morning would remind me that Arctic Norway possesses another personality entirely. The serene fjord, the warm evening air, the still water and gentle sunlight had presented only one aspect of this remarkable landscape. By dawn the mountains would reveal another. One considerably less welcoming. One considerably more dramatic. And perhaps, in its own way, even more beautiful.
To be continued...