Hammerfest

Hammerfest is a community of about 9,000 people at about North 70 degrees 40 minutes. There are no larger cities further north. It’s a beautiful place with rugged mountains dropping dramatically into the water. There were many trees, though none seemed to reach above the ridge line where it clearly is much windier than in the protected cove. We were fortunate to be here on a clear and dry day.

One of the first things I noticed after going ashore is the food truck pod. I was particularly interested in the one called Choco Fruits … until walking by it later and discovering that it sold fruit dipped in chocolate for more than I would be willing to pay (about $11 for strawberries, $9 for blueberries and even $8 for a banana, the last of which I wouldn’t purchase at any price). There was also much discussion about a store named Dress Mann which led to memories of a store in Rotterdam called Sissy Boy, though I can’t imagine myself shopping in either place. 

Five of us took a nice morning walk where we saw a six-legged dragon on the local energy building (but we learned that taking a picture of it was “forbudt” when an employee chided one of the group [not me] for doing so). One of our caching-related stops took us there because of the carved stone “statues” in front of it. My favorite was the elephant (the dragon is in the background). 

We resisted the urge to pay $30 to join the polar bear society. Hammerfest celebrates its polar bears. The city symbol seems to include a polar bear. There’s also a lovely gazebo near the center of town that has polar bears at each corner as well as the front. The gazebo also celebrates the location: 70 degrees 39’ 48” N 23 degrees 48’ E, though it’s hard to see in the picture (it’s on the blue part above the big polar bear).

We didn’t see any native mammals, though we did see some sled-dogs being walked by people from the cruise who paid a pretty penny for the privilege. We also saw, three different times throughout the day, a family of three German cachers who are camping in the area and had a very energetic (but well-controlled) medium-sized brown dog. We did see many birds, including eiders, oystercatchers, common redshank, various ducks and I forget what else. I don’t recall seeing any bees, butterflies, or other insects. And plenty of pretty flowers and lichens, though I didn’t take many pictures of those today. I did finally have the opportunity to touch the water and skip at stone at the beach where several mother ducks and their dozen or so ducklings started on the beach then went swimming. 

Three of us took an afternoon walk to a small lake in town that we thought might be a tarn but seems to have a way for the water to run out so it’s not a tarn. We’d planned to walk around it but it was pretty, not spectacular (and we couldn't find the first cache, did find the second one, and doubted we would find the third one so we aborted). That’s ok, 15,000+ steps was plenty for today. 

I took this picture at 10:30pm. We are still far enough north that the sun won’t set tonight (it’s still quite bright now, a bit after 11).

A fine day in one of my favorite countries. We have one more stop in Norway tomorrow before we head west to Iceland and then Greenland.