The Lofoten Letters: Winter Above the Arctic Circle

In Reine on 6 December the sun does not clear the mountains, and it will not do so again until 5 January. This is not darkness in the way people expect. For about four hours in the middle of the day the sky south of the ridge goes through a slow sequence of pink, orange and a blue that has no equivalent further south, and the snow takes all of it. Photographers call it the blue hour and here it lasts most of the working day.

The Lofoten islands sit at 68° north, about 200 kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, and they should by rights be frozen solid. They are not, because the North Atlantic Drift pushes warm water up the Norwegian coast and gives the archipelago the largest positive temperature anomaly of anywhere on earth — winter averages hover near freezing rather than the minus twenty the latitude would suggest.

What winter actually gives you

The aurora, which is the reason most people come, and which is genuinely likely here between late September and March — Lofoten sits under the auroral oval, and a clear night with any solar activity at all will produce something. Cloud is the limiting factor, not activity, and the islands are cloudy.

The skrei, which is the reason the islands exist. Northeast Arctic cod migrate south from the Barents Sea to spawn in these waters from January, peaking in March, and the fishery that follows them is the oldest continuous industry in Norway. The drying racks go up in February and the villages smell of cod for three months.

And the emptiness. Lofoten in July has become genuinely crowded — a parking problem at every trailhead, campervans on the verges, and the villages under real pressure. In January there is nobody. The same road, the same peaks, the same red rorbuer, and you will pass four cars between Å and Leknes.

The same road, the same peaks, the same red cabins. In July you queue for the trailhead. In January you pass four cars in fifty kilometres.

The things that go wrong

Weather closes the E10. The road through Lofoten is generally kept open and ploughed, but the exposed sections at Flakstad and over the Tjeldbergtind can shut for hours in wind, and the ferry to Bodø cancels in heavy sea. A schedule with no slack in it will fail.

Hiking becomes mountaineering. Reinebringen's stone steps ice up and the route is officially discouraged in winter; Ryten and Kvalvika are doable with microspikes and daylight discipline. The daylight is the real constraint — a walk you would start at two in the afternoon in summer has to start at ten in December.

And the light that makes the photographs also makes the driving difficult, because for much of the day the sun is either below the horizon or directly in your eyes at a shallow angle off snow.

Where to be

Stay in a rorbu — the fishermen's cabins on stilts over the water, which were built for seasonal crews and are now let to visitors. Reine, Hamnøy and Sakrisøy have the best of them and the classic views are from their doorsteps. Henningsvær is livelier and has the restaurants; Å at the far end is the quietest.

Self-cater. There is a Bónus-equivalent in Leknes and a Coop in most villages, and Norwegian restaurant prices in winter with limited opening make cooking the sensible default. The cabins all have kitchens because the fishermen needed them.

When to come

Late January and February are the balance point: the sun is back, the days are lengthening fast, the aurora is still reliable and the skrei season is starting. December has the polar night, which is a specific and beautiful thing but gives you very little usable light. March has the most daylight of the aurora season and the drying racks fully hung.

Studded tyres come as standard on winter hire cars and are legally required in these conditions. Book the car months ahead — supply in Svolvær and Leknes is thin and winter demand has grown sharply. And take the ferry from Bodø rather than flying in, if the sea allows: three and a half hours across open water with the islands rising out of it is the right way to arrive.