Reindeer seem to be unaware of the fantastic significance gifted to them by our childhood imaginations. Supposedly they are gallant creatures with the strength of a horse in a dainty frame. Their unspoken wisdom leads us to believe they have voluntarily donned Santa’s yoke, in the spirit of Scandinavian Socialism and gift freely from themselves so that others may benefit. These unquestioned assumptions are not inline with reality. Up close a reindeer is extraordinarily goofy. Often they will stand in the middle of the road staring into the middle distance with the intensity of a special education student in the period after lunch. As you approach it is hard to ascertain the moment when they become aware of your presence. It seems their decision making process is analogous to the charging a battery rather than flicking a switch. When, their internal committee does get it's act together and decides that flight is the correct course they do not dart off into the bushes. Rather, the head tills back, the chin leads and the body follows reluctantly. But for the animals intellectual incapacity to register disgust, the whole acts only link to regality is the pretence of cucumber sandwich snobbery.
My decision to ride to the North Cape, Norway's northern most point was compelled largely by my desire to see the 'Midnight Sun'. Since living in Sweden I have experienced the environmental oddities of oppressively dark winters and the fantasia induced by ever present daylight in summer. The North promised to take this, as my musical friends are fond of saying, to 'the next level'. I have not been disappointed.
The train journey from Örebro to Kiruna took around twenty hours and was the perfect lead in to an adventure. I often seek to employ a narrative structure when looking at events, however it is very peculiar when the events seem to, independent of me, imply a literary form. I found myself in one such moment (and existentially out of it!) at the very commencement of the journey. The overnight train was perhaps, I do not wish to exaggerate, 15 carriages long. I read on the Swedish Rail website that customers with large luggage were to board at the end of the train. As I had a large cardboard box filled with bike I was certainly in this position. So which end of the train? Three options presented themselves, wait at either of the two ends, or in the middle. A classic gambling scenario. Should you take the low risk position and make it a certainty that you will have to lug the box some distance or go double or nothing? ‘Put it all on Black!’ ‘Red 34.’ House wins. ‘Shit.’ And it was as your humble narrator, sweating like a block of Coon it the sun, was pushing this large box down the entirety of the train that an introduction had been thrust upon him.
I arrived in Kiruna, around three o'clock the next day and was keen to put some kilometres on the board. I assembled my bicycle at the station, bought some food and a map and started peddling. It was on this first evening that the Midnight Sun would demonstrate it’s usefulness as a traveling companion. At five o'clock the sun was still high in the sky. As the town gave way to rolling hills, and the smooth road extended ahead a feeling began to take me. A feeling so common to the road that it should be predictable, but so ephemeral that it escapes my recollection. Freedom. That night I rode until ten. The campsite was quiet, I set up my tent and went for a swim.
The next morning started with full frontal male nudity. Why not? As I packed a Northern Swede and his pooch (not a euphemism, he had a dog) said hello. He disappeared around the other side of a shed and reappeared completely starkers and headed toward the lake. What a way to start the day. I joined him and then headed out.
The days cycling brought me nearer the Finnish border. However the last hour was marred by pain in my left knee. This was a concern as one lesson I have taken, failed, repeated, failed and finally, repeated and passed by the slimmest of margins, is not exacerbating an injury by pushing it. I had no desire to stop my trip early, but I did not wish to add a left knee to the salad of my other overused joints. I formulated a plan to cycle the next day, but warily.
I left Karesuando the next morning and crossed into Finland. My knee was not better. After altering many variables I found a manageable solution. A cleat-less shoe on the left foot, and a lower seat. This meant that I could ride, though my speed diminished. I stopped at a Sámi (Scandanavian indigenous inhabitants) run coffee hut and imbibed myself in a course of self medication. Coffee and Paracetamol. After this the last twenty kilometres were a breeze. When I arrived at Entontekiö I booked into a hotel and enforced a very reluctant rest day for the next day.
I emerged from my hole ten IQ points down but still secure in the knowledge that I was smarter than Dr. Phil. (What Ph.D could he have produced that authorises him to cast such spurious moral assertions upon the lives of others? He strikes me as the type who was beaten as a child but now as an adult has repressed all of his latent aggression into a pop philosophy. When this is followed the believers mind becomes a prison wherein they employ quiet logical torture as a response to uncontrollable animal instincts. Thus, once you let Phil in, he can do to you what his daddy did to him. What a prick.).
I was still very aware of my knee. And was not sure what to make of it, was it my body alerting me to damage? Was it simply a little niggle that would shift? Was I attaching too much meaning to it? I decided to employ the same tactic as used at the train station. Have a gamble. I decided to just go for it, for an hour. This seemed to work, and whilst noticeable throughout the trip it never again became prohibitive. I love it when the 'toughen up princess' works. Though who doesn't like being a princess!
My new found strength once again gave me the initiative, and the benefits were compounding. After some time a hitch hiker jokingly stuck out his thumb. I pulled over only to discover that he had recently finished a bike trip. A very enthusiastic 'Canadian', (I am always aware that Americans like to call themselves Canadian when they are traveling) he told me tales of his journey and gave me a few hints of what was ahead. 
An unwanted guest cut our conversation short. Mosquitoes. Northern Scandinavia is often labeled the land of a thousand lakes. This could well be true. I do not recall an instance in this trip were water was not nearby. However, given the prevalence of that life sustaining substance and the in-prevalence of temperatures that any self respecting life would want (sorry Sámi's) the month of July presents a rare opportunity and is the summer of '69' for our parasitic buddies. And, in addition to sticking it in each other they are more than willing to replace there fluids with yours.
Soon I would turn off the major route, whilst a detour of about one hundred kilometres experience has begun to teach me that bike touring is far more enjoyable without traffic. This last thirty kilometre stretch before the turn off I was accompanied by a German bike tourer who had ridden from Hamburg. Our chat moved organically and did not stray too far from Channel Seven. Rolling through topics including bike touring, jobs and the weather it then ended as smoothly, but as instantaneously as it had begun. Never stopping we shook hands and exchanged names. I turned right, up a hill that would lead me to a bridge across a large river. The scenery changed and the next phase begun.
Middle Game
There is something in the feeling of movement that I find irresistible. I am not sure if it is the sensation itself, or a reaction to the concept of distance accumulated, or an excitement about what is to come, or a reluctance to change the status quo. Regardless when I am riding I often need a very good reason to stop. Karolina can vouch for this as she has often been dragged an extra twenty kilometres looking for that 'perfect' campsite, when prior options were 'perfect'. The hunt, as it were, was an excuse not to stop moving. I count as good reasons to stop; excessive hunger, being absolutely knackered, stopping for water, injury and impending darkness. Given these preconditions let us take this experiment to a world were it never becomes dark.
The excitement I now felt being on this 'less traveled' path, combined with the fresh legs from a days rest and the mild delirium that accompanies long periods of exercise compounded my feelings of reluctance towards stopping. So I kept riding. Ducking in and out of forested areas, popping up on top of marshy plains, rolling across bridges that connected the edges of churning rivers. At the same time an unending afternoon sun gently warmed the road and my feelings towards it.
An option for dinner sprang up unexpectedly. There would be no other options on this stretch of road so I decided to take it. My thinking was to have dinner and then keep riding. I spoke to the proprietor, and simply told that I was hungry. He asked me whether I wanted dinner, I replied in the affirmative. As he disappeared into the back room I had a look at my odometer, I had ridden 170km. The clunking of pans suggested that my host did not intend to bring me a menu, just food. As I sat the idea of riding 200km became less appealing. Any dreams of that milestone completely evaporated when my dinner arrived.
Full, and self indulgent I booked a cabin. This little wood box that looked across a river was idyllic in all but one respect. Mosquitos! I tried to sleep, but was ever aware of their presence. If I wasn't being stung, I was provided with an external Tinnitusian ambience, and when this subsided all that lingered was paranoia and anxiety. I was at war people, and it was time to define the terms of combat. I set up my tent, inside the cabin. Having established myself in the fortress I proceeded to annihilated any who decided to join me. Shutting my eyes, surrounded by the fruits of this Finnish My Lai I slept in the fashion of the hunter.
The sun, having gripped the horizon overnight begun it's vertical lift for the day. I followed it's lead, my goal being the coast at Lakselv. Around three, little pockets of rain started to develop. At four, the sky had dropped so thick and low that the sun's influence was reduced to a background of grey. The geography changed, and the road cut between cliffs and next to deep lakes. Fork lightning in the distance was an appropriate preview for what was to come.
I arrived at the coast, in a heavy rain. Whilst I intended for this to be my destination, a pizza shop filled with people seemed an appropriate place to settle for an hour to dry off, warm up and wait out the rain.
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| 1 AM |
The new coastal scenery, the new sky and a newly found energy delivered by a kebab pizza (cold lettuce and tomato thrown on at the end, excellent!) fed my tendency toward continued movement. The afternoon became evening and the evening became 'northern' night and I continued to ride. Around midnight I stopped on the edge of a sea cliff, had a bowl of rice and a bowl of coffee. I had ridden 199km, and decided to camp at the next opportunity. High up on a plain between two cliffs, a thin waterfall, more a creek that stumbled off the edge of a cliff rejoined next to my tent and was welcomed by the ocean in front of us.
Tunnels and the North Cape
The air feels thinner in an instant. Cold, but not the 'it's getting cold' type. Cold that reminds you of somewhere else. Each time I felt it on this trip I always had the sensation that I was woken up. Or more, that prior to it I was dreaming. This air hits you often well before you see the tunnel. And then, as the tunnel approaches this importance of the moment, or more specifically getting through the moment only deepens.
Perhaps this is all because I am a little afraid of tunnels. I am not sure. I always anticipated them because these sensations were so intense. The longest tunnel of the trip was seven kilometres long and descended 200 meters below Earth’s surface.
For me, there are three elements to riding in a tunnel that create the sense of foreboding. Firstly, there is the darkness. Secondly, sound behaves peculiarly. Cars coming from behind you approach first from in front. As the sound echoes down the tube, continually redoubling and redoubling upon itself the noise swells all around you rather than building from a direction. Large fans pump air through the length of the tunnel mean that silence never occurs. Lastly, there is the ever present repetition of stimuli. Save for the occasional car, fan or sign, the tunnel is a Groundhog moment. This lack of distinction had my internal monologue continually repeating the phrase, 'just keep pushing'.
The light at the end of the tunnel is a cliché punished by anyone with even the loosest grip on abstract thought, so I shan't overplay it. Though, noticing that first sheen of almost indiscernible natural lights and seeing it build, then having auditory space slowly return to have it completed by an exit into sun and humid, heavy air is exhilarating.
I half expected the nice smooth, flattish, roads to continue all the way to the North Cape. However, Given that I knew the viewing position was 300m above sea level, well, I should have known better. By the time I approached the first climb I had ridden for around five hours and was a little hungry. This was the hottest day on the trip, a fact that I did not truly comprehend until arriving at the end of the day with leprosy look-alike shoulders. The journey to the North Cape was 30 kilometres each way. And with two 300 metre climbs there and one on the way back. When I arrived at the North Cape, it was pretty, but I was stuffed. The entrance fee of fifty dollars seemed a little steep to use a car park and see a tourist cinema (though I may have paid it to get a Coke!) so I decided to head back. As I started the ride home it was fairly obvious that I had, to quote Mr. Ross Hopkins, 'zonked'. This was made worse as I had no immediate snacks on hand. The next two hours of hill climbing in the sun was a challenge and I played many mental games to come through it. One was overestimating how much there was to go, 'Okay, one hill down only seven sections to go' or the somewhat less creative, but momentarily effective mantra 'leg over leg over leg over leg over.....'.
I arrived in at Honningsvag at around 9pm and had ridden 500km in three days. I was quite tired. After buying ingredients for a potato and leek soup, making it and eating in the company of a Swiss Gentleman, Martin, I retreated to my room and slept.
The Hurtigruten and Beyond
The islands that dot the Northern Norwegian coastline cut a very striking figure. Violently thrust out of the ocean their facades have the linear fractures of stress induced by the expansion of freezing water that has penetrated them. In the past the physical difficulty of accessing these islands was a near impossibility, further enhanced by the presence of Artic Winter for the majority of the year. Still people lived here. Their connection to anything foreign came via the postal ship route, the Hurtigruten. Now in a more connected world the importance of this route has lessened but it has become a sought after cruise. I boarded the Lofoten, to indulge a small section of the Hurtigruten route from Honninsvag to Tromsø after a days rest. In oaky opulence, I sat, considered, wrote and played SimCity.
Disembarking at midnight from Tromsø I was to begin the final leg of my ride and be indulged by the highlight of the trip. My destination for the nights riding was a ferry port at Brensholmen, sixty kilometers from Tromsø. The change in scenery was severe. Mountains covered in summer snow, fast flowing rivers, and ocean. This pattern of climbing to a pass, and dropping to the ocean was consistent for the next three days and seemed to increase in intensity each day.
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| 2AM on a pass. |
But this night I would ride into clouds, becoming saturated by fine mists only to come down the other side into sunlight. The road sometime hugged the coast taking me through little villages. The number of people up was astonishing. Some were having coffee on the porch, others continuing a DIY project in the back yard. In a conversation with Karolina she suggested that they were making the most of the daylight. I agreed, but believed that this explanation indicated an effect rather than a cause. Whilst only bathed in constant light for two weeks I begun to notice that sleep took the form of something you do when tired, rather than something you do at night. It was in essence a refuelling exercise, and when you were fuelled and consequently woke up it was light, so you got on with it. Whilst the memory of a circadian rhythm was not too distant for e I imagine that these people for whom darkness was last seen months ago had little connection to time, unless their job or television schedule required it from them.
I set up camp at the Brensholmen had a bowl of rice, set my alarm to wake me in four hours time (8 o'clock) and switched off.
That morning the sky was cloud. This much was clear from my down cocoon. The forty minute sea journey to Botnhamn allowed me to suck down a few coffees returning my expression to focused madman, away from the morning panda post compression session.
The two days to Narvik were cold and wet. I am not prone to the negativity that many people encounter when outdoor pursuits encounter a change in the weather. However the euphoric peaks, and transcendental moments of freedom are often replaced with a slow, patient grind. For instance the long stretches of downhill that are usually the reward for an uphill slog become the coldest times, the spectacular views often are the most exposed and windy and when I did find myself awed by a moment, stopping to take full advantage of it became something that 'should' be done, rather than something desirable in and of itself. That said, many of the little breaks, hot drinks, quick feeds and earnest conversations I had in this section were incredibly satisfying.
Destinations
Bike touring appeals to me because meaning and purpose is taken care of in the action of riding. Very simply in answering the question, 'what should I be doing?' the answer is an unequivocal 'head that way'. This leaves a space for the mind to consider what is happening, without the need of an object. Combine this with the continual movement and the consequent refresh and update of stimulus and I feel that I become more aware of the slow and subtle changes in things rather than the things changing. It is nice to have a remainder of this subtle shift in perspective. 
Now, as the train speeds Southward I can see that the sun is just starting to dip behind the forested horizon. A dusk is starting to seep into the train, and with it a welcome weariness is taking me. This small adventure, has been a success. A bit of exercise, beautiful scenery, open space for consideration, new stimulus and an encounter with the realities of the ‘Midnight Sun’. Tonight when I approach my pillow some natural darkness will be with me. For the first time in a couple of weeks when I lie down not only will I rest my tiredness. Tonight, the night will bring sleep. Good Night!
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