Exploring an Arctic City

Chilly. Rainy.

Up and at ‘em our first full morning in Bodø (pronounced buddha), and work is on our minds. We purposely booked five days in the Radisson Hotel and snagged a fine room with an excellent view of the harbor. I spend the better part of day one trying to catch up on my notes. Then we undertake our explorations of this sweet little city hovering at the lip of the Arctic Circle: a stroll through the rain and chilly temperatures.

Bodø is not very large but it takes up more real estate than, say Ålesund or Fløm. Unlike those villages, the buildings here look nearly new. There are broad streets along the docks filled with small trawlers, pleasure craft, excursion vessels, even a research vessel or two. People live on dozens of islands in the big bay and for many Bodøans a decent boat is as necessary as a car (or camel, mule or horse) might be in most other places around the world. Far beyond the bay stand the Børvasstindan mountain range – white capped and fierce looking with their ancient, jagged peaks sharp against the flinty sky.

Bodø’s architecture is new for a reason. The evening of 27 May, 1940 Bodø was bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe when Nazi Germany attacked and took control of the country. Four hundred twenty of the town's 760 buildings were smashed, 12 people were killed and another 5,000 lost their homes. The town took a beating for years.

Bodø has now been rebuilt. Traffic is sparse. More people walk then drive, it seems. But there are cars — mostly the electronic variety along with a system of electronic buses, ubiquitous throughout Norway. The streets are perfectly clean, and homelessness is nonexistent. We saw only one quiet man asking for alms outside of a small indoor mall. Bundled in layers of clothing, he sat still, with his head down, hand out, silent until I gave him a small donation, and then he touched his chest with his hand and bowed nearly to the pavement. I wondered what events had brought him to this place and time. Otherwise, even in a post-COVID world, it seems Norway’s homeless have found homes. The Norwegian safety net ensures this.

One of our goals in Bodø was to find a way to make it to Svalbard without flying. To find out, and to learn more about Bodø, Cyndy found the town’s tourist office, a blessing because, within, we found Anke and Kristine. Anke, robust, exceedingly warm and knowledgeable, ran the office and became increasingly determined to help us get to Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s largest town (1000 frigid souls draped in polar darkness half the year). More on this misadventure later.

Anke grew up in the GDR, (aka East Germany), and was 10-years-old when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Eastern sector of Germany was merged with the West. “I was stunned at how quickly the nation changed,” she told us. Suddenly grocery stores were full unlike the old Soviet days. Even the smells were different. Retail shops appeared and Berlin seemed to meld into one city again almost magically.

But in East Germany's smaller cities, she said, people still struggle to make the transition even nearly 40 years later.

“In these smaller towns people like the freedom, but for so long, we were told what to do and many still don’t know how to use their freedom. It takes work and responsibility, but they didn’t have to be responsible under the Soviet system so now they struggle and complain. They want it both ways; freedom without responsibility.” On the lower end, she says people throughout Europe have been feeling the twin squeezes of high inflation and high taxes (considerably higher than the US, but with many benefits Americans do not receive). COVID has created a world-wide hangover that has been crushing folks at the lower end of the spectrum, which is not fair, but always the case.

For us, just passing through, we loved the town. It has now been designated one of three European "Capitals of Culture" and the first ever above the arctic circle, according to Kristine.

A few weeks earlier, the city celebrated on the harbor along with 20,000 visitors. This also marked the start of Sami National Culture Week and the Sami National Day (6th of February) celebrating the Sami lifestyle, history and culture heritage. (More on this here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/d2cx269o39o4ti0jkqvcl/h?rlkey=c3u4usxsxr2i1i9dvoj44c127&e=1&dl=0)

The Sami, or Laplanders, are the native peoples of Norway and have, like so many other native cultures, suffered at the hands of white culture. Norway has been working for decades to right this wrong.

There is a culture calendar which is packed with events the whole year, constantly updated. Visit: https://kulturkalender.bodo2024.no/?culture=en for more information.

If you’re traveling to Norway this summer, be sure to visit Bodø’s "Midsummer Mischief" event on the 22nd of June on the city beach.

Eventually, we escaped the whipping wind and made our way to our hotel room for a spectacular view of the sunset. I love the wildness of the weather in the north. I was enthralled with Iceland when I visited and hiked there. And Antarctica is other-worldly. It felt the same here as we head deeper into the Arctic. Would I want to live here? Could be tough. The black winters and unrelenting cold year after year might be too much. That’s what I love about travel. Change is always coming. One transition follows another. It's never boring. The weather may be cold. But heat is coming; springs turn into summers, and falls swing into winter blizzards depending on which way we are moving. Travel makes everything possible or at least allows you to feel that anything is possible. Every time you put one foot in front of the other, surprises awaits, and something new is learned.

Bodø Recommendations

If you’re considering travel to Bodø, consider some of these options for a fantastic experience. And please review our entire collection of Norwegian recommendations.