Low-footin’

The name of the town is Leknes. The name of the island it sits on is Lofoten. Residents pronounce it “Low-Footin’” for a reason. When the Vikings were here, they found a LOW, flat plain at the FOOT of the mountains. So they called the place Lo-foot. Now it is spelled “Lofoten,” but they still pronounce it exactly as the Vikings did. I think it is important because all of the people I have known named Lofton, or Loftin had ancestors at this place. Viking ancestors.

It is important for other reasons as well, even though there is not much here now. About 80 islands in this archipelago, but only 6 are inhabited. The official census declares that about 11,000 people live on these islands. Lofoten, the largest is about 12 miles by 12 miles. Except for a couple of the main streets in the center of Leknes, all of the streets and roads have only one lane with an occasional turnout for passing. There are two grocery stores and two gas stations. That’s about it. Except for the mountains. And the beaches. And the beauty.

This scenery in this place is stunning. What looks from the sea like an impenetrable wall of mountains is cut through with passes and gaps from which one can get striking views of the valleys below and the ocean beyond. I stood at the edge of a one-thousand foot drop and looked down at a beach that professional surfers dream about. The elite wave riders don their wet suits and come here once a year for international championship competitions. Rookies on surfboards do not attempt to ride these monsters that come roaring in unimpeded from the North Pole. In one of these gaps forty years ago a farmer found some pottery shards and glass when his new plow dug deeper than his old plow. He called the authorities, and the archaeologists came to excavate. They found a circular array of stones, and in the center, a tomb that became known as the “Queen’s Grave” containing a female buried sometime around 800 A.D. She was covered in jewels and gold. Obviously she was someone important, probably royalty. A queen? The daughter of a Viking chief? Who knows? Then further research on the skeleton showed that this female was only about ten years old when she died. Was she a young queen who ruled with the aid of a regent? Could a child succeed as a Viking chieftain? These are questions without answers.

Vikings were here, for sure. Every other Viking long-house yet discovered is about 130 to 140 feet long, but the one excavated here was twice that size—about 280 feet long. It is the largest one ever found. I was surprised to learn that inlets and bays here in Lofoten are not geological fjords, which must be carved out by receding glaciers. Bays and estuaries here are just that—bays, ocean inlets, places where the ocean encroaches upon the valleys created between the mountains that rose up when Europe collided with Africa.

Whoever the people who founded this place may have been, they were tough, self-sufficient and no-nonsense folk. Modern citizens of Lofoten are the same way. Only recently have bridges and roads been constructed to the mainland. For millennia the people here have practiced self-subsistence—with their sheep and with the sea. They still do. Though there are avenues now to the wider world, one gets the impression that the people of Lofoten still prefer their own company to that of outsiders. Not that we didn’t feel welcome. Residents welcomed us graciously, as they welcome the thousands of Norwegian tourists who come here every summer. It’s just that I get the feeling that the people of Lofoten are quite happy with who they are. They do not “put on airs.” Lofoten is not Oslo, Stockholm, Paris or London, and it doesn’t pretend to be. Our guide explained the unique features of his hometown without bragging and without apologizing. Its residents are cheerful and gracious. When they are not working, they are hiking, boating or fishing—loving their land and their sea—as they have done for centuries. Perhaps one reason so many Norwegians come here to vacation is that in Lofoten they sense a community that is quintessentially Norwegian. Not European. Not international. Not even modern. Just Nordic. Viking. Norwegian. And that’s enough.Read more