Chasing Ghosts in the Midnight Sun

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Troels could speak Norwegian, which differs from Danish and Swedish and is related more to German. We went to the house to introduce ourselves to the neighbors, a friendly elderly couple offering tea and biscuits. Through Troels I learnt that 400 Nazi’s had been based in these bunkers, which ran deeper into the hills than we had realized. They gave us fresh water and we made dinner over a gas stove in one of the larger bunkers. I decided to pitch a tent rather than sleep inside. I have clearly watched way too many X Files. By one in the morning, it was still mid-afternoon light and I couldn’t sleep, thinking about the irony of a Jew receiving shelter from the rain (and bloodthirsty mosquitoes) beside a Nazi relic. It stirred up a smorgasbord of emotions.

It was, ironically, the 21st of June, the longest day of the year. I drove back into Narvik to visit the war museum, unsuccessfully trying to find more information about our bunker. Back on the highway, driving south, the scenery continued its spectacle - bigger, sharper mountains roped by deep, turquoise fjords. Every corner brought another “whoa”, and I stopped taking pictures because they could do no justice. We drove 170 kilometers that day, every mile a postcard. The Norwegians are also famous for their tunnels, without which the country would be impassable. Marvels of engineering, some of these tunnels clocked in at over 5km in length, and by the end of the trip we had passed through over 50 of them, relishing the purity of the darkness it afforded. Ferries were also commonplace, most of them ferrying 95% of their traffic in these two, short summer months. Heavy traffic came in the form of camper vans baring English, German and French plates. The winding, narrow roads kept over-taking strictly in the domain of mostly dead thrill seekers. We spent our last night in the Arctic Circle in a trailer park, splurging on a wooden cabin that smelt like a Viking’s loincloth. It had been two weeks since I had seen the night, and I would have completely forgotten what it was like, until I closed my eyes.

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