Lofoten Islands Part Two: Leknes and Svolvær

This post covers the second half of my February trip to the Lofoten Islands in Norway. My previous post (here) featured photos from the first part of the trip, when I was based in the western end of Lofoten and many of the photographic subjects were the small islands and fishing cottages common in that area. From there I moved east, staying in Leknes and then Svolvær, which provide closer access to some of Lofoten’s beautiful beaches. I also had some better luck with the northern lights…

On to Leknes

I didn’t make it far after checking out of my cottage in Hamnøy before it was necessary to stop for some photos. I had been so focused on the classic view of the area that I hadn’t spent any time exploring Hamnøy’s harbor and the coastline looking to the east.

The harbor view shows some more of the rorbuer (fishing cottages) in the town and some other facilities that were closed for the season. The restaurant we’d eaten at twice is there as well. On the other side of the highway was a nice view of the coastline with some large snow-covered rocks in the foreground.

About 20 minutes east of Hamnøy is a junction heading toward Fredvang. The junction is a popular spot for launching drones and capturing footage of the two bridges leading to Fredvang and the surrounding landscape. We took advantage of that and then drove to the beach near Fredvang to explore.

Continuing toward Leknes we spotted some fishing racks near Ramberg that actually had fish on them, so I stopped for a few photos. These fish racks are very common around the Lofoten items and if you look closely you can see some in many of the photos that I have shared. Fishing is a large part of the economy in the area and the racks provide a place to preserve the fish by drying them in the open air after they have been cleaned, a method practiced for thousands of years in northern Norway. A common menu item in the area is “stockfish”, for which the dried cod is reconstituted in water and served either as a steak or in soup. The meat is firm and the flavors more concentrated than in fresh fish.

Our home for the next three nights was the Lofoten Basecamp, just outside of Leknes. We had a studio cottage for this stay, and the luxury of two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room was long gone. The room was clean and modern and the staff was very friendly and helpful. We were even given a free session in the sauna after our fire alarm malfunctioned (more on that later). We unpacked, went into town for an early buffet dinner, and then made our photographic plans for the evening.

Northern Lights at Skagsanden and Hamnøy

Tonight would be our best aurora opportunity for the trip. The predicted solar activity was high and the skies were forecast to be clear. Clouds, wind and snow were predicted to come into the area for the next several days. While my first choice was to photograph at Uttakleiv beach, I expected large crowds to congregate there which would make it difficult to get clean compositions and avoid flashlights and other distractions. We decided to go to Skagsanden beach which has a more wide-open view and would pretty much ensure that if the lights appeared, we could get some good photos. It is also about half-way toward Hamnøy which would give us the option to head there as a second location.

Sunset was at 4:00pm and the skies get fully dark at about 7:00pm. We arrived at the beach at 6:00pm intending to have some time to select a location and be ready for whatever light show would appear. We were successful in getting ahead of any crowds as we were only the second car in the parking lot. As it turned out, we could see the northern lights in the sky as soon as we arrived. This created a frantic rush to grab our gear and get down onto the beach, both of us tripping and falling over rocks buried under the snow on the way. The tide was much lower than when we had scouted the beach, and we ended up on ice-covered sand that provided nice reflections of the color in the sky. Soon after getting settled, the lights curved higher in the sky and I was able to capture that movement in the photo below.

For most of our time at Skagsanden beach, the lights consisted of a bright beam arching from the mountains on the right to the shore on the left. I decided not to try capturing the whole arch, but instead chose a tighter composition to really emphasize the color. At one point the arch split into two, as shown below, which is another of my favorite images from the trip.

At this point we felt we had captured what we wanted at the beach and agreed to drive back to Hamnøy to see how things looked there. The lights were gone when we arrived and after setting up our cameras we spent some time sharing photos with people on the bridge that we had met on previous nights. I very much enjoyed meeting people from around the world in Lofoten and sharing our love of photography. After about half an hour, we started to see light on the horizon. The colors rose higher and eventually filled the sky.

Storsandnes and Myrland

After a late night photographing aurora, we decided to photograph sunrise close to home. We had briefly scouted Storsandnes beach the previous day and decided to check it out for sunrise. The light was beautiful and I worked on compositions showing the foreground rocks, beach, and the mountains in the distance.

From there we headed up the road toward Myrland beach. There were snow drifts along this stretch of road and I had to be careful while driving. We reached Myrland and struggled to find a place to park and eventually struggled to find the road itself. We couldn’t find a path down to the beach so we found a spot where we could photograph from above.

We later learned that the road between Storsandnes and Myrland can be dangerous in the winter due to falling snow and rocks and isn’t recommended for tourists. Looking back I could see why. We found a coffee shop in Leknes for breakfast, with a nice selection of cakes, pastries, and some salmon and egg sandwiches.

After spending the day exploring, we ended up photographing sunset from a turnout we had passed several times while driving to the beaches. The stream in the foreground led nicely toward the mountains and the color from the sky reflected in the water and ice. From there we went to Uttakleiv beach hoping to catch some northern lights. The wind began to howl and we sat in the car watching the sky from the parking lot with a few other crazy people. After a couple of hours we gave up and called it a night.

Nusfjord and Coastal Locations

Nusfjord is small fishing village on the southern coast, much of which is part of the Nusfjord Arctic Resort. We spent some time walking around the small harbor, exploring a museum of fishing artifacts, and hiking up a couple of nearby hills before having some coffee and salmon sandwiches.

The cafe is located in an old general store with a nice view of the fjord.

Looking south from Nusfjord I could see more of the village as well as the light from the rising sun.

We then headed up the coast to Vareid, which we had visited on our first morning in Lofoten. This time the sun was higher in the sky, although the light was muted by the clouds. The tide was lower, exposing some interesting rocks and tide pools. My favorite view used a tide pool and reflections to lead into the scene, with the mountains and rising sun in the background.

I did my best to maximize the reflections by lying down on the rocks with my camera flat on the ground. I liked the reflections but was no longer able to see much of the water in the fjord.

Before coming to Lofoten, one of the locations I really wanted to photograph was Uttakleiv beach. I described my first (painful) visit to Uttakleiv in part one of this blog post. My second visit didn’t produce any photos due to the bad weather. I decided to go back to Uttakleiv this afternoon as my last chance. The wind was howling when I arrived. Not to be deterred I fought my way through the wind to see that the tide was high and the rocks I wanted in the foreground were below the water line. Holding my tripod steady against the wind I captured the photo below as my best attempt. I guess I need to come back to Lofoten sometime.

Having had enough of the wind, we started looking for some more sheltered locations. Heading back toward Leknes we found that it was much calmer around Haukland and Vik beach. I set up near the shoreline of Vik beach and worked on capturing the movement of the receding waves. The color of the water looked almost tropical in the afternoon light which made an interesting contrast with the snow covered mountains.

A Norwegian Sauna

As mentioned above, the batteries in our smoke alarm needed replacement, so the alarm chirped at us several times during the night. We had a nice conversation with the owner of Lofoten Basecamp as he changed them and in the end he offered us a free session in the sauna. The sauna is in a wooden structure above the water, allowing users to take a cold dip in the fjord as part of the experience. The water is about 40°F which is plenty cold, but bearable for a short time. The hard part is walking out of the sauna and making your way down the ice-covered stairs to the water. I ended up doing this twice since I rushed it on my first attempt.

The inside of the sauna has a nice view of the area (the end is enclosed by clear plastic) and hot rocks for creating steam.

Vikten and Svolvær

It was time to start working our way back toward the airport and home. On the next morning we decided to visit the town of Vikten and explore the coastline there. After that we’d have some breakfast, check out, and make our way to the nearby Viking Museum. On the way to Svolvær, where we would be spending the night, we planned to make a side trip to Henningsvær.

Vikten is along the same road as Vareid, where we had photographed a couple of times earlier in the trip. The road runs along the mountain that is visible from Skagsanden beach. We found an area with some nice foreground rocks and a view of the mountain.

I experimented with both landscape and portrait compositions. I liked the leading line formed by the rocks in the portrait view.

The Lofotr Viking museum is built on the location of an archeological site and includes a reconstructed longhouse and artifacts dating back to the Viking age. The longhouse also has samples of gear that you can touch and they encourage exploration. No visit is complete without putting on a Viking helmet, grabbing an axe, and getting your photo taken on the throne.

Henningsvær is a fishing village on the southern coast of Austvågøya island. It includes a chain of small islands reached by bridges and is famous for its soccer field (which was covered with snow). I hiked to the top of a hill and then photographed the harbor. If anyone is keeping track, we failed to find a gas station in Henningsvær (yes, we were looking for one).

Svolvær is the largest town in Lofoten and where we would be spending our last night. Our hotel was on the water and there were plenty of restaurants and gift shops in the area. This was the first time since Oslo where I felt like I was in a city with “crowds” of people around. Svolvær offers a lot of boating options, even in the winter, to explore the nearby fjord, fish, and look for wildlife.

We had found a nice viewpoint when driving into Lofoten at the beginning of our trip and decided to stop there on our way back to the airport. There is a parking lot at Austnesfjorden and a trail to a panoramic viewpoint. After the beautiful sunrise the sky had begun to cloud up, but the view was still nice.

From there it was a 2-1/2 hour drive back to the airport and an uneventful trip home. For anyone who has made it this far, I have also assembled a video from the trip. It features drone footage captured by Alejandro and myself as well as terrestrial video and photos I captured at many of these locations, including a time lapse of the aurora at Hamnøy.

I hope that you enjoyed learning a little bit about traveling in northern Norway. As always, I appreciate any feedback in the comments and am happy to answer questions.

Previous