The conversation about Norway began years ago with my daughter Tahiti. She’s an insatiable traveler, and her thoughts about Norway were very specific. She wanted to explore Lofoten, an archipelago of stunning islands within the Arctic Circle. It was at the top of her travel bucket list.
As things often happen when you apply the full weight of your attention and a healthy dose of wishful thinking, our Lofoten trip materialized in the most spectacular way. An introduction through friends-of-friends gave us the good fortune and pleasure of connecting with a person whose name is equally synonymous with Norway as it is with great adventure. Jorgen Amundsen is a man of many things. He is an adventurer, a visionary, a designer, an athlete and a great hearted guy. He also happens to carry the family DNA of the renowned explorer, Roald Amundsen.
Roald’s expeditions, first to the South Pole and first to navigate the Northern Passage, are not only historic; they are straight-up legendary. His enduring spirit serves as a North Star for Jorgen and his team to follow when exploring, adventuring or when simply crafting a life around the Norwegian philosophy of “friluftsliv”.
The word “friluftsliv” combines the Norwegian words for “free” (fri), “air” (luft), and “life” (liv). It is typically interpreted as “life in the open air”; yet, it signifies more than a direct translation. It’s a philosophy of finding play amongst everyday life, outdoors. Jorgen and team invited Tahiti and myself to sail along a section of the Lofoten islands within the Arctic Circle. After roughly 9,700 miles of travel to get there from Hawaii to Svolvaer in Norway, we arrived. From there, a dream trip unfolded, a bucket list item checked.
Lofoten really flipped a switch in Tahiti’s and my own collective minds. These islands have all the ingredients to fulfill any travel adventure. Lofoten looks and feels like the European Alps were magically grafted directly onto the calm of Mediterranean waters. Snowcapped jagged mountains arc downward into protected fjords and bays, powder white sandy beaches, hidden turquoise coves… and mythic surfing line ups.
We set sail on Alma, a faithful recreation of Gjoa, the boat that Roald Amundsen spent years navigating through the partially frozen Northern Passage from Norway to Alaska. The month was June when we arrived, and my daughter and I found ourselves sailing through frigid narrow waterways on a wooden ship in the land of the midnight sun. Long days folded into endless evenings without an actual sunset to punctuate the end of day or to activate our circadian rhythms.
My first day of wing surfing in Lofoten was actually at ‘night’. After a light dinner, we crawled into our berths for a short 8:00PM nap. By 10:30PM, I was throwing my wing and foil board off the boat for a session that would last throughout that night.
The midnight sun, as it turns out, is one of the most beautiful oxymorons in the English language. If ever there was a time where I was blissfully disoriented in the best way possible, this experience was it. I felt as if I was floating between two timelines in an unfamiliar yet beautiful and exciting world. I was literally levitating on a hyper modern sailing craft through ancient waters alongside a vintage and historic ship with my daughter and a brilliant crew. The past, the future, and the now, all collided in perfect harmony.
The following day was another opportunity to glide through time. We sailed, wing foiled and took in the sights. Alma is a relatively slow, sturdy and capable vessel. She is a sailing outpost capable of sustaining life in a potentially hostile winter environment. The wing hydrofoil – by contrast –is fast, nimble, silent. A satellite. A craft well suited for what felt like space walking in the proximity of the mother ship. The wing was a perfect craft for exploration into the narrow waterways between islands. Untethered, but not autonomous. These two sailing crafts from different centuries were wildly different yet – somehow – perfectly paired.
On land, the Norwegian philosophy of “friluftsliv” is deeply personified. Norwegians hike steep mountain trails the same way most people walk around neighborhood streets. Jorgen, Tahiti and the crew scaled one of the nearby “hills” while I grabbed the tow rope for a spin around the bay on my foil board. I was less than surprised by how clean and clear the arctic water appeared, but I was not prepared to see its blue water hue that rivals any tropical destination.
Tahiti and I surfed a spot in Unstad that I’m calling one of our best father-daughter surf sessions ever. A huge claim considering we live in one of the world’s most surf rich regions.
As Jorgen put it perfectly, “Although our worlds are far apart, they meet in the same eternal forces.” True that! The Amundsen spirit of great adventure is perhaps the only mindset necessary when exploring your own corner of the globe.
