Midnight Sunbeams; or, Bits of Travel Through the Land of the Norseman

by Edwin Coolidge Kimball

But we never tired of the delicious lobsters we had every night for supper, which were big fellows like those formerly caught along the New England coast.

As we sat down to the supper table the first evening we imagined ourselves at a cheese exhibition, for arranged down the centre of the table were twelve different varieties of cheese. What they were named we never knew, but all tasted different, and ranged in strength from the mildest of cheese to the Gamla Ost (old cheese), which from its hoary, wizened, and furrowed appearance, seemed to be the grandfather of them all. The Mysost is made of goats’ milk boiled until the water is evaporated, forming a sort of sugar of milk, which is pressed into square cakes of a light chocolate color, weighing from two to five pounds. It is generally quite soft, is cut into extremely thin slices, and at first taste seems to be a sweetened mixture of soap and sand, but one can cultivate a taste for it and grow to like it. It is a great favorite with children and ladies, and often appears on the table enclosed in a case of tissue paper, which is perforated and cut into various ornamental designs, with a bright ribbon tied around the top.

Both at breakfast and supper the table was covered with an array of sardines, anchovies, caviar, fat herring in oil, cold hams, smoked reindeer meat and tongues, and ten different varieties of long cold sausages, from which one was free to cut liberal slices. The whole collection looked as if it had made numerous voyages to the North Cape, and had basked in the midnight sunbeams for several seasons.

We attempted to eat some of the smoked reindeer meat, but it was like trying to masticate an old rubber shoe, and we gave up in despair.

This collection, taking the place of the smörgasbord, constitutes the regular stand-bys at every breakfast and supper, and in addition we were served with fish, eggs, and hot meats. There is always an abundance of food, and good of its kind, but we missed the fruit and vegetables, which, with the exception of potatoes, cannot be grown in Norway except near Bergen and in a few localities in the south; and we tired of the ever-recurring salmon and fish.

The entire coast of Norway is cut up by innumerable fjords, which are long bays or arms of the sea, penetrating far inland between rocky cliffs, contracting as they advance until many of them end in narrow creeks. Extending along nearly the whole coast is a fringe of islands, forming what is called the “island belt.” The course of the steamer is between these islands and the mainland, so there is very little motion, and it is only where there is a break in this belt of islands, when the steamer crosses a wide fjord where it opens into the sea, or goes out into the open ocean, that one feels the swell and movement. As the steamers continue within this “blessed island belt” the greater part of the way to the North Cape, the voyage is mostly robbed of the miseries of sea-sickness.

The first night of the journey was Saint John’s eve. Following an ancient custom, great bonfires blazed along the coast, from eleven o’clock until after midnight. Wherever there was a small fishing settlement, little farm house, or solitary hut,—high on a neighboring rocky point the flames leaped heavenward; both forward and in the rear the coast glowed with these great spots of fire, and amid the solitude, wild scenery, and bright twilight, the effect was extremely weird. It was the evening of the longest day of the year, and although we were not yet within the region of perpetual day, yet at half-past eleven we could read fine print with ease, and the captain said it would grow no darker.

Seen from a distance, a mass of rock forming an island looks like a man’s hat floating on the water, the crown and broad rim being distinctly outlined. It is called the Torghätta (market hat), and about half way up the crown, which is eight hundred feet high, it is pierced by a natural tunnel, whose east entrance is sixty-two feet high and west end two hundred and forty-six feet high.

As you pass on the west side and are opposite the tunnel, the opening at a distance appears like a patch of snow upon the dark rock; approaching nearer you see the walls of the tunnel, with a view of the sky through the smaller opening on the east side, yet after advancing a certain distance in the steamer and looking backward, nothing is seen but a solid wall of rock, with no intimation of an opening.