Alps, reindeer and a mission to locate some Cornish emigrants

Having left the islands and Tromsø behind us, we are now finally on the last leg of our journey up to Nordkapp, the Northern Cape. First we had to turn south from Tromsø and rejoin the E6, the road from south to north in Norway, which we last saw a couple of weeks ago at Mosjøen when we left it to take the coastal road up to Bodø and the ferry to the Lofotens. 

The E6 up here goes through wilder, more muscular scenery, and we were treated to a glorious stretch up the vast Lyngenfjord, with the Lyngen Alps glowering at us from the other side. This is a 90km long mountain range with 1800m (6000ft) peaks and multiple glaciers. The mountains are now a playground for climbers and extreme skiers, but wouldn’t you know they were first climbed by a Yorkshireman: William Cecil Slingsby, the adopted father of Norwegian mountaineering. 

Glaciers everywhere you look

Some seriously high waterfalls

You can almost see the ice moving

Nick is concerned for the fate of his Poohstick

We stopped overnight at a rest area just a little way from the main road where the old road gave access to trails through woodland and moorland, and along a stream. An ideal spot for me to run, and for us all to walk up to a small lake with a picnic area. Summer may be short here, but while it lasts there are enough picnic tables scattered around the countryside for most of the population to eat outside on any given day. Of course most of them have fire pits too for when it gets colder, but they are strictly off limits during the summer months - in fact there have been forest fire warnings for much of the time we have been here. 

A breathtaking view of Kvænangenfjord 

After enjoying our walk we made a late-ish start, and found ourselves climbing quickly to a mountain pass which enjoyed spectacular views over Kvænangenfjord, another of the great fjords which stretch down from the north towards the point where Norway, Sweden and Finland all meet. There was little  more than an hours driving before we crossed the border from Troms County into Finnmark, the largest and least inhabited of Norway’s regions. No sooner had we passed the sign than I hit the brakes to avoid our first reindeer, which was standing in the middle of the road daring the traffic to come closer. We saw many more in the half hour or so before we pulled off the road. They are herded by the Sami people, and allowed to graze wild like sheep. I was just relieved to see cattle grids at the entrance to the tunnels, as I didn’t fancy meeting one in there!

Finnmark at last

Florence outside Kåfjord church

Our stop tonight was in the small town of Kåfjord, where we had a mission to undertake. Now little more than a village, Kåfjord was once a town of a thousand inhabitants, one of the biggest in Finnmark County, as there were several copper mines here. In the 1820s the mines were established by British speculators who brought over eight Cornish miners who had the expertise to extract the ore. Six of them returned home after a year, but Nick had been asked to record any evidence of those Cornish emigrants and the ones who remained. We found the church, and the graves of three children with Cornish names, and an English mine superintendent. Work is afoot to discover more, and tomorrow we’ll visit a mine site, and go into Alta, where there are rumoured to be more Cornish connections in the church there.

The young son of Charles Trenery and Ann Luckes