2026 North to the Nordics and Nordkapp, Wed July 01, 2026

Mosjøen, Norway → Bodø, Norway

Today's schedule is set by the ferry schedule for tomorrow.
The Bodø → Moskenes ferjekai (ferry) takes 3h15m and departs at 1:15am, 3:15am, 6:00am, 10:00am, etc.

It's reasonable to take the 10am landing at 1:15pm and then make 2h20m more to one of the several hotels in Lofoten (e.g. Nordis Hotel Lofoten, Austnesfjordgata 36). From there it's an easy day to Tromsø.

But that doesn't work because there are 3 ferries on Fv17 on the way to Bodø, so no way to make the 4pm ferry or even to realiably make the check-in cutoff time for the 6:30pm. But during this high tourist time, the ferry sells out. I was too slow booking and was forced to wait a day. Just as well, I could use an easy day. So, this day will end a little early in Bodø so I can get a nice dinner, then I'll have a relaxing morning tomorrow before boarding at 1:00pm for the 2:00pm departure. That gets me to Lofoten at 5:30pm, which sounds late, but remember no sunset, and I'll be well rested. That makes it reasonable to do a short (3hr) ride to Svolvær Lofoten after disembarking. So, that's my plan for tomorrow, and thus informs my plan for today.

Ferries today

1. Levang →Nesna
2. Kilboghavn → Jektvik (crosses the Arctic Circle)
3. Ågskardet → Forøy

Also a long tunnel called Svartistunnelen (7.6 km) later in the day in addition to the (10.7 km) Toven-tunnelen right at the start.

The day started with light rain and cold, like 11°C or ~52°F.

I wanted to buy gas, but there was nothing near Blåfjell hundesenter. Google suggested a place on the other side of the Toven tunnel, but after the brief detour I found the place which Google Maps listed as a gas station (FB GARASJE) didn't have gas. Google now lists it as a Tire shop. Anyway, the ride to the first ferry was a reasonably short 30 km and fuel was available on the other side after disembarking in Nesna. On the ferry, I immediately bought coffee from the self service kitchen and sat to warm up and dry off a bit during the 25 minute ride.

The morning was really misty, low overcast, fog, and essentially no views. Such a shame as this highway 15 is supposed to be another one of those national scenic roads. At 9:20am, the overcast was lifting a bit and the rain had stopped. There's hope. The roads are still slick, but I can see across the fjord.

I stopped at a Joker grocery store in Utskarpen and picked up some breakfast: pastry, banana, milk and nuts. Outside, I spoke with a couple of bicyclists (Swiss IIRC) who were biking in the cold and the rain towards Nordkapp. They didn't seem to mind the cold, but they didn't like stopping to adjust rain gear and layers. We wished each other well, and continued on our way.

After 10am, the overcast began to lift and by 11am bits of blue sky were visible. It's going to be a nice day after all.

At 11:20am I was in line for the 2nd ferry Kilboghavn → Jektvik. This one crosses the Arctic Circle. The waters around the ferry port was glassy reflective and picture postcard with red buildings and white accents. On the ferry, I talked with a kid (18yo) who was riding with his dad on another motorcycle and his mom and sister in a motorhome. The mom came over and told us when we were crossing the Arctic Circle. That's it, no more sunsets for a while! 30 minutes later we are disembarking and riding to the 3rd and last ferry crossing for today. I mad that one just in time.

In line for the ferry, I met an 18 year old kid riding a Yamaha MT-07. He was super knowledgable about motorcycles and very interested in specifications. He had recently gotten a big fine for speeding, something like $1500 and was one point away from losing his license. He was riding with his father (on a Triumph Tiger 1200) and I would later find out, chased by his mother and sister in a motorhome. Cool family. The kid and I talked almost all the 30+ minute ferry ride. We'd meet again in line at the 3rd ferry and I'd talk to his dad and mom a bit. His mom notified us when we were crossing the Arctic Circle. I didn't see the monument, but I have a picture from Linda when she saw it from this same ferry.

The Polar Circle

Today I cross the Polar Circle AKA The Arctic Circle. I'll be on the Kilboghamn → Oldervikais ferry when I pass Polarkreis Denkmal, a globe monument at 66.555° N, 13.215° E. In the summer of 2026, the Arctic Circle is at 66°33′51.0″ N (66.5641°), but it is drifting north at 14.5 meters per year. Google Maps doesn't have a precise position of the monument. No aerial photo for that location, just satellite without sufficient resolution to see the monument itself. Also, many of the user-supplied photos for that location are wrong — many Nordkapp pics uploaded for the Polar Circle. Earth currently has an axial tilt of about 23.44°, but the tilt is decreasing at a rate of about 46.8″[9] per century. This means the Arctic Circle is moving North at about 0.00013° per year. A degree is about 40,075 km / 360 = 111.3km, so the Arctic Circle is drifting Northward at 14 meters per year.

Glacier Svartisen

The next big sighting was the Svartisen Glacier. Svartisen is Northern Norway's largest glacier, ~400 square kilometres in area and a maximum thickness of 600 metres. In the "Engenbreen" branch of the glacier, the glacial mass drops from 1200 metres MSL down the mountainside, almost down to the Holands-fjord. The ice can move up to two metres in 24 hours. I only saw the edge from my vantage point on Ytre Holandsfjordvelen.

In this region, there are endless waterfalls cascading down from that massive ice sheet slowly melting in the early summer heat. I turned up a tiny dirt road to get close to a waterfall which was an array of a dozen streams down a granite face. Super cool spot. Got a little video of ridine the scooter down the dirt road afterwards.

More fjord and island views. A brief pause for road construction, right over another waterfall, before finally riding into Bodø at 7:15pm. Glad I wasn't trying to make the ferry to Lofoten this afternoon!

Bodø is a town of ~50,000 people (a bit bigger than McMinnville Oregon). It is the second largest town in Northern Norway after Tromsø north of the Arctic Circle and the

The largest communities north of the Arctic Circle are in Russia, Norway, and Sweden:

1. Murmansk, Russia (population 295,374)
2. Norilsk, Russia (178,018)
3. Tromsø, Norway (75,638)
4. Vorkuta, Russia (58,133)
5. Bodø, Norway (52,357)
6. Salekhard, Russia (51,186) [right on the circle]
7. Harstad, Norway (24,703)
8. Kiruna, Sweden (22,841)

• Rovaniemi, Finland (62,667) [6km south of the circle, biggest in Finland]
• Sisimiut, Denmark/Greenland (5,600)
• Utqiagvik, Alaska (5,000) [formerly known as Barrow]
• Inuvik, Canada (3,137)
• Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway (~2,500) [78.24°N]

I had always thought of Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia (population 1,633,595) as being very far north and very cold, but it is at 55°N, 1280 km south of the circle. Other cities at this latitude include: Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada; Thompson, Manitoba, Canada; Ketchikan, Alaska; Copenhagen, Denmark; Klaipėda, Lithuania; and Daugavpils, Latvia. Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki are much farther north than Novosibirsk. In fact, Moskow is about the same latitude as Novosibirsk.

Dinner in Bodø

In Bodø, I was looking for a fish stew and the Google reviews mentioned their fish soup, so I picked a fancy restaurant, Bryggerikaia which means Brewery Quay on the water at the port. I got the fish soup, a herring platter, and a small side salad. The prices were shockingly high. About $82 for that meal. I'm not doing a lot of eating out in Norway, and this experience reinforced my tendency to eat from grocery stores for the rest of the trip. The food was good. But that Norweigian herring has a weird combination of sweet and anise spice flavor that is hard to get used to.

After dinner, I went back to my tiny room at the Bodø Hotell and caught up on uploading my pictures and calling Kathi. Tomorrow I have a lazy morning before bording the ferry at 1pm for a 2pm departure for the 3.5 hr boat ride to Moskenes, Lofoten.


Blåfjell → Bodø

Blåfjell to Bodø (6h47m 350km) 3 ferries and crossing the arctic circle

Ride Log