Tromsø (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈtrʊmsuh’] is the largest city and the largest urban area in Northern Norway, and the second largest city and urban area north of the Arctic Circle. As our lovely guide Ulrikka from Germany who came 5 years ago and fell in love with Tromsø proudly said “you can add the word ‘northernmost’ to almost everything connected with this city” and she did!!
By the way did you know that the letter ‘ø’ is from Danish and means "island" (Norwegian: øy)? Follow this Blog and you will learn a fact-a-day, well you will when I eventually manage to get it published!
What follows is an introduction to Tromsø, summarised from Wikipedia.
Most of Tromsø, including the city centre, is located on the small island of Tromsøya some 217 miles north of the Arctic Circle and is connected to the mainland by the Tromsø Bridge and the Tromsøysund Tunnel – that has a roundabout at its centre - and to the island of Kvaløya by the Sandnessund Bridge.
The city is warmer than most other places located on the same latitude, due to the warming effect of the Gulf Stream. Tromsø experiences a sub-arctic climate because winter temperatures are just cold enough to qualify and the summer season is short. Tromsø has a reputation in Norway for getting a lot of snow in the winter. The all-time record for snow depth was set on 29th April 1997, when 240 centimetres (94.5 in) of snow on the ground was recorded;the average though is about 150cms.
The Midnight Sun occurs from about 18 May to 26 July but because of Tromsø's high latitude, twilight is long, meaning there is no real darkness between late April and mid-August. The sun remains below the horizon during the Polar Night from about 26 November to 15 January, but due to the mountains that surround the city the sun is not visible from 21 November to 21 January. The return of the sun is an occasion for celebration and is marked by the Day of the Sun (Soldagen), mainly by children.
Tromsø is in the middle of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) zone, and reputed to be one of the best places in the world to observe this phenomenon. Because of the planet's rotation, Tromsø moves into the aurora zone around 6 pm, and moves out again around midnight but this natural phenomenon is not visible between late April and mid-August. I think I’m going to fix a cruise with Hurtigruten to try to witness this light show in a future year.
The area has been inhabited since the end of the ice age about 10,000 yeas ago. In Tønsvika, just outside the city limits, a settlement dating from late Stone Age (4000–1800 BC) has been found.
The Tromsø area has from old times been a home to Sámi culture. The Sami people are mostly associated with the herding of Reindeer and populated a wide area from just south of Tromsø, around the North Cape, much of northern Finland and part of the Kola peninsular in Russia. There were in fact many tribe/groups of Sami with a wide variety of languages and dialects. Like many indigenous native groups around the word they have often been constrained in their attempts to preserve their traditions and culture but today the Sami peoples are fully integrated into Norwegian culture. Whilst many Sami prefer to retain the old ways of raising and herding reindeer many now have professions and live and work in the northern communities of Norway.
The photo was taken on a trip to the North Cape (Nordkapp 0n 28th June 2013) at a small Sami encampment mainly established for the benefit of tourists. The old man in the photo is wearing the traditional costume with his 4-cornered hat of blue known as a ‘Four Winds Hat’. The shape and number of pointed corners designates the tribe from which the man originates akin to the Scottish tartan. The traditional costume includes shoes with upturned toe ends; these are not for decoration but to facilitate locking the shoes into skis. The shoes were often lined with hay, to keep bare feet warm and dry especially if sealskin was used for the shoe outers.
The lavvu is the traditional tipi type dwelling that could be easily transported to follow the migrating reindeer herds. The Sami also had more settled dwellings built on roundels of stone with a thick, domed turf roof that provided excellent insulation.
There is a huge amount on the Sami People at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people
To continue this short history of Tromsø, Arctic hunting, from Novaya Zemlya to Canada, started up around 1820 and by 1850, Tromsø was a major centre trading from Arkhangelsk (Archangel to you but see why in a later posting) to Bordeaux. Perhaps this explains why during the 1800s, Tromsø became known as the "Paris of the North"? The reason for this description is still disputed but is thought to have come about because the people in Tromsø appeared to be far more 'civilized' than expected by travellers from the south.
Despite the widespread occupation of Norway by Germany in WWII Tromsø escaped without any damage, although the German battleship Tirpitz was sunk off the Tromsøy Island on 12 November 1944. The Tirpitz was located by the RAF and sunk using two ‘Tallboy’ bombs. The damage was so severe that she capsized in a matter of seconds with the loss of over a 1,000 German lives. On our departure we sailed close to where the ship capsized although there is nothing to see since between 1948 and 1957 she was broken up for salvage.
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