ENDLESS DAYS
They call it Scandinavian summer—a mixture of overcast grey, drizzling rain and long warm days of “midnight sun”. But when the clouds and rain drift away, and all that’s left are the long warm days, summer above the Arctic Circle may be hard to beat. The problem is, in northern Norway those days are few. Although the last ice-age finished thousands of years ago and the ice withdrew—like the rest of Scandinavia, it once covered the country completely—cool, moist weather never left for good. So when summer took a turn toward warm sunshine, and an opportunity arose to visit an old friend who’d recently established his own guiding company in the northern Norwegian town of Narvik, a couple hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, I knew I had to take my chances.
IT’S MID-JULY AND EXTENSIVE rainy periods have finally made way for blue skies and pleasant temperatures. I’m standing at the foot of Narvikfjellet ( meaning mount or mountain in Norwegian), located just a few hundred meters from Narvik’s city centre. A cable car whisks riders 656m above sea level to the bike park on top. I’m expecting to ride its trails today, which have been gaining international attention, but my friend Daniel has other plans. He promises not to follow the flock but instead to show me his favourite single tracks. We load bikes on his van and drive across the city towards the—still under construction when I visited—Hålo-galand Bridge, set to become the city’s new icon as
