Day 8 - Cross the Arctic Circle · 2026 Norway Trip

In the morning, we crossed the Arctic circle (66•33’N) and entered the Arctic region. This is a big event of the ship. First, all the passengers can make a guess of the exact passing time and enter the drawing the previous day. The winner will be announced at the ceremony today. Also, a postal officer will aboard the ship to stamp your postcard with a special Arctic Circle stamp.

The monument marked the Arctic Circle - picture taken from our room’s window

Whenever there was a ship crossing, the captain would blow our horn. Our room is on the left side of the ship and they all pass by our window.

I bought two post cards and have them stamped with Arctic circle postmark

One to Alex’s family and one to ourselves

Postmark the postcards by a post officer

There was a ceremony after the crossing to announce the winner who made the closest prediction of the crossing time - this is a special guest performing on top of the roof

In the afternoon, we reached Bodø (the word sounds almost like Buddha, the second o is one of 3 special characters in the Norwegian language, an o with a forward slash, Ø). We took an audio-guided bus tour to Saltrauman to see the largest tidal current in the world, at the mouth of a fjord (see end of Day 11 for fjord formation, esp. its mouth).

The strong current happens under the bridge when the fjord flow into the ocean

The tide was not high and hard to see the whirlpool

The tide was not very high when we arrived around 1pm. The phenomenon appears at the mouth of a fjord under a bridge. It is not very easy to see the whirlpool. There was another excursion that rides the RIB down to the current. We saw two boats there. One Korean couple from our group were in there.

https://youtu.be/hZFV1O8iqhs?is=DA1GHuQvEpsVkM07

We took an excursion to see the world largest tidal current at Saltraiman. There was another excursion to ride the RIB boat through the current.

In the evening, we reached Lofeten, it was a region that contained many islands.

Chris took us to a small World War II museum near the port. It was operated by an old gentleman and everything in the museum was his personal collection. The museum had only four or five rooms and it was packed with old uniforms, weapons, medals and all kind of memorabilia’s. Norway was occupied by Nazi from 1941 to 1945 and there were battles on the sea around Lofoten area. The old gentleman gave us a tour of some unique collections and told us stories.

There was one painting from Hitler that he bought with 200 euros. When he cut out the painting from the old frame, he found four cartoon drawings hidden under the painting, all signed by Hitler.

A painting by Hitler. The owner bought it with 200 euro. He then found four cartoon drawings hidden under the painting. They were all signed by Hitler

The drawings hidden under the landscape painting

He also showed us a big nazi flag taken out from a German ship sunken in a battle near Lofoten, and a painting autographed by old George Bush. Bush was a Navy warplane pilot during WW2, his gunman was a Norwegian from Lofoten.

A painting by George H. W. Bush, autographed too. He was a Navy pilot at WWII, his gunman was a Norwegian from Lofoten

Here is the museum's website with more information:

https://www.lofotenkrigmus.no/

A Korean couple and our tour manager Chris Rogers

Day 8 - Cross the Arctic Circle

Notes from the road

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