Norway and the Disappearing Winter
Norway may be the best place in the world to celebrate the cold — while it lasts.
Photographs by Chloe Dewe Mathews
Solastalgia. It’s the word for the existential depression conjured by bearing witness to climate change. I was crippled by it. And then I found out I was pregnant.
As a science and nature writer, I had grappled with climate change in my reporting, but not so much on a personal level. And admittedly, my climate anxiety manifested itself in small ways: I dreaded mild winters and torrential downpours that should’ve been snowstorms, and generally longed for a time when the park by my house would freeze over in late November and stay a desolate tundra until March. Now my fear narrowed down to a single question: Would my daughter ever encounter enough snow to build a snowman? And so, the last week of the year, I found myself seven months pregnant and headed to Norway, the gateway to the Arctic Circle.
Norwegians have a saying: There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. It’s just the right attitude for someone who wanted winter immersion. With nearly half the country above the Arctic Circle, there isn’t the option of avoiding cold temperatures, so you bundle up and head out into the elements. Morketiden, or the murky time, when the sun peeks above the horizon for only a couple hours daily between November and March, is hardly a deterrent for those looking to play outside. In fact, the low light can make for some of the best conditions for spotting the aurora borealis, particularly in the Lofoten Islands, where, around every bend of the highway, jagged peaks explode out of turquoise-even-in-winter waters that call out to be surfed, toured, fished, and swum, frigidity be damned.
Norwegians have a saying: There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
Take a look at a map of the country, and its coastline appears eaten by moths, the land frayed by the last ice age. When we landed, we had more than 15,000 miles of fjord inlets to explore, whether by touring them in an open-air rubber raft (outfitted in an Arctic survival suit that barely fit over my growing belly) or taking a snowshoe hike. Northward, there were dog-sled and reindeer races, like a fairy tale. We were a few weeks too early to participate in the Polar Night Half Marathon, where participants run through Tromsö wearing spiked running shoes during the bitter cold of January, but a quick glimpse at the website’s FAQ page underscored why I’d babymooned in the tundra: Answering a question about conditions, the site said, “We will leave it up to the weather gods!”
After a week of snow-packed treks and cozy fireside meals, I found myself on the final night of the year in Svolvær, one of the Lofotens’ largest municipalities, a blizzard raging outside. As the clock crept closer to midnight and the snow showed no signs of letting up, I channeled the Norwegian spirit, bundled up, and headed out. There, to my happy surprise, I found what seemed like the entire town in the streets, singing and lighting off fireworks, fearless and festive in the driving snow. Surrounded by a crowd of joyful strangers, I vowed to remember this moment so I could tell it to my daughter — so she’d understand that while there’d always be a warm, safe place waiting for her back at home, winter is a season to be celebrated, perhaps now more than ever.
About the author: Kea Krause is a writer based out of New York. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Believer, Longreads, Grist, Lapham’s Quarterly, and Catapult, among other media outlets, and has been anthologized in Best American Science and Nature Writing and Best American Travel Writing.
