How to Mourn a “Witch”

Parsing the architecture of memorial in Norway’s witch capital

This Halloween, I took myself to Vardø, the “witch capital of Norway.” I’ve desperately wanted to visit Vardø for about three years, ever since I stumbled across pictures of its Steilneset Memorial: a bifurcated monument to the 91 people burned at the stake during Vardø’s seventeenth-century witch panic. Co-created by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor and French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, the memorial was Bourgeois’ last public work, and if you need a reason to get to Vardø (spoiler alert: you do), it’s a good one.

I had a secret second reason to visit Vardø, which was that I wanted to research it for my next novel. (I say “next” because, while I’ve yet to publish a novel, I’ve written one. It’s on the market, and fingers are crossed.) So between the Steilneset and the busy, busy workings of my febrile imagination, I was going to get to Vardø, hell or high water. I pitched a travel piece to The Outline, who bought it. (You can read it here, if you’ve not already.)

It’s hard to visualize how much in the middle of nowhere Vardø is. It’s not only the most northern city in the world…