Tjøtta, Alstahaug - medieval church and scenic mountains by the Artic Circle in Norway.

Alstahaug is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway, rich in nature wonders and historical sites.

The coast at Altahaug: a multitude of small islands facing the 'Seven Sisters' mountain range.

The most interesting village is Tjøtta, on a small island at the tip of a narrow peninsula by the norwegian coast, and few kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. So, as you may already know, this is a quite possible area for the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas to have landed and later named "Ultima Thule".

The nearest main towns are Mo i Rana (see here) and Mosjøen.

Tjøtta

Coordinates: 65 ° 50' N, 12 ° 25' E
Population:  ~ 250

The old trading center by the quay.

Two historic sites here atract visitors: the old Farm and the stone church.

The main house of Tjøtta Farm is now a guesthouse. Between 1767 and 1929, the farm was family ownership, but after 1930 it became State property.

Tjøtta Låna

A "lån" is a long and narrow dwelling house. Låna is a two-storied building, erected from cogging jointed timber and clad with vertical red painted panelling. It is believed that the house was built around 1800 or maybe earlier.

Tjøtta church

The church was built on the outskirts of Tjøtta farm. The original church was probably built around 1000, when the reigning Viking chieftain Hårek Tjøtta were baptized at the farm in the year 999. The present day church was erected in 1851 in natural stone, designed as a long church with seating for 310.

Neo-gothic elements like the high windows decorate the walls.

Alstahaug, Alsten Island
(see map below)

Alstahaug village is famous for the Petter Dass Museum, installed on the previous vicariate house, and the onion dome church.

Alstahaug yard includes the museum and the church

Coordinates: 65° 57′ N 12° 34′E
         (just 60 km below the Arctic Circle)
Population (municipality) :   ~ 7300

The old parsonage

The Parsonage at Alstahaug dates back to the first half of the 18th century, and has well-preserved interiors from the 18th and 19th centuries. Petter Dass was a parish priest from 1689 and until his death.

The rooms are unchanged from what they were centuries ago.

Alstahaug medieval church

As part of the Petter Dass Museum, the precious Russian-inspired church sits in Alstahaug yard, on the southern tip of the island Alsten.

One of few surviving medieval churches in northern Norway, the stone church was built in the 1100 -1200s, in local quarried soapstone. It is Romanesque with a rectangular nave and narrow square choir.

This region was dominated by Viking chieftains opposed to the christianization of Norway lead by king Olav II; so this is probably one of the first churches ever built in Alstahaug.

The onion dome and the roof.

The church is built in Romanesque style with typical round arches and thick walls. The south portal, which is situated on the choir left side, is considered to be one of the loveliest from the Romanesque period in Norwegian architecture. It has a base with an Attican profile, which rests on an embedded column with spherical-shaped capitals. The arch's abutment stones and the actual arch are decorated with carved “sunken stars” and the columns have the Attic base profile. These stars are not known used after 1200, making dating of the church easier. 

The side porch is tooped with an arch with star decoration, which is typical of 1200 romanesque.

It is uncertain what the weekend church has been devoted to, but there is reason to believe it has been devoted to St. Olav.

The beautiful choir and organ.

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When passing through Alstahaug waters, the Hurtigruten coastal express must sail under the elegant bridge over the Leirfjorden, at 66º 02' N.

The 1065 metre long Helgeland Bridge connects Alstahaug to the mainland.


Alsten Island and The Seven Sisters (De syv søstre)

The majestic 'Seven Sisters' in Alsten are a mountain range to take anyone's breath away. The seven peaks are a rock formation on the southeast of the island.

Thrusting their heads above the shoreline, they form a dramatic backdrop to the myriad of islands and the lush landscape.

Skjæringen, at 1,037 metres, is the highest peak. The escalation is even rather easy, access has been improved.

Their beauty may be admired from the cycling path or from the deck of the Hurtigruten express ship.

Hurtigruten offers a memorable experience. The ships arrive at Alstahaug every day, and they go slowly and close enough for the joy of its passengers.

Kwethluk, a small Yup'ik village in Alaska's hinterland, served by hovercraft !

Kwethluk (Kuiggluk in Alaskan Yup'ik) is a village near Bethel in Alaska, at the confluence of two rivers - the Kwethluk and the Kuskokwim.

Kwethluk river

Kwethluk

Coordinates: 60° 48′ N, 161° 25′ W
                    (sub arctic, tundra)
Population: ~ 800
                    (native Yup'ik residents)

Kwethlik suffers for being cut off from the rest of the world - there are no roads in or out. The village is frequently flooded, so houses are built on stilts, or on raised platforms, and instead of streets there are boardwalks from door to door.

A typical house - wooden walls, raised above ground, fish hanging to dry around the sunniest window.

A post office was established in 1947

The school has around 200 students, who speak Yupik as their native tongue.

School playground.

A basic need - the washeteria.

In winter, mud is covered by hard ice and transport is easier, everyone has his snowmobile.

Subsistence is still the way of life for the villagers; they spend their summers fishing and catching salmon, caribou and berries of all kinds.

The rivers abound in fish, but small boat fishing is just a family affair.

The tundra offers a variety of berries.

Women in traditional Kuspuks.

Elderly Yupik at home: minimal living standards.

The historic St. Nicholas Orthodox Church is a wood-frame structure, resting on a log foundation, and is completely built out of cedar. A gabled roof supports two small onion domes with crosses. It was built in 1935.

Well, now, this is what makes this village different: a hovercraft regular service down the Kuskokwim and Kwethluk Rivers. The USPS Hovercraft runs twice each week, every week of the year. It brings in mail and supplies.

The world's only mail-delivery hovercraft !

The Hovercraft floats and "docks" into the village. Just a mud embankment that has been cleared of bush serves as docking quay.

But for people transportation the plane is by far the best option. An airstrip was cleared in 1956, and flights are operated by local companies.

A Cessna landing at Kwethluk.

Sunset at river Kwethluk.

Antipodes Islands - hostile and barren, the first land to see New Year.

For a change, I'm describing today a very southernly, sub-antarctic island, where just a few ever layed their feet - the small Antipodes Island, with some even smaller islets around, all belonging to New Zealand.

At the beginning of every New Year, the Antipodes Islands are the first piece of land to see the change, although nobody, or at most one or two scientists got to experience it. They shelter in a small hut in the main island's northwest coast, at Hut Cove.

The volcanic islands of the Antipodes Island group lie 860 km to the southeast of New Zealand. The uninhabited group consists of the main Island, Bollons Island to the north, and several other islets and rocks. All are inhospitable volcanic territory in subantarctic waters.

The terrain on main Antipodes island has been infested with a mouse plague, introduced in the 20th century (*); efforts are taking place to erradicate them.

The main Antipodes Island is a harborless series of steep basalt cliffs covering five miles by three miles. Two permanent huts allow for a small crew to watch for the nature reserve, make biometric tests and monitoring results.

Antipodes Island
Coordinates: 49° 40′ S, 178° 46′ E
Area (main island) : 22 km2
Maximum elevation:  402 m

The island group is a World Heritage nature reserve and there is no general public access.

Occasionally the small sheltering space has to be increased for a scientific team.

Helicopter is the only practicable transport. A small hangar was installed above the hut camp.

The highest point on the islands is Mount Galloway (402 m), which is also a recently active volcano, although an exact eruption date is unknown.

Mount Galloway.

The rounded summmit was first reached in 1903; it's mostly clear ground, matted with Poa Litorosa grass and Pleurophyllum (a flowering megaherb).

The island's top is covered by wind-swept tussock grass.

Covering the island’s inland, there is a mixture of grasses, herbs, shrubs, and ferns. The dense ferns and tussock grasses deserve particular mention because they make impossible the simple act of walking in a straight line.

Coastal red-tussock makes up the rugged landscape of Antipodes Island.

In spite of its moderate latitude, there are no trees here. The problem is not the ice or cold - annual mean above 5ºC -, it's the wind, same as happens in the Kerguelen Islands: westerly gales blow all the time quite strong, and cold fronts bring terrible storms. No tree would survive time enough to grow.

The northwest coast, looking to Orde Lees and Winward Islands.

Bolloms Island seen from Antipodes.
[photo K. Walker]

Frightening basalt stacks.

One of the most spectacular sites is the narrow straight between the main Island and Leeward Island:

Storm near Hut Cove, with Bolloms Island in the far.

Scenic basalt cliffs give evidence of the volcanic past; below, a bird colony nesting slope, at Anchorage Bay.

History
(short)

The Antipodes Islands were discovered in 1800 by Captain Henry Waterhouse of H.M.S. Reliance. Soon, since 1804, sealing vessels arrived to the Antipodes, and though the sealing grounds were jealously guarded at the time, in a few years a sealing boom on the islands almost extinguished the fur seal species. By the 1830s seals were all but wiped out and sealing in the Antipodes came to an end. Only since the 1950s the population started recovering, there are a few thousands presently.

Since 1998, the NZSAI (New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands) are inscribed in Uneco's World Heritage list. The islands truly belong to birds, lush vegetation and some occasional adventurers in rubber boats...

The real star of the archipel is its unique Parakeet, the green-only endemic species:

'Cyanoramphus unicolor' is endemic to these uninhabited and protected islands. A treasure.

The red-crowned parakeet, 'Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae', is also commonly found here as in all New Zealand islands, namely Stewart Island.

Well, it was not easy getting all this documentation about such a remote, small, ignored territory in the antipode coordinates. I bet most of you had never heard or read about it. That's my 'mission' here at Ultima Thule - finding arctic or antarctic "neverlands" where I'll never go, and probably neither will you. The last places of mistery and adventure on Earth.

Antipodes from above. Lee and Windword left, Bolloms up right, facing the Cove, and Leeward at right.


(*) probably from a wrecked Spanish ship