Our Travel Journal: Havila Castor: North Cape Plateau

The peninsula of Knivskjelodden, in Norway is the true northernmost point of Europe. That's all I'm going to say about that! Today we docked in Honningsvåg, three bus loads of Germans, and one busload of Frenchmen plus Sandy and I headed up the road for the hour long drive to North Cape, the celebrated northernmost point of Europe!

The Celebrated Northernmost Point in Europe

Knivskjelodden Peninsula

There are only five countries with territory above 71° longitude: United States (Alaska), Canada, Russia, Norway, and forgotten Denmark (Greenland)

The drive was across the island of Magerøya. This is an island that was completely beat down by the glaciers. What remains of once mighty mountains are flat-topped plateaus edged by massive sea cliffs facing north with glacier spotted hills tilting all the way to the southern shore. The island has no trees and and only scrubby plants.

Does't look like the anything could survive here, but the Sami, the simi-nomadic indigenous people of this area have figured it out. Reindeer! The reindeer seem to eat anything they can find on the island and there is a large herd here. The reindeer migrate off of the island, swimming a mile and a half through the frigid waters of the Barentshavet (Barents Sea) to the mainland, where after another 350 miles of overland migration these tough, tough animals spend the winter The Sami nomadically follow them. The Sami now live in houses on both ends of the migration and they herd on all terrain vehicles, but the concept remains the the same.

Sápmi Flag (Sami)

I find it interesting that at Christmas time every year the male reindeer will have lost their antlers but the females keep theirs until the spring. I've seen the pictures of Santa and his sleigh, they all have antlers. That means that you know "Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen; Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen" but did we know that they were all chick reindeer?