As we docked I finally caught site of our home’s owner, Roar.  He had a stocky, rugged figure, with uncomely red hair and beard that didn’t so much suggest slovenliness as a man above appearances.  He stood on the dock as we slathered ourselves in fish guts puffing on a cigarette and confidently lecturing on the unmatched pleasure of dining on fresh fish.

“Everyone comes here, they say to me, this fish, this fish is the best.  Of course it is.  How can you get any better.  These people, they come from the middle of Europe, there’s no fish there, the fish they get are old, frozen.  There’s no reason to eat that, they might as well eat nothing.  Fish, you have to eat them just after catching, otherwise, no good, day later, waste, use it for bait….”

I have to admit, he had a point.  It was the best fish I ever had, even if I couldn’t find the sublime flakes just behind the gills.  Regrettably though, due to my spastic butchering skills, I got more of the meal on me than in me. 

Having done so, I discovered, in keeping with the eco-friendly theme, Norwegian washing machines use as little water as possible.  It goes something like this: put your clothes in, deposit the soap into one of the seven holes on top of the machine, watch it fill up with almost, but not quite, a liter of water and wait two hours.  Cleanest clothes I ever had.

I felt like a hero being seduced on his quest. Here I had found my own little Casablanca where I could stay as long as I wanted, eat whatever I could catch and converse with misfits and lost souls who, like myself, found themselves in the foggy netherworld of the Lofotens.

But like any self-respecting hero, I powered on. Boarding a bus to  A°(pronounced 'Ow'), I journeyed to the minute, historically preserved fishing hamlet complete with cod drying racks and compact red fishing huts that perched on the southern tip of the island. 

I wandered from the bus station down to the village hypnotized by the almost oppressive beauty surrounding me. The haunting barren peaks puncturing the ocean surface were still raw from the glaciers that once worked here thousands of years past. The valleys were filled with ominously placid lakes, short grasses and peat bogs. It would be remarkable if you managed to take a photo that wasn’t jaw-dropping. And yet the serene scenery touched the mind in such a way to evoke anxiety, a place permanently frozen before a storm, it’s peace somehow eroding one’s mind. This was certainly the right place for Poe.

It was evidently the right place to learn the country was closing for the winter as well.  After convincing a fellow on a roof that I was indeed real and in need of lodging, I inquired about my quarry. No boats were available to go see it and probably wouldn’t be till next May. None. May. Ow. I stood there in full sight of the tiny rock island my maelstrom foamed behind. I turned my head around to the dark cliffs behind me and stared at a rowboat bobbing in a lake at their base. Poe would have to wait. And strangely, I didn’t mind anymore.

Days later, headed south, as I walked the MS Midnatsol’s deck, I watched the Lofotens fade back into a mist drifting in from the east. I leaned my elbows on the railing and closed my eyes.  I was coming back someday and it wouldn’t matter then either if I made it to the whirlpool. I wanted to taste the vast freedom, the undisciplined forces and haunting spirit of the place that imbued themselves not only in the mountains but in the people themselves – and, I admit, to see if I can finish my shower in under two minutes. 

Poe introduced the word maelstrom into the English language and I would have added ‘Ow’ if someone hadn’t beaten me to it.

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