The midnight sun in Norway at the 70th degree of latitude

Continent or ocean
Country
Region

On the western side of the Lyngen Alps there is a bay called Sør-Lenangen in front of the village of the same name. On the headland opposite is the village of Lenangsøyra, which is also part of Lyngen Municipality in Troms. If you walk north along the headland along the coast, you will reach a spectacular coastal landscape with craggy rocks and individual rock figures that appear so artistically carved by wind and weather that the locals have even given them names at their tip (Nesodden).

Once you have made the passage along the coast over the rocks to the top, you will reach a small lighthouse. The Ullsfjord now lies to the west and in the distance you can see the island of Reinøya with its striking range of hills. Here, almost at the 70th parallel, we set up our camera equipment around 10:30 p.m., because we want to photograph a special event: sunset and sunrise at midnight.

Gif der Mitternachtssonne

Now in May the sun no longer disappears behind the horizon but rises again after a short "touchdown". We're lucky with the weather, the mood lighting created by the low-lying sun is fantastic and it's almost impossible to decide which motifs are worth capturing.

After we have decided on a position and taken many pictures of the landscape, we create around 150 individual photos of the sun's movement from sunset to sunrise. We show these recordings as a small video at the end of the article.

The way back around 01:00 in the morning will be long. The pink reflections of the Lyngen Alps in Sør-Lenangen Bay are too beautiful. But also the now golden shimmering village of Lenangsøyra makes us stop between the slippery stones of the coast to take pictures.

Seeing the midnight sun is an extraordinary event and we are sure we will do it again. We lived in Frank's house called Aurora Dream in Lenangsøyra close to Svensby. Frank told us a funny story about Americans who wanted to experience the midnight sun here and thought they would see a second sun. Since this did not happen, they sued their Norwegian rice company for damages ...

Picture 1: The spectacular coastal landscape at Ullsfjord
Picture 2: The lighthouse at the top of Lenangsøyra
Picture 3: Setup of the camera at the lighthouse
Picture 4: The midnight sun over the island of Reinøya in the Ullsfjord in Norway
Picture 5: The Lyngen Alps are reflected in the light of the midnight sun in Sør-Lenangen Bay
Picture 6: The reflection of the Lyngen Alps in Sør-Lenangen Bay and the now golden shimmering village of Lenangsøyra.
Picture 7: Aurora Dream of Frank Henriksen
Video: The midnight sun over the island of Reinøya in the Ullsfjord in Norway