People through history have come with all kinds of creative explanations for the northern lights. Per Helge Nylund, who curates the Tromsø Museum, says the myths vary throughout the Arctic. In Finland, the lights were called fox flames, and were considered magic. In western Norway, they were thought to be maidens waving mittens. In Ottawa, a beacon from a mighty spirit. Vikings believed the northern lights were a bridge between gods and humans. And Siberians believed the lights were an actual goddess.
As I board the Norwegian Coast Guard's icebreaking ship the KV Svalbard, officers greet me with salutes. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to salute back, or if that would be impolite, so I just say hello (or the Norwegian "hei hei," to be more specific). The officers crack a smile in reply.
In 1974, the mayor of Hammerfest, Norway declared that his small fishing community—the northernmost town in the world—would one day become the center of the oil and gas industry in the Barents Sea. At that time, the oil and gas executives laughed. Today, the town of 10,000 people is fulfilling the prophecy.
A boat pulls up to the dock. It's a long-liner, meaning the owner, an Icelander by the name of Jani, uses long lines and hooks to bring fish up from the seafloor, between 100 and 1,000 feet down. Jani's boat has 16,000 such hooks, which take two and a half hours to put out and another 8 hours to pull in. All said, he can haul in about 11,000 pounds of fish a night.
