January 13 – Hammerfest and the Northern Lights

Another day of lovely scenery as we sail into our next port of call.

Our main port of call today was the port of Hammerfest.  The name apparently came from the Old Norse Hamran meaning “steep mountainside”.  The fest is from the Old Norse festr which means “fastening.”  This comes from when ships would tie up to the rocks/shore when sheltering from storms.  

The mountains surrounding this small harbor are quite steep.

The first stop was the Stuve Geodetic Arc.  This was a major geodetic survey undertaken during the first half of the 19^th century.  A geodetic survey is a survey “…or areas or points to determine the size and shape of the earth taking into account the curvature of the earth and astronomic observations.” 

The survey was accomplished through a chain of survey triangulations that included 258 main triangles and 262 geodetic vertices.  This was the largest section of a meridian arch that had been mapped at that point.

This series of surveys runs approximately on the 26⁰ east meridian starting at the Black Sea in the Ukraine and ending here in Hammerfest.  It was intended to help determine the exact size and shape of the earth which would allow the determination of the exact size of degrees, minutes and seconds.  It was a major step forward in improved navigation and mapping.

The project went through ten countries, covered 2,822 kilometers (1,753 miles) and took almost 40 years to complete.  It was one of the largest international scientific efforts of its kind, the world’s longest UNESCO “site” and first technical/scientific undertaking to make the list.

Modern satellite calculations have since been used to recalculate the earth’s radius.  These modern measurement showed that the radius calculated by this 200 year old project (6,378,360.7 meters) was off by only 224 meters.  That makes the arc length calculation accurate to 4mm per km…absolutely amazing considering the tools they were working with over 200 years ago.  And the project proved that Sir Isaac Newton was correct when he posited that the earth wasn’t a perfect spere but was an ellipsoid (it bulges at the equator and flattens at the top).  

We then drove to an overlook for photos of the harbor and the city.

On the way out we stopped for photos of some lodges by the Sami people, the original indigenous people in the area.

Next stop was a museum but we headed off to the nearby church.  There was a funeral just leaving so after they had left we went inside for some photos.  Another lovely church.  The roof shape was supposedly inspired by the cod fish drying racks in the area…very steep.

The cemetery was right across the street. 

We did do a bit of wandering in the museum.  There were several depictions of the lodgings in the area. 

We had an evening stop in Tromsø...

and we had some truly spectacular Northern Lights as we sailed in and out of Tromsø's fjord.  And they were magnificent.  They danced.  And they danced.  Such a glorious sight.  We may stay up all night taking photos but these are from our first two excursions out to watch them.  Too bad the boat was moving so the photos are a bit blurry.  But who cares.  They Danced.  And on other days when we saw the lights they were a pale green, and you needed to take a photo of a few seconds to get enough light to see the brilliant green.  Not tonight.  They were brilliant green and purple and a little red and seen with the naked eye that way.