Norway Factoids

Norway Factoids

During spring the temperature can differ by more than 30°C from Bergen in the south to Kirkenes in the north.

Hurtigruten’s ships still deliver the mail along the coast, as well as bringing fresh seafood south and vegetables and other goods north.

In spring the Arctic guillemots lay their eggs directly on bare rock or soil. The single egg is pear-shaped, preventing it from rolling off the ledge.

In January 1904, a fire destroyed the entire town of Ålesund. Only one person died, but 10,000 were left without shelter. The city was rebuilt in three years, in the Art Noveau style.

Runde Island is the largest sea bird colony in Scandinavia, and home to more than 500,000 seabirds including Atlantic puffins, blacklegged kittiwakes and guillemots.

400 million tonnes of sea water pushes through the sound every six hours. The water comes up to 20 knots (37 km / h). It may be a metre difference in elevation on each side of the stream.

The cloudberry plant is mostly found in the Northern Hemisphere between 55°N and 78°N, and can withstand cold temperatures down to well below -40°C. Considered a delicacy in Norway.

In medieval times Norwegian fishermen rarely had a compass while out fishing. Instead they put a louse on a plank, saying; “Lice always crawl towards north”.

When the Antarctic sea-ice expands in winter, it advances by 100,000 km2 per day, and doubles the size of Antarctica. Conditions in the “Dry valleys” in Antarctica are so extreme that NASA did tests for the Viking mission to Mars there. It has not rained in the Dry Valleys for at least 2 million years.

The Flåm Line is a 20km long railway between Myrdal and Flåm. It has ten stations, twenty tunnels and one bridge and is the steepest railway in Europe.

Hurtigruten "Minute by minute" program that NRK2 produced and broadcasted between 16 and 22 June 2011, is approved as the world's longest continuous television program, with its 134 hours.

Killer whales can grow up to 33 feet long and weigh up to 8 tons.

Saltstraumen has the strongest tidal current in the world. Every six hours up to 400 million m³ of water are forced through a 3-kilometre long and 150-metre wide strait.

Norwegians are huge coffee lovers. In Norway coffee is usually served black. On Sundays a lot of locals come down to the port to have a coffee on board Hurtigruten.

Hammerfest became in 1891 the first town in Norway and Northern Europe that had electric street lighting.

Hamningberg is one of the few places in Finnmark with houses built before 1940.

When the Antarctic sea-ice expands in winter, it advances by 100,000 km2 per day, and doubles the size of Antarctica. Conditions in the “Dry valleys” in Antarctica are so extreme that NASA did tests for the Viking mission to Mars there. It has not rained in the Dry Valleys for at least 2 million years.

When particles from solar explosions meet Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with the upper layers of the atmosphere. The energy that this releases creates the Northern Lights.

The first bananas were introduced in Norway in 1905.

As we start we are as far west as Amsterdam and Marseilles 

however, in 5 days we will be at Vardø which is the same eastern longitude as St Petersburg and Istanbul.

Ålesund has approximately 260,000 inhabitants with newspaper circulation of 130,000.

The first ever export of American goods to Europe took place in Trondheim around 1000 AD.