Boating Dreams: A remote paradise above the Arctic Circle

Apart from Bente and her husband Tore, Langfjordnes is home to no more than six people. The small community in the county of Finnmark, Norway, is situated in what could be described as the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by the vast Arctic Ocean and the mountains, and with no road connection to the rest of the world, it is a place easily imagined as uninhabited. For Bente to live here, it’s vital to have a boat and an engine that she can trust.

“I feel safe when I have the boat. If it’s storm or snowing, I don’t care. I can trust this boat and the engine a hundred percent,” says Bente.

On the weekends Bente's husband Tore lives with her in Langfjordnes, but a lot of the time she is on her own when he works in the city.

She remembers her childhood years growing up in Langfjordnes, learning to drive her own boat already at the age of five.

“Being a kid, it was good living here, because we could go out on the sea, have a boat and everything. But as a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get away.”

For thirty years she tried another life in the city, with long working days and multiple travels around the world. But after a while, Bente started to question the stressful life she lived, and the thought began to grow that maybe Langfjordnes was the place for her after all.

“I have traveled a lot and I liked it, the bigger town the better. I like people, food, the different smells and everything. But Langfjordnes is special. It’s real, authentic. I love the nature, the quiet, the stillness.”

In Langfjordnes, Bente can manage her days as she please. Thanks to an internet connection, she is able to do her office work by distance and spend a lot of time outdoors. Living above the Arctic Circle offers the unique experience of both the midnight sun and the polar night. During summertime the sun never goes down, whereas in wintertime Bente and her neighbors do not see the sun at all for two months.

The house where Bente and Tore live used to be a shop where Bente’s mother ran the family business when Bente grew up.

“My sons, who still live in the city, thought I was a little bit crazy in the beginning and said, ‘you will come back after the first winter storm’, but they were wrong,” laughs Bente.

Being cut off from civilization can indeed be hard in the winter, as Bente is totally dependent on her boat to be able to get food, visit friends or access the road to the city.

”Sometimes I’m scared if I have been at a friend’s house and am driving back in the night and I know that everyone is asleep and I’m alone out there and it’s bad weather. But you have to trust the boat, the boat is your number one,” says Bente.

Surrounded by the ocean and the mountains. From Langfjordnes it is 25 kilometers (15,5 miles) to the nearest road.