Varangerhalvøya

A late season breeze blows over the arctic tundra, filling our sails and chilling our bodies like a wetsuit left outside on a winter night. I can feel the cold bust through the seams in my jackets - the variety that hurts when it hits your skin. Escaping down below, our boat captain strikes up a conversation about his time sailing this same sixty foot sailboat around the world with his wife a few years back. A native to Northern Norway, Roar is exactly who I expected to be sailing around the arctic. He wears a singular handmade sweater and boots made from seal fur - opposed to my three down jackets. His weathered face cracks a grin, and he chuckles, sharing about the history of his home fjords in a thick accent. Roar grew up on the Varanger peninsula - an outcropping of land in the Barents sea closer to the North Pole than to the Norway we had initially pictured. Sitting in the Arctic Circle, the peninsula’s windswept landscape offers miles of barren earth, herds of reindeer and if all goes to plan - waves. The Sami people, native to the area, survive off raising reindeer, crabbing and fishing throughout the fjords. In an attempt to satiate our desire for adventure while waiting for a ghost swell to hit the coast, we took it upon ourselves to experience the culture first hand, eating, drinking and crabbing with the locals. Russian military structures loom across the bay as we sit huddled below deck around a plate of crab and a bottle of Aquavit - the local hangover inducer.

We’ve been in Vadsø for a total of five days now. The swell is yet to arrive and the small town has little to offer the crew other than some overpriced hamburgers and frigid weather. I spend my days walking to the grocery store with a sled, dragging food and beers over the snow packed streets and back to our apartment. Come to find out, surfers get pretty eggy when they’re not surfing. And they didn’t surf for days. Ouch. Tempers flared and thoughts of doubt crept into conversation. 

“Does this place ever get waves?” 

“Should we go south to Lofoten? The spot is blown but at least we’ll get waves.” 

“Let’s wait it out. We’re already here - in one of the far corners of the globe. There’s potential to score and we owe it to ourselves to see it through.” 

So we wait. Consistent snowstorms swarm the town, casting darkness over the streets and doubt into our minds. We camp in ice fishing tents on the frozen sand, hoping for the swell to fill in overnight. Our footsteps were the only things that had filled in when we awoke in the morning. A surf trip with no surfing. Our guide Carlos takes us up and down the coast, checking all of his secret spots day after day. Originally from the Canary Islands, Carlos is an absolute character. He chased a girl to Vadsø - literally to the end of the earth. It didn’t work out with the girl, but he ended up falling in love with the empty line ups and, according to him, consistent surf. I don’t know about that. His enthusiasm consumes him and he operates at full speed, 100% of the time. There is no slowing him down. Running full speed through blizzards in nothing but a gray sweatsuit like a Spanish Rocky, Carlos checks every point and reef he knows, determined to find something, anything.

On day seven we wake early. It’s 5 am but the sun has already been up for a few hours, indicating the imminent return of summer. Carlos is frantically running around the icey street, loading wood, sleds and animal furs into his old VW van. “Today we go surfing! Today we go surfing!” Oh shit! We’re on. Maybe. 

The van stops where the plows do, and we load up plastic sleds with boards, food, water and firewood for a full beach day. We have a four mile walk ahead of us just to get to the break. Over ice, tundra, and wind drifted snow, we make our way to the end of the peninsula, a supposed magnet for swell. Two sweaty hours later we crest the final hill and look out over the ocean. Lines fill the horizon and waves are stacked up against the shore.  Hoots and hollers fill the air, and Mckenzie runs full speed towards the beach, sled in tow, itching to get in the water. Slipping on the ice, he falls headfirst into the frozen tundra.

The size of the wave is impossible to tell without someone in the water for reference, but it looks real. I can feel the power from the beach, and the sets are barreling on the inside section - spitting as they close. Nate Zoller paddles out first, and we watch as he takes off on the second wave of the set. He drops in behind the peak, and keeps dropping. Oh, it's big, big.  He turns off the bottom and comes all the way back up the face, smashing the lip and pulling into the barrel. Energy rips through the crew and we all yell out, unable to control the excitement. The session proves itself, staying consistent for hours on end. Trading barrel after barrel, the 38 degree water didn’t bother us. We cooked over a fire on the beach and paddled back out. A proper arctic circle beach day. 

As quickly as the swell arrived, it disappeared. But we had done it. We found waves at the end of the earth. The crew was a team now, bonded over a universal experience. The one restaurant in town tasted that much better, the beers that much colder, and the conversation that much better. It’s funny how a good trip will do that.

photos by Ryan Valasek