Who hasn't seen the dotted line on a globe and wondered what life was like up there? Much of the line goes over water or Russia - almost equally inaccessible to Americans at the moment. But there's always Norway, in which half of the country or so is above the line that receives at least one day a year of 24-hour sunlight.
The natives up there sometimes mark the occasion of the sun's climb and fall in different ways. Still, the line has a good degree of fascination. Therefore, when we were on a boat cruising south on the Norwegian shore, we received the news of a celebration the top desk of crossing the Arctic Circle with a mixture of excitement and curiosity? As in ... how would they know?
It turned out to be a lot easier that we thought. No, there was no cheap commercialism on the coast; no "Arctic Circle Pizza" store in sight. But there was a good-sized marker on Vikingen Island, shown above. Considering the other possibilities, this was a rather classy solution.
The ship company celebrated the event in an interesting way too. It handed out spoonfuls of cod liver oil, promising it would make all who slurped 10 years younger. Oh, and we got to keep the special spoon, which was engraved with the route. Sounded like a fair deal to us.
This video is from a northbound crossing, the opposite of our trip:
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