When you step off the boat at Myken, you feel your pulse calming down. Further out to sea, it’s hardly possible to reach Helgeland. But 32 kilometers from the mainland, north of the Arctic Circle, there is a small community on a tiny island, where a handful of enthusiasts keep the lights on in the houses and the doors open.
Myken is a small fishing village, located in the middle of the sea, far out on the Helgeland coast. It’s 32 kilometers to the mainland, and almost 20 kilometers to the nearest inhabited island. In between lies a stretch of sea that can be so stormy at times that being weatherbound is part of daily life out here in the fall and winter. Yes, it’s daily life out here.
Among the islands and islets of Myken, there is a good and safe harbor. Where the low, rolling landscape has provided enough shelter from the wind for Myken to have been home to both people and the occasional grazing animal for several hundred years. Surrounded by good fishing grounds and fishing villages, there were at most around 150 people living on the islands here.
To this day, Myken is home to a handful of permanent residents, in addition to holidaymakers and cottage owners who maintain old family houses. When you walk through the village on a nice summer day, you walk through a very much alive local community, with well-kept houses and well-tended gardens. The local shop is open every day and serves as both a grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, meeting place, and café. The island has restaurants and cafes, concerts and stand-up comedy. Yes, even its own whiskey distillery. When you live far enough from the sheriff and the priest, there are almost no limits to what you can achieve!
The express boat comes and goes a couple of times a day, and apart from the forklift truck at the whiskey distillery, and perhaps a tractor or excavator when needed, there are no vehicles on the island. The island lives in its own calm rhythm, in its own calm time. Island time is good time. And that’s how it should be in a place like this.
Quelle: Visit Helgeland