Constitution Day started bright and sunny in Bodø, the second largest town in the Arctic Circle of roughly 40,000 people. Today boats from all over the north gathered in every available port for the celebration, a large parade through the city center of children from every grade and school. This celebration meant, of course, that the ferry schedule was also quite limited, and nevertheless our host texted us and told us we would meet N on the dock.
“Do people going to the island have a certain look about them?”
“You tell me.”
N was quite easy to spot, she had a cello strapped to her back and when you’re going to an artist retreat, there’s only so many places a cellist goes in the Arctic circle. N was a Londoner with a bright disposition, a child of artists, if that makes any sense regarding personality, who was very amicable on the ride over. Each port we hit before ours greeted us with Norwegian flags and hurrahs. A Danish bridge player on his way to a tournament explained everything to us while we went from port to port, translating small talk that the captain was making with the locals.
As an aside, if you are ever confused in Scandinavia, it seems that a Danish person is morally obligated to explain things to you, as the day before a Danish woman explained the sauna / ocean situation to us in great detail.
We arrived on the island to meet our cast of characters for the evening. R and A, two Israeli filmmakers, M an Eastern European welder, E an Austrian writer, N our cellist, and J a “creative”. It’s imperative that you meet our cast of characters, as when there is not much on the island to do, you seem to spend a lot of time talking with others.
I sat down at the piano, eager to test out my new companion for the next few weeks and E began to interview me with rapid fire questions. How long have I been playing? Where have I performed? What type of music do I like? How do I plan to make money doing this? She called this the ‘interview” and she seemed to do it to everyone who was new to the island. As soon as another person stepped into the room, the interview began again. What type of art do you make? How long have you been doing it? etc
N mentioned later that she wanted to do a duet, and our host, heretofore called The Island Master, asked us to all sit down in the music studio and stare off into the sea while he played an improvisation on his bass clarinet. It was almost 9pm and the sun was still high in the sky.
Day are so long that sunsets seem precious, and so we stayed up late just to watch the sun dip below the horizon briefly, knowing that this too would not last the duration of our stay. When sunsets are in short supply, each one seems a bit more precious than the last.
Saturday was waffle day, this is quite an event each week and we walked with R and A, the filmmakers to the waffle house on the center of the island, there are nine inhabitants on the island besides us, and three dogs. One of the women who served us waffles had advertised waffles and coffee on the ferry ride over. R and I spoke about movies briefly, and about how he didn’t like to talk about the war in Israel either. He was mostly interested in filming human interest pieces that were lighthearted. He also had written a screenplay while he was there, a dark comedy, he said, about death.
“I do have a bit of island gossip for you.” He said as we got our raincoats on after waffles. “The woodblock printer is divorced and his ex wife lives somewhere on the island as well, so that creates a lot of tension that the island master doesn’t really like.”
“Where is the woodblock printer?”
“You will meet him eventually, everyone does. He lives just over there, he has the dog.”
There were of course three dogs in the hall.
On the walk back in the drizzly, piddly island rain R and I spoke some more about the cabins and how he had moved many times until he was at, what I thought was the most coveted cabin, the top cabin overlooking the bay. It had all glass windows and was on all the marketing materials.
“This is not a good cabin after all,” He said “It is the furthest from the toilet.”
When the cabin became free a day later after R and A left, no one wanted it, instead, I was happy with my cabin closest to the toilet.
E likes to come down the walk as we come up it to the kitchen cabin and give us the weather report for the day, she is a very happy go lucky woman, and often amuses herself, all day. The Americans (us three, plus J) are very social, and the Norwegians are happy to oblige us.
“It is very important to watch the ferry,” She told me as we sat in the studio later on the second day “It is the order of the day.”
It seems like such a small thing, like watching a bus come by. The ferry dock is visible to all cabins and it comes twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. However, part of the daily routine, as E predicted, was waiting for the ferry to come and everyone would gather either on the dock, or at the windows to watch the ferry stop briefly, to either drop off people, or cargo or both. The ferry was never on time either, and so my life that is usually cut up into increments by Outlook, was now based on the temperamental boat, once in the morning to start the day, and once in the evening to herald dinner.
It was on this night that N came with terrible news that her father was very sick and she was thinking of leaving the island. Over dinner, she spoke to the island master about how she was unsure how long she would stay. Only that things would either get better or worse.
The next day, two days after we learned about the island gossip regarding the woodblock printer, our island master and host came up to me while I was walking down from breakfast to sneak some post-breakfast reading in my cabin. “The woodblock printer is in a particular mood today, he wants to see you, all three of you, and it’s important to not be British about these things, you must walk right in, ignore the dog, walk in! Do not knock. You cannot be polite.”
The woodblock printer is rather famous and he is about a four minute walk from right where I was standing in a bright yellow house “halfway into the ocean” as I was told. There is something to be said about Norwegians, or at least the Norwegians here, and it is that they love to chat. There is a particular bone that they all like to chew on and that is the second bit of island drama.
The woodblock printer sat with us and retold about the same island gossip we had heard from Y, the eiderduck housekeeper, that visited us on the first night.
A nouveau riche person had bought the furthest island to the west, past sheep island (which we will talk about in a later post) and intended to dynamite the island in order to turn it into a salmon farm. This of course is very unpopular with the nine residents of the island for a multitude of reasons, one being the ecological impact, and two, the visual impact, as the island past sheep island faces a national park and most houses on the main island are oriented this way. We would hear about this dynamite plan quite frequently as most of the Norwegians we interacted with on the island also happened to be on the island’s board of directors.
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When we asked the woodblock printer why he had chosen his medium out of all the options he told us it was the oldest medium and therefore it was the most important one to do, he showed us his newest artworks which were a series against modern commercial fishing (mostly due to the dynamite island plan) and introduced us to his dog, messy hair, a shaggy black thing that didn’t like to be looked at and petted at the same time.
The Woodblock Printer is one of the main characters of the island, and we met him often along with “messy hair” as he is our closest neighbor. He left us in the care of two fisherman who had just sailed into port with a halibut which they then gutted and gave to us.
We have four main island characters who will come and go over the next few posts: The Woodblock Printer, The Island Master, The Chinese Financier, and The Eiderduck Housekeeper.
N was having more troubles when we got back, and J continued to regale us with stories of what a bigshot he was off the island, his large hotel clients now. J doesn’t seem to do much but talk, a typical American, I suppose, but I got irritated over dinner because it was dominated by tales of who he knew and not what he did. I wasn’t sure what J actually was, and this of course comes up later as we get to know each other better. I left dinner to go sit in my cabin for a bit, exhausted from the socialising with J for hours during every meal.
“I thought we were supposed to be doing artistry, but the only thing that has happened is conversation” I complained.
Which was true, aside from practicing at night, I was talking to all the island residents, all our fellow artists, and to J, who would trap you in the kitchen with him to tell you about all the famous people he’s met, or all his ideas he’s had but never did because “someone has probably done it first.”
Later on, I would realise this is important for artistry on an island because like starting a new video game, you must do your introductory quests before the world opens up to you.
It was on fourth day that N came into breakfast sobbing, it was confirmed that her father had cancer, and she believed he would die before she got home. The morning ferry had already come and gone, and the Island Master with it. I texted him that she wanted to get off the island as soon as possible, but was told that without an expensive charter the only option was the evening ferry.
E was correct, the ferry does determine the day.
N was panicking at the table and the room had cleared out after the last of breakfast, only myself and my travel companions remained. We got her a glass of water, and she panicked in the back corner in a pile of pillows and sheep wool from sheep island.
“You must remember,” I said, repeating advice that had been given to me in much less of a dire situation “There are things you can control and you can’t control, right now, all you can do is control how you will get back.”
It’s not a particularly heroic, or kind thing to say, on retrospect, but it was something that moved us all forward.
After we had helped her decide on a flight, I offered to go on a nature walk, around the backside of the island where you could see sheep island, and the national park off in the distance.
N spent a lot of time stopped at various spots, someone who had spent every evening in the sauna with us, now was memorizing every inch of the island’s views before she had to leave. We pointed out each new flower that had come up, and talked about the abandoned island to the west that had one small shack in a green field.
It is odd, as we left her to go pack after a good two hours soaking in sea air, that when you are isolated, everything seems more impactful, every act of kindness, or every sadness seems shared in the moment. An hour away from more than ten people, you feel the stress of others acutely. I played piano for awhile in the evening before dinner, and N did not board the evening ferry.
We all sat at dinner knowing that it would be N’s last with us, and she was still very upset, seated in the back right corner of the table, trying to make polite conversation even though she was not feeling up for it. She was very frank, which was strange for a British person, and talked about her father’s health, and how he had become unresponsive.
“Maybe,” J said across from her “Maybe he’s decided to give up.”
The room went silent, I shared a glance first with my partner on the right of me, and then with my best friend to the left, but no one had spoken and N was staring at her plate of fish so intently.
A litany of angry words came to mind before it was filtered out through practiced corporate speak.
“I don’t think that’s helpful at all, and we shouldn’t be trying to predict what is happening in a medical emergency.”
J has avoided me since this dinner.
The next morning after breakfast, N told me that she had picked the morning ferry because of the lack of flight options, and booked her flight with the help of the island master.
We all walked down to the dock together and watched N leave. She hugged all of us one by one. J sighed “She was such a ball of sunshine, she was so bright, and now she’s gone.”
I walked up the bridge from the ferry and turned to look at the ferry speeding away between the islands to see N on the back of it, waving frantically at the remaining residents.
We all waved back.
The ferry determines the day.
The island master would be back on the evening ferry, with aquavit.
We waited for the evening ferry.
Author’s Note: I may go back and edit for clarity, and to remove all the grammatical errors later, please accept this as it is now.
the first photo looks like a painting. what a remarkable place. i also love the dynamic you've illustrated on the island. love the image of you using corporate HR speak on an insensitive mf 😂 also the video game analogy is so real.