NO25.11 Svartisen – Ice, Rock and Wonder

Svartisen – one of Norway’s largest glaciers, and a place that puts your own size firmly into perspective. The glacier pushes through a corridor of massive mountains, its ice shimmering in every shade of blue, while the air stays cold and crisp even in summer.

The landscape around the glacier is breathtaking. Sheer rock faces, deep valleys, and threading through it all the eternal ice, moving slowly but surely. Add to that an impressive dam that channels the power of the meltwater into electricity, and you have a truly remarkable combination of untouched nature and human engineering – as if two worlds had collided.

You feel simultaneously tiny and privileged to be standing this close to such a natural wonder. When you consider that glaciers are retreating worldwide, the visit takes on an extra dimension. Being able to experience this at all is not something to be taken for granted. We stood there for a long time, saying very little, simply looking – and trying to commit the image to memory forever.