The Norway no one told you about — jagged Senja Alps rising from the Arctic Sea, near-vertical fishing villages, and the Northern Lights without the Lofoten crowds
Senja is the second-largest island in Norway — 1,586 sq km, 50km west of Tromsø by road (via the E8 highway and ferry or the Senjahopen undersea tunnel), a landscape of extreme topographic contrast: the outer coast (facing the Norwegian Sea) is an almost uninterrupted series of knife-edged mountain ridges (the Senja Alps, maximum elevation 1,088m at Grytetippen) dropping directly into the sea at gradients that in places exceed 60 degrees; the inner (eastern) side is sheltered fjords, birch and pine forest, and relatively calm farming settlements. The Senja Alps are one of the most visually dr…
Senja was settled by the Norse in the Viking Age — the island's outer coast, despite its exposure to the Norwegian Sea, provided sheltered landing for longships in the fjord inlets, and the fishing grounds of the outer coast (rich in cod, herring, and later king crab) made Senja a productive base. The island's history through the medieval period is primarily that of the fishing economy — dried cod (stockfish, or tørrfisk) was Senja's primary export to the Bergen and Hanseatic trading networks from the 13th century onward. The World War II German occupation of northern Norway (Operation Weserü…