North Coast of the North

A traveler and translator explores the multiethnic cultures, histories, and landscapes of Norway's high northA companionable travel memoir about Arctic Norway, North Coast of the North details Barbara Sjoholm's trip in the summer of 2024 to the northernmost region of the Scandinavian peninsula, a borderland that is home to a richly multicultural society, an expanding tourist industry, and landscapes bearing the marks of colonization, environmental damage, and climate change. A writer with decades of experience in the Nordic countries, Sjoholm flew from her home in the Pacific Northwest to Norway's high north to research a collection of Sámi folktales and witness firsthand the settings from which the stories emerged.Sjoholm's journey takes her from Kirkenes, the final port on the Hurtigruten coastal route and an outpost on the Russian border, to the fertile farmlands of the Pasvik River Valley and to Indigenous archaeological sites and historic trading posts around the Varangerfjord. She voyages west along the Barents Sea coastline and south to Tromsø, past islands and inlets of surpassing beauty (as well as liquid gas plants and wind farms), and writes about the ongoing resource exploitation and local resistance to Norwegian and global corporate interests. North Coast of the North intertwines Sjoholm's observations on the tragedies of World War II and the literature and folklore of the Sámi with her own warm memories of Norway, a country that never ceases to intrigue her.An absorbing and expansive blend of travel writing, memoir, and reflections on translation, history, and literature, North Coast of the North is a vivid look at an often exoticized, frequently overlooked, yet increasingly important environmental and geopolitical region of Northern Europe.Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.