RS and I went to Norway last December.  The main goal of the trip was for her to see the Northern Lights, and for me to experience polar night and learn a little Norwegian cooking.  Originally, we were going to visit Svalbard, however,  it was the low season and there wasn’t much to do on the island. So we started looking at places within Norway.  We were torn between Lofoten and Tromsø.  In the end, we chose Tromsø because we found a nice tour company, Pukka Travels, who offered boat tours, Reindeer experiences and, of course, a cooking lesson.  The landscape in Tromsø reminded me a lot of my hometown in Canada. Surprisingly, my hometown was much colder, but when flying and looking down the black dots of what I imagined to be black spruce trees on the otherwise snow-white landscape brought back memories.

We enjoyed a few nice days in Tromsø, and on the first night, RS got to see the lights out on the water.  Our skipper was fantastic, very friendly and informative.  We got some nice shots of the lights and enjoyed some time out on the boat looking up at the stars.  RS was excited to see the lights for the first time.  I told her the story of how my mother told me that if you whistled at the lights they’d dance for you.  I asked the skipper if Norwegians also told their children that story, but he had never heard of it.

The next day we went out in the morning to visit the Sami, the people who are indigenous to Norway, and Sweden.  We got the Santa Claus treatment, being pulled by a reindeer guided by one of the Sami. We also got to feed the Caribou, and when they see you with the feed bucket, they waste no time coming over.  You need a good grip on the bucket because the reindeer are adept at pushing their face in to knock it out of your hand.  Then they start jostling over the food on the ground.  After feeding the reindeer, we got to eat reindeer stew, which Sami prepared.  I tried to get the recipe but had no luck.  The stew was quite similar to Newfoundland-style rabbit stew in appearance, and even a little in taste as well.

That night we went out on the boat again and had our cooking lesson.  It was just RS, myself, and the skipper.  He talked about the soup and how he had learned so much about cooking by doing these tours.  A couple of months before RS and I were with him, he told us that Pukka had professional chefs visit who provided all kinds of pro-tips that he was happy to pass along. I took notes while he talked about the soup and cut up the veg. He showed me how to skin and fillet a small cod-fish.  Something I ought to know as a Newfoundlander, but never got to learn until his lesson.  RS wanted nothing to do with the fish, so I got to practice on her cod as well. All said I did a respectable job of it. While the soup was cooking, we snacked on some fantastic polar bread, a Norwegian fluffy flatbread that’s about the size of a teacup saucer that you eat with a little spread of butter. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve resolved to learn how to cook it at a later date.  We enjoyed our soup, and some more time under the stars until it was time to head back to shore.  We left Tromsø the next day, and after a day of wandering in Oslo, we came back to the desert.  Here’s the recipe for Pukka’s Fish Soup, a nice reminder of time spent on the water in Norway.