On a stormy day in mid-March, I found myself the very last man outside in the Norwegian village of Å.
Located on a remote island in the North Atlantic, the village of just 100 people had closed its schools the week before; restaurants and hotels never reopened after the new year holiday season. And now my last glimmer of hope for a hot coffee this morningthe Bakeriet på Åhad closed.
As the Northern European Correspondent for the Swiss Broadcasting Company, I must rove around a reporting area that extends from the far north of Greenland to the very south of Lithuania. Å, which is as tiny as its name, sits close to the geographic center of my beat. This is a friendly and open part of the world, where you cross borders without thinking about them. People here in the Arctic Circle exhibit unusually closeness and cohesion, and ever since my visit to the far north as a teenager in the 1980s, my trips to the lands and seas near the North Pole have always felt like homecomings.
But this time, I reach Å on the same morning that the central government announces an immediate lockdown of Norway to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It is a startling announcement that sends me scrambling to come to terms with what it means for an open region to shut downand to find a way home before it’s too late.
In Å, the snow is falling heavily, and I don’t catch a glimpse of anyone stirring through the contracted curtains that cover the windows of Å’s picturesque and colorful houses. My requests to interview some local fishermen go unanswered. I can’t blame them. Overnight the government in the capital Oslomore than 1300 kilometers southwardhas declared all foreign visitors to be undesirable persons. I am officially a threat to public health.
I wanted to talk with fishermen because the economic backbone of the Lofoten archipelago is fishing. In spite of the islands’ positionat the same latitude as Northern Alaskatemperatures seldom go below zero Celsius (32 F). The reason for this has a name: the Gulf Stream. Early in the year, this relatively warm Atlantic current drives gigantic schools of fish into the Bay between the Lofoten chain of 80 islands and the mainland of northwestern Norway. For the fishermen of Å and dozens of other villages and towns in the archipelago, it is possible to catch enough cod and pollock in these few months to secure a full year’s income. It is why the islanders call the fishery our treasure chest in the sea.
Unable to talk with the fishermen, I make my way through thick snow towards a small factory, where I might find someone to interview. But all the doors I try remain closed. On the car radio, I hear the sober voice of a Norwegian radio announcer read a long list of measures decided by the national government: By Monday morning at 8 am all our national borders will be closed, the announcer says, adding that after it will be guarded by the military.
Remi Solberg, the mayor of the outer Lofoten archipelago, whom I had met for an interview just a few hours before the shutdown, punctuated the national regulation with a mayoral decree: All visitors from outside the Lofoten islands are immediately banned and must be quarantined for 14 days.
That left me just 36 hours to escape, or face two weeks of quarantine. And escape would require reaching the mountainous border station between Norway and Sweden, my country of residence.
As the bus approaches Narvik, I check the Norwegian Road Administration app, andEureka!the road has just reopened, at least for now. I manage to convince the local taxi company to send me a car to pick me up and drive me across the border, where concrete elements stand ready to block the crossing just a few hours later.
While the whole of Norway is entering into COVID-19 hibernation, Sweden tries to keep up a more ordinary path, asking people to keep distance without going into full lockdown. On the way, the taxi driver, whose name is Pernille, talks of the spring that lies ahead. She will have time to enjoy it. This is my last assignment before I am laid off tomorrow, she tells me.
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