How a 'boring' Arctic city grew to become Europe's Capital of Tradition

Set in an otherworldly panorama surrounded by glaciers, forests and lakes, this once-sleepy city has reworked into the last word gateway to the nice outside.

The gumdrop-coloured lights, world maps and bamboo bar give Pangea the hip vibe of a seashore bar in Mexico moderately than a restaurant positioned 120km north of the Arctic Circle in Bodø, Norway. On a latest summer time evening, with the Solar nonetheless peeking by way of the clouds, neatly dressed {couples} and singles sat at exterior tables consuming Cuban sandwiches, ingesting native craft beer and staring out on the cobalt blue Norwegian Sea.

A few Bodø-brewed Nordlands later, I stepped out onto the pedestrian-only Storgata avenue whereas the Solar sparkled off the ocean and checked out my watch – it was 23:45. From early June to mid-July, the Solar barely units in Bodø (pronounced “Buddha”), and as I adopted the road from Bodø’s previous city to the ultra-modern Stormen Live performance Corridor, not a single streetlight was on. In actual fact, on the lately opened Smarthotel – one of many many accommodations totally booked most of this summer time – my curtains have been simply barely thinner than iron gates to dam the midnight Solar.

Simen Steinbakk, Pangea’s 31-year-old supervisor, grew up in Bodø when it was the pit of Norwegian jokes. As he defined, Bodø did not have the hopping buzz of Tromsø, the college metropolis to the north, or the cool confidence and tradition of Oslo to the south. As a substitute, till 10 years in the past, the city’s largest declare to fame was its army air base, and it was identified amongst Norwegians as “Boring Bodø”.

“The town has grown up,” Steinbakk stated. “There are much more folks, much more worldwide folks as effectively. Lots of the individuals who moved away from Bodø are beginning to migrate again. You get folks bringing in new industries. You get folks bringing in new passions.”

Quick ahead a decade and this once-sleepy 53,000-person city is among the fastest-growing locations in Norway. Stormen is drawing worldwide artists, high-end eating places are opening with postcard-worthy views of the ocean and this yr marks what’s arguably Bodø’s best achievement: it was named a European Capital of Tradition for 2024. Within the 39-year historical past of the designation, Bodø is the primary place positioned above the Arctic Circle to earn the accolade, and it and the encircling Nordland area are placing on greater than 1,000 performances, concert events, artwork exhibitions and occasions all year long highlighting its Indigenous historical past, cultural transformation and otherworldly Arctic landscapes.  

Roughly 20,000 folks crammed Bodø’s streets on 3 February to mark the opening of its European Capital of Tradition designation. In March, famed Norwegian jazz musician Hakon Erlandsen held a live performance in Pluragrotta, a well-liked cave-diving vacation spot positioned some 240km south of Bodø. The mustard-coloured Bodø Metropolis Museum, which opened in 1904, has been revamped to spotlight the artwork and tradition of Scandinavia’s Indigenous Sami folks, who proceed to stay in and round Bodø. And on 22 June, some 4,500 folks gathered at Breivika, town seashore, to look at the Midsummer Thriller people pageant and see conventional Sami video games as bonfires flared. “Invisibility is the most important difficulty we have now,” stated Maria Hernes Baer, a Sami carrying a conventional brown-and-red patterned costume in entrance of a lavvu (a teepee-like Sami tent), earlier than including that she hoped the pageant would assist educate Norwegians about Sami tradition.

So, how did this small, Arctic city be part of a listing of world-renowned cities like Paris, Istanbul and Prague to earn such an accolade?

Bodø is the capital of the Nordland area, an enormous swath of land stretching almost 800km alongside Norway’s north-west coast. This rugged 240,000-person expanse is the least-populated area in Norway and one of the crucial sparsely populated stretches in all of Europe, with fewer than seven folks per sq. kilometre. However with its deeply carved fjords; 9 nationwide parks; Norway’s longest prepare trip – dubbed the “Arctic Circle Specific”; and shut proximity to Europe’s most accessible glacier, Nordland – and Bodø specifically – has all the time had the potential as a great base for an Arctic escape.

And so, 12 years in the past Bodø got here up with a method.

“We name it ‘Artic,'” Bodø mayor Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen advised me, carrying a pin with the city image (a vivid orange midnight Solar) on his lapel. “It is wordplay between ‘Arctic’ and ‘articulate’. The factor is to get folks to satisfy and hopefully persons are pleased with their metropolis and their regional county right here. And in addition get a bit of bit [of] consideration from Europe. So, when folks meet, issues can occur … magic issues can occur.”

Buoyed by its Capital of Tradition designation, the plan appears to be working. In accordance with Innovation Norway and Statistics Norway the variety of guests to the Bodø space is up 25% to date in 2024 in comparison with the identical interval in 2023, and reservations in its rising variety of eating places (lots of which characteristic Bodø’s trademark tørrfisk stockfish) are booming.

“The one factor I do know is lodge house owners and taxi house owners are simply thrilled,” Ingebrigtsen advised me. I met Ingebrigtsen in his workplace on the highest ground of the Bodø City Corridor, in-built 2019 as a part of the city’s rejuvenation efforts. He grew up in Bodø, prowling his mother and father’ bookstore and oblivious to the sleepy city apparently boring folks round him.

“It has been a giant transformation right here,” Ingebrigtsen stated. “Simply in 10-12 years, it is a completely totally different scheme. You get loads of recent seafood. Twelve years in the past, it may very well be an issue as a result of all of them served pizzas and kebabs and hamburgers.”

In accordance with Ingebrigtsen, Bodø’s rise from Scandinavian obscurity sarcastically started when the city’s army air base closed in 2012, which value it 1,000 jobs. “By no means miss an excellent disaster,” Ingebrigtsen joked.

Blessed with an abundance of crystalline lakes, dense forests and the towering Saltfjellet mountain vary, the native authorities went to work creating Bodø’s infrastructure as a glossy gateway to the nice outside. In 2014 town constructed the snow-white, 900-seat Stormen Live performance Corridor, which options a few of the world’s finest acoustics for classical music. That very same yr, it additionally constructed the Stormen Library and Cultural Middle, whose floor-to-ceiling home windows with panoramic views of the ocean gained the Norwegian Award for Constructing Design.

A number of years later, the city commissioned one other live performance corridor, the Svømmehallen Scene, the place the Norwegian pop group A-ha (“Take On Me”) recorded its final album. The Jekt Museum, displaying the form of fishing boats that transported stockfish up the coast, was in-built 2019 and gained the Norwegian Museum of the Yr award this yr. Norway’s Ministry of Native Authorities and Regional Growth named Bodø because the nation’s most engaging metropolis in 2016, and a brand new stadium for its powerhouse FK Bodø/Glimt membership and a brand new airport are set to be accomplished in 2029 and 2030, respectively.

“I used to be a pupil in Tromsø,” stated Hanne Kristin Jakhelin, who moved to Bodø in 1998 and owns the consulting agency Muskat AS. “Coming from a pupil metropolis, Bodø was very quiet. Bodø had empty streets. That they had various not-very-taken-care-of buildings. There wasn’t a lot to do for younger folks. Now it’s very totally different.”

Infrastructure and structure apart, one of many different elements fuelling Bodø’s development is its emergence as an IT centre. The city’s inhabitants has jumped greater than 20% within the final 18 years, however there are many alternatives to flee into nature.

On the third day of my go to, I took a bus to the village of Festvag the place I hopped a free 10-minute ferry throughout a small fjord to the city of Misten. A brief bus trip later, I used to be within the 350-person neighborhood of Kjerringøy, surrounded by forests and mountains. Each different summer time since 2007, artists from around the globe journey right here to stay within the wilderness and make artwork out of no matter they see in nature (sans instruments) as a part of the Kjerringoy Land Artwork Biennale – Europe’s solely land artwork biennale.

A shorter journey is simply 9 kilometers south-east of Bodø. Saltstraumen is called the world’s strongest maelstrom, and its 110 billion gallons of water shoot by way of a three-kilometre straight each six hours. Elsewhere, Moysalen Nationwide Park options fjords and snow-capped peaks rising from the ocean greater than 1,200m. And in the event you do not occur to go to throughout the months of midnight Solar, chances are high you might spot the Northern Lights from throughout Bodø and its environs.

Because the midnight Solar continues this summer time, so will Bodø’s Capital of Tradition programming. On 25-28 July, the Márkomeannu pageant will spotlight Sami artwork, tradition and music in a collection of performances and seminars. Norwegian singer-songwriter Thomas Dybdahl will play his new album on the Stormen on 5 August, and the venue will maintain the Eurovision Younger Musicians contest (billed as classical music’s model of the well-known Eurovision Tune Contest) on 17 August.

Bodø might have shed its “boring” picture, however officers hope that the momentum of this yr’s Capital of Tradition designation continues into the long run.

“Our vacationer companies are not so good as different locations, however it is going to come,” Ingebrigtsen stated. “We [are already feeling] the results.”