Hammerfest Travel Guide

Introduction

2,314km (1,435 miles) N of Bergen; 144km (89 miles) N of Alta; 2,195km (1,361 miles) N of Oslo

It's easy to poke fun at Hammerfest as author William Bryson did in Neither Here Nor There. He found Hammerfest an "agreeable enough town in a thank-you-God-for-not-making-me-live-here sort of way." Locals are quick to defend how civilized they are, pointing out that they were the first town in Europe to have electric street lighting while Paris and London were lit by gas.

That Hammerfest is here at all is a sort of miracle. The town was founded because of its natural harbor, something that is equally important today. A hurricane flattened it in 1856, and one of Norway's worst fires leveled it again in 1890, the year the town got that street lighting. Hitler ordered that "no building be left standing" during the infamous Nazi retreat of 1945. But Hammerfest bounced back and has been attracting visitors from all over the world who use it as a base for exploring the North Cape in...