Holiday in Hammerfest, 1953. - Update

A few weeks back I wrote about an epic holiday undertaken in 1953 by my girlfriend's grandparents and their considerable family in a Ford Prefect. Girlfriend's wonderful Mum and Uncle then sent me some photos of the trip and gave me permission to share them here.

Let's quickly remind ourselves of the details which put to shame our present day complaints of, "the plane didn't have much leg-room".

First, Dad, pregnant Mum and six kids packed into this car. En route they also squeezed in a hitcher.

Hero. 

Then they drove this route. According to Google Maps, 3272km

Girlf's uncle explained that the two roads in Lapland had been made by the German army during the war. Apparently young uncle had also turned a deaf ear to his parent's pleas of, "Don't play away from the road, the land is full of explosives" and even returned with pieces of grenade he'd foraged.

Here are some great photos of the journey. Thank you so much to my girlfriend's mother and uncle for sharing them.

The family loaded in and ready to roll. 

The campsite. Half in the tent, half in the car. 

The Prefect parked outside a wagon graveyard. 

I love the girls' dresses all cut from the same roll of material and the immaculate boy (Girlf's Uncle) with shoes shined and socks pulled up. I also love the two stern-faced women nosing in the background. 

Picking berries. There weren't many places to stop and buy food so instead the family had to knock on the doors of local people to get supplies.

Out on the moor. Presumably the eldest girl on camera duty. 

The gang hanging out of a traditional log-cabin window. 

Girlf's uncle and the car on the ferry. Inside the car you can see the rest of the family. Pregnant mum with child on lap in the front seat. Hero.

Hammerfest

Hitching in Lyngenfjord

The old man stopped to give us a lift. He opened the back of his estate car and helped put our heavy packs in without asking where we were going. He'd been down to Nordkjosbotn to get some dog food and now was heading back to his home near Nordmannvik, about a 3 hour round trip.

He told us that there didn't used to be a road on this bit of the fjord. This was where the Sea-laps (Sea Sami) lived and fished; there was no road to them, only boats.

Then the road was built and later the tunnels to protect the roads from the landslides falling from the sheer slopes in the winter.

He remembered a time when there were lots of people who spoke Kven, something similar to Finnish but different. There were some words that sounded familiar to him but it was hard to understand.

He'd heard that once, more than a thousand Brits had come over, by boat, to work in the mines. That was a long time ago.

Many of the first tourists here were Germans. Many soldiers had been here, during the war, and fallen in love with the place; they came back to visit with their new families.

Now there are lots of Japanese tourists. They come to see the northern lights. Most nights there are half a dozen coaches parked in Skibotn. Most of them stay in Tromsø.

They're building a new tunnel too. Then the trip to get dog-food will only take two-and-a-half hours