Uttakleiv Beach

Uttakleiv is on the western side of Vestvågøy in the Lofoten archipelago, about two hundred kilometres inside the Arctic Circle. It is a small crescent of pale sand between rock outcrops, backed by grazed farmland and mountains that rise straight out of the sea.

It is known for light rather than for swimming. The sun does not set here between late May and mid-July, and it does not rise between early December and early January; in the dark months the aurora appears over the water often enough that this beach has become one of the standard places to photograph it, because the mountains behind are low enough to leave a clear northern horizon.

The shore is coarse pale sand and rounded boulders, some of them famous in their own right — the so-called dragon's eye, a rock with concentric rings, sits at one end. The Norwegian Sea here is around ten degrees in August and colder the rest of the year, with real swell arriving from the west. People do swim; almost all of them are wearing neoprene.

Almost nothing is built. A small parking area, a campsite that charges, and a farm. Wild camping is legal in Norway under the right of access, but this beach has had enough pressure that the local rules are stricter than the national ones, and they are posted. Haukland, over the low ridge to the south, is the larger and more sheltered of the pair and has the facilities; the twenty-minute path between them runs over the headland and is the walk most people come for without knowing it in advance.

Sixty-eight degrees north, white shell sand, ten-degree water, and the aurora over it from September. In June the sun does not set at all and the beach never gets dark. Bring more clothing than the photographs suggest and park in the marked area — the crofters here have had a difficult decade with visitors and the goodwill is not infinite.