Northern Lights Forecast for Narvik

Northern Lights in Narvik

Narvik is an iron ore port on the Ofotfjord in northern Nordland, at 68.4°N, with about 21,000 people in the municipality. Mountains rise straight out of the fjord. They frame the aurora well in photos, but from the streets they also cut off part of the sky. They hide the sun too: the polar night proper only lasts from about 5 December to 6 January, but behind the peaks the town gets no direct sun from early November to the end of January.

Narvikfjellet above the street lights

Narvikfjellet is the ski mountain that rises straight from the edge of town. Its gondola goes up to the mountain restaurant at around 650 m, with a view over the inner Ofotfjord, and in winter people ride it to watch for the aurora above the street lights, with far more of the sky in view than from the town below.

Over the border to Riksgränsen and Abisko

The E10 climbs east from the fjord to Riksgränsen on the Swedish border, under an hour’s drive, and continues to Björkliden and Abisko. Local guides read the wind to decide which side of the mountains will be clear, and on some nights that means crossing into Sweden.

The Ofoten Line opened in 1902 to bring Swedish iron ore down to the port. Passenger trains share its tracks, climbing for about an hour from the fjord to the border and then stopping at Björkliden and Abisko on the way to Kiruna, about three hours from Narvik, and on to Luleå and Stockholm.

The 1940 battles in the Ofotfjord

That ore is why Narvik was fought over. German forces took the town on 9 April 1940. Two naval battles followed in the Ofotfjord on 10 and 13 April, and Norwegian, British, French and Polish troops fought on land until the Allies withdrew in June. The Narvik War Museum in the center covers the war years from 1940 to 1945, including a German Enigma machine.

Evenes airport and the Hålogaland Bridge

Harstad/Narvik Airport is at Evenes, about 57 km from town and under an hour by road across the Hålogaland Bridge over the Rombaksfjord. It has flights to Oslo, Trondheim, Bodø and Tromsø. Narvik is not on the Norwegian rail network, so from the south the train only gets you as far as Fauske, with long-distance buses from there. Buses also run to Tromsø and to Svolvær in Lofoten.