Midnight on top of Lofoten
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Midnight on top of Lofoten

by Simon Fuhrmann

The village Reine seen from top of Reinebringen. The rocks of Lofoten were metamorphosed around 490 to 390 million years ago and belong to the wider Western Gneiss Region of Norway. This island chain has one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude. Lofoten has been inhabited for around 6000 years. Originally, people lived there from fishing and hunting. During the Viking Age, several settlements with chieftains' farms were formed. From the 14th century, merchants from Bergen dominated the fish trade. In the middle of the 19th century there were large herring deposits, which led to today's settlements.