The darkest day of the year is known as winter solstice. It is when the northpole is tilting the furthest away from the sun. It usually occurs between the 21st-23rd of December – this year it happened on the 21st at 1:04PM. The above picture was taken as close to this time as humanly possible! I was all ready for a beautiful blue light picture moment. What I got was a blizzard! As you can see (or maybe can’t see) I was standing on the jetty waiting for the shot when a blizzard came in at me from the sea. The wind was blowing so hard you can’t see the snowflakes – it was snowing sideways.

The blizzard blew away after an hour (Murphy’s law). We were in the city by then and the fresh snow made everything glisten again. The city Christmas tree was still shining brightly in the middle of the market square, and the whaler statue was still catching his sea creature. The cathedral on the mainland was still like an iceberg and the mountains all around were still hugging us through to the other side of winter.

Forgeiners always hear about the first winter – the ‘darkness’ winter. The days become darker, the sun fades away under the horizon, and the snow makes its first appearence before Christmas. But Norway also has a second winter – the light winter. This is when the days become lighter, the sun comes back to us, and where the snow fall competes with itself every year. The northern hemisphere would normally call this time Spring, but in Norway Spring is covered by the icing sugar of nature and is the time to enjoy outdoor snow activities.