3. A day on Herøy and Dønna

Liam Mooney

Today, we set out on another ferry to reach Dønna where we all hopped in a van and cruised off towards the church and museum. The mountainous terrain of Dønna could serve as a playground for rock climbers which made me feel quite eager and restless this morning as we zoomed through the island. As we reached Herøy, the land leveled out and we spent the day exploring the old house and museum, both of which contained a hefty number of artifacts which gave us a glimpse into the lifestyle of the past. I enjoyed exploring the house and coming across typewriters, old clothing, old-fashioned bottles of booze and these sorts of antiques. My imagination ran wild here, just like it had when wandering around Knut Hamsun’s childhood home.

            The pizza we ate was arguably my best meal since our Lofoten feast in Experience of Art, simply because we created it ourselves and it was fired up in a stone-fire grill overlooking the Seven Sister peaks. We then went to check out Dønna church, which was quite interesting with it’s additional features like an opening in the wall that led you upstairs and also the (somewhat spooky) mausoleum. As the sun began to set, we made our way to Artscape Nordland’s “While You Weight” piece, which was great to see after it appeared in one of our previous lectures. Along with this, we visited the Viking grave mounds where I spoke to our guide about Viking traditions as we roamed through these woods. 15 minutes later, we found ourselves at an enclosed phallic rock statue, capping off another typical day of adventure knowledge class. After our guide told us a pretty funny story about a local’s experience with naked ladies dancing around the statue, we headed back to Sandnessjøen while I dug into my 10 kroner pack of nutritious coconut sugar balls.