Every design for Hammerfest

A cruise ship ties up in the ice-free harbour, and Hammerfest fills with visitors from all over the world. In summer the midnight sun stays above the horizon for weeks on end; in the dark months of polar night, people come for the northern lights instead. Rypefjord lies just to the south, and out on the island of Melkøya the gas from the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea is brought ashore and processed.

What sets the town apart is a title. Hammerfest calls itself the northernmost town in the world, a claim that nearby Honningsvåg disputes; it all depends on how you define a town. Either way, Hammerfest is the northernmost with more than five thousand people, and the argument is a point of local pride. History is close at hand too: Isbjørnklubben, the Polar Bear Society, Gjenreisningsmuseet, the Museum of Reconstruction, and Meridianstøtten on Fuglenes, part of the Struve Geodetic Arc and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With Salen and Tyven among the peaks around it, the town is compact, and those who grew up here know every corner of it: Hammerfest Church, the harbour, the road out to Fuglenes. On a map, it is a whole childhood in one small frame.