Skibotn, Norway

Friends: Another Monday and the first time I've had to wear gloves and socks since last Monday. It is also the first day in a week that I haven't seen the sun. A wind from the north is contributing to the chill, but at least its a tail wind. Yesterday, it didn't much matter which way the wind was from, as the coastal route wound every which way, as much north as south and east and a little bit west.

Yesterday being Sunday, I was very fortunate to find any provisions. In 90 miles there was only one place open. I came upon the gas station/diner/mini-market in the early afternoon, shortly after it had opened for the day. I was so happy to find some food I almost didn't mind spending $13 on a hamburger and fries. It was a big one, 250-grams worth (a half-pounder). Half-way through I didn't think I would finish it, but bite after bite went down without forcing. And it was immediately digested, as I could pedal off with vigor. It was high octane fuel, keeping me going for three hours without a pause, including a five-and-a-half mile, one-hour, climb. Unfortunately, the mini-mart was out of yogurt, so I mixed a tin of crushed pineapple with muesli for breakfast. Muesli is one of the few bargains here, two pounds for two dollars.

This is day six in Norway and I haven't stopped going "wow." There are continual rugged summits to ponder, picturesque fishing villages to capture the imagination, the endless sea to lose myself in and islands to let my eyes play upon. Not once in Finland did the scenery stir such a reaction. The forests were nice and the occasional ride along a lake a diversion, but it was all the same. Norway is quite expensive though. Oslo is said to be the most expensive city in the world. One bargain is showers at the campgrounds. Most are quipped with a slot machine that gives five minutes of hot water for a dollar. Alta, where I wrote from last, had a fascinating museum at the site of 10,000 year old rock carvings. It had a two-mile path past etchings of reindeer and elk and human figures and various boats on giant slabs of rock. Alta is also the premier research spot for the Northern Lights. The first photograph of them was taken there in the late 1800s.


I spoke with a Dutch cyclist a couple mornings ago heading north. He said he wasn't enjoying Norway very much, but we hopped to another subject before he could complain about the winds or the rain or the high expense. For me it has been spectacular, though I keep dreading a nasty turn in the weather. I'm still north of the Arctic Circle. It is cold when there is no sun. If there were wetness to contend with along with that, the days would be very very long. I am overdue for a rest day. I have ridden hard for eight days straight, capitalizing on the pleasant weather. I could spend a day in my tent if the weather demanded it, though I hope it doesn't come to that.

Later, George

Honningsvag, Norway

Friends: And again I'm lucky to find a small town library with a free Internet station for a few minutes. I'm twenty miles from road's end. I have come 58 miles so far today. At least ten of those miles have been through tunnels, one of four-and-a-half miles and two of two-and-a-half miles. The longest was under the ocean, and the only one with a toll--$15 for cars, but free for bicyclists. It plunged down a nine per cent grade for a mile-and-a-half, leveled off for the same distance, and then climbed out at the same steep grade. It was a bit of a strain, especially contending with the lingering fumes. My head felt as oxygen-deprived as I have at 15,000 feet in the Andes.

The air was frigid. My breath was gushing out in billowing clouds. I feared hitting a patch of ice. My concerns were relieved, however, when I met a French cyclist coming from the opposite direction. He assured me the road was ice free. The first long tunnel I encountered I wasn't prepared for how cold it would be.  I declined to stop and put on my jacket, plunging straight in with bare arms. When I emerged from the tunnel, my arms were numb. After that experience I stop and put on a jacket.  The sun is still shining bright for the third straight day.  The air is cold, but when in the direct sun it doesn't seem so cold. I am riding in shorts as well as a short-sleeved shirt, but also with a vest. There are patches of snow along the road. If the breeze blows off the cold water of the ocean, there is a distinct strong chill from the polar air.

I am not sorry in the least that I must double back eighty miles on this road, as it has been spectacularly beautiful. The road climbs and winds in and out and up and over one inlet after another, some as long as a mile. There is so little traffic, the road at times narrows to one lane. The road is in great shape except for one five-mile stretch of construction.

Despite the trek of tourists up this route, there were no cafes or tourist amenities for sixty miles. Since I camped a few miles beyond the last town last night, I was running low on water. I was drinking out of my reserve third water bottle for the first time. It had been five days since I'd replaced the water in it, so it wasn't the most pleasant tasting. But miraculously, after the long tunnel under the ocean, for the first time since I started bicycling in Helsinki over 1,000 miles ago, I came upon a rest area with running water. It was cold and clear and fresh, the best tasting water I've ever drunk.

No word on if there will be any festivities at Nordkapp tonight commemorating the Solstice. It is the biggest holiday of the year in Scandinavia with bonfires and dancing and drinking and much hoopla. If there is noise and commotion, I may be able to stay awake until midnight and see the sun out over the ocean.

Looking closer at the map plotting my return to Stockholm for my flight home, I noticed one upcoming stretch of 292 kilometers that takes up the same amount of space on the map as another stretch of 74 kilometers thanks to the severe twists and climbs in the road along the coast. I am much further from Stockholm than I realized. I will be spending a little more time on my bike than I anticipated. That's almost something to be excited about.

Later, George

Laksely, Norway

Friends: Greetings from Lekesly, Norway on a bay off the Arctic Sea some sixty miles beyond the Finnish border. I've been flying. Yesterday around noon the Arctic turned balmy. There was nothing but blue sky and I could shed two layers. There was still a hint of a cold wind from the north, but today the wind is blowing from the south. With the sun shining bright it feels close to seventy degrees, though it's probably twenty degrees colder in the shade. Yesterday was easily the nicest day of the trip and today even better. It was such a rare nice day I was tempted to keep riding late into the night to take advantage of the rain free cycling. But I decided to take my chances and quit at 8:30, hoping there had been a break in the weather pattern that would keep the skies clear.


So far that theory is holding. I should rack up 120 miles or more today. I have 75 at 2:30 right now. I am about 125 miles from the Nordkapp. If tomorrow turns ugly I'll be close enough to my destination that I should be able to persevere to the end. If the rain resumes I'll at least have five miles of dry cycling through a five-mile tunnel. My timing has been great today. I reached the border with Norway at 8:30 this morning. Rather than immediately crossing I waited for the local grocery store to open at nine, so I could spend the last of my Finnish coins, something banks don't always wish to change. While I was waiting, I replaced a broken spoke on my rear wheel that I discovered as I was wiping the debris from my tires this morning after pushing my bike through the brush from my campsite. Fortunately it was on the side opposite the freewheel. It would have been wise and responsible to replace it on the spot, but I was eager to start biking. With 48 spokes back there, instead of the usual 36, the stress on the remaining spokes was considerably lessened. I opted to bike an hour before performing the operation, then taking that spell as an opportunity to rest my legs, while playing mechanic in a little more hospitable location than along the side the road. Twelve miles with a broken spoke to the border wasn't too much of a risk.

The first town in Norway was twelve miles further. I went straight to the bank for the dirty business of changing money. I had gained an hour, so I had three minutes to wait before the bank opened at nine. I still had fifty of the two hundred dollars of Finnish money I changed sixteen days ago. There was a long climb out of the town, but after less than ten miles, as I was cresting one final climb, I could see snow-streaked mountains inching their way up into my field of vision. And now forty miles later, I am amongst them. It makes the wheels spin even easier with such sites to gaze upon.

I rode for ten miles yesterday with a German cyclist. We met at a road-side cafe that served reindeer stew. It may have been my best meal of the trip. The German had bicycled up from Helsinki as I had. Unfortunately, he was turning back after ten miles. He was a seasoned touring cyclist who had much to share and rode at a pace similar to mine. He hadn't toured outside of Europe though and was most interested in all the places I had biked. It's always interesting to see the reaction I receive when I meet other touring cyclists and start dropping mentions of my tours in Patagonia and the Himalayas and the Outback and Morocco and up the Alaskan Highway and down Baja and so forth.

I'm always careful to wait awhile and ease them in after respectfully and genuinely expressing interest in their travels. Most often they respond with respect and are excited to meet someone who has biked many places they would like to. But sometimes they are visibly deflated, upset at being upstaged. Alfred had done enough touring that he had enough self-respect and confidence, not to feel any the lesser for not having biked as much as I have. I expressed as much interest in his travels as he did in mine. We were both sorry that we hadn't met earlier so we could have enjoyed a couple days of each other's company. Alfred found Finland most enjoyable. He said Finland was the only country in Europe that Germany hadn't invaded in WWII. He felt less antagonism here than elsewhere. He said Denmark is the worst. It is illegal for Germans to even display their flag on their backpacks or their car windows.

I'm on a stretch now with lots of tour buses, all bound for the Nordkapp. Arts and crafts shops have begun to appear along the road. They all have carved bears out front. The bears had me a little concerned about camping, especially since I had stocked up on a lot of extra food. I was prepared to pull into a campground, but I came upon a long stretch of road with high fences on either side to keep the reindeer in. I doubted if bears would be meandering around such a corridor, so I pulled off the road at a point where there was a crest and a gully to shield me from what little traffic there was. One more day north and then I can start heading south and hope the wind doesn't always blow from the south.

Later, George

Ivalo, Finland

Friends: Back on the road 100 miles further north at Ivalo on the great lake of Inarijarvi, the largest of Finland's 88,000 lakes. I have 280 miles to Nordkapp, Europe's northernmost point in Norway. The forests have not given way yet, though there have been a few bald patches in the now rolling terrain. I needed gloves and toe clip covers all day yesterday to keep my fingers and toes warm. When there's no sun, it is cold. The low cloud cover added a cold dampness to the conditions, though it never actually rained. I could see my breath early in the day. A long-sleeve t-shirt, sweater and vest is just enough to keep me warm along with tights on my legs. I have several layers in reserve if need be. As long as I don't endure a soaking rain or the temperatures turn the rain to snow, I should be able to make it all the way to Nordkapp. The last eighty miles are out a peninsula that I will have to double back on. Maybe I'll go for it and maybe I won't. I could reach Land's End on the longest of these long days, June 21, the solstice, a most appropriate time to be there. Despite the gloomy day, including a slight head wind, I was able to bask in the glorious memories of the festival. Robert Service, the poet laureate of the Yukon and the Far North, pronounced in his most famous poem, "The Cremation of Sam McGee," that, "There are strange things done in the midnight sun." This festival certainly testified to that. On numerous occasions I caught myself shaking my head at the incongruity of my circumstances. One of the most extreme occurred at two a.m. as I sat under the old circus tent on a bench at two in the morning with a couple of hundred Finns wearing 3D glasses going gaga over bats flying out of the screen and the innards of corpses bursting out of their bodies at us in "Flesh for Frankenstein." And then an hour later I was even more boggled as I sat in the high school gymnasium staring at a screen flanked by the baskets from the basketball court watching a brilliant Norwegian documentary, "Cool and Crazy," about a thirty-man glee club from a small Arctic fishing village in Norway. The film alternated between getting to know the men in their homes and seeing them in performance. They were shown belting out their songs in small town churches and large concert halls, but most of their songs were staged in some dramatic outdoor setting by the director--besides a sledding hill at night, in front of a barrier with crashing waves, in a fish processing plant, and, most dramatic of all, in a blizzard as icicles formed on the men's beards and tears dripped off their faces. Their songs celebrated the harshness and glory of their land. The movie was voted audience favorite for the festival. If everyone had seen it, the vote would have been unanimous. But my strongest memories of the festival were those involving the ring master Peter Van Bagh and his impish, glowing personality and his interaction with his tributees. Even though the majority of the audience at his conversations with the tributees spoke English, he would translate their answers into Finnish. He would have preferred not to have to translate so he could have more time asking questions, but when he asked one audience if everyone spoke English, three or four in the audience protested they did not. Von Bagh didn't mind altogether, as it allowed him to put his own spin on their responses. He had Jerry Schatzberg totally befuddled when his translations would get laughs even though his initial responses did not. Then when his translations wouldn't get a laugh, Jerry would complain that he wasn't making him sound funny. As much as Van Bagh reveled in his ringmaster role, he was willing to defer to one of his colleagues to handle the interview with Agnes Jauri, the French actress/director whose film was up for best foreign Oscar this year, so it could be conducted in French and Finnish. I grimaced at this bad news, but still didn't mind being in her presence. After two or three questions, she protested to Van Bagh, sitting in the first row, that she didn't feel as if she was connecting to the audience and preferred to conduct the interview in English rather than French, though she would have to grope for a word or two. That was startlingly good news. But imagine if reports of this got back to France, it could ruin her career. Headlines would scream, "French Actress Chooses English Over French at Midnight Sun Film Festival." She was pleasantly unpretentious saying she didn't consider herself an intellectual and after talking with some of the attendees at the festival, not much of a cinephile either. She concluded her interview thanking the"simple and kind people of Finland. I liked it very much." Schatzberg was a genuine revelation. Not only did he present a couple of masterpieces ("Scarecrow" and "Reunion"), he was refreshingly frank. Maybe he thought he could say whatever he wanted up here in Lappland and the word wouldn't get out. He mentioned that De Niro hasn't spoken two words to him since he chose Pacino over him for "Panic in Needle Park" back in 1971 when they were both unknown struggling actors. He told of firing a French actor two days before shooting was to begin, even though he was to be the star of the movie, as he was being totally uncooperative, refusing to cut his hair or do this or that. He told of not wanting his his film "Reunion" to be in Competition at Cannes in 1989 because France Ford Coppola was the president of the jury and he knew Coppola wouldn't let his picture win. Schatzberg had won the Palm d'Or once before with "Scarecrow" in 1973. Coppola had won it twice and wanted to remain the only American to have done so. Later, George

Day Four

Friends: For the first time since the festival started there was a late night/early morning screening of a film that I really wanted to see--"Cool and Crazy," a documentary about a men's glee club in a remote Norwegian fishing village. It won an award at the recent Rothenberg Film Festival. It would be playing at 3:15 a.m. in the high school gymnasium. It would be my only chance to see it unless it won the audience favorite, a strong possibility, but nothing to count on. An earlier screening had been canceled, so I was delighted to see, when I picked up the day's revised schedule, that it was being given a second chance.

So far I had successfully resisted staying up past one a.m., not a particularly easy thing to do when the sun is still shining brightly and I only feel a slight numbness of fatigue from already having seen five or six movies. I wanted to experience at least one of these super-matinee screenings, but I didn't want to jeopardize missing Peter Van Bagh's sensational ten a.m. discussion with a tributee. They are unfailingly a delight and a rare opportunity to get to know someone who has made a significant contribution to the world of cinema. I already had my day plotted out when I learned that "Cool and Crazy" had been added to the day's schedule. There wasn't a film I was willing to sacrifice for a nap. I'd just have to persevere and hope I still had some energy for "Cool and Crazy" at 3:15 am.

The day began with a most lively and invigorating discussion with Van Bagh and Jerry Schatzberg. As always, Van Bagh began at the beginning, asking, "What is the first movie you can remember seeing," and going on from there, trying to get as much of Schatzberg's life story as he could. At one point Schatzberg said, "I can't believe I'm remembering all this." It was at least half an hour into the conversation before he had made the transition from fashion and rock and roll photographer to film-maker. He spoke fondly of giving Al Pacino his first film role in "Panic at Needle Park"and the couple of months they spent researching New York's drug culture along with co-star Karen Witt, also in her first film. Such research rarely happens anymore he said. Witt went on to win the best actress award at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival for her performance. Two years later Schatzberg won the Palm d'Or with "Scarecrow" starring Pacino and Gene Hackman. But Pacino wasn't happy with some of his scenes that were cut out and didn't speak to Schatzberg for two years.

The two-hour discussion was over almost before it had begun. The first movie of the day was Schatzberg's "Reunion" from 1989, a deeply moving story about the friendship between a couple of 17-year old boys in 1932 Stuttgart, one Jewish, the other gentile. It played in Competition at Cannes, though Schatzberg initially declined the honor. Coppola was to be the president of the jury and Schatzberg feared it would have no chance of winning because Coppola was the only American to have won two Palm d'Ors and he would want to keep it that way. But when Coppola bowed out and Billy Wilder replaced him, Schatzberg relented. But then Wilder bowed out too. Wim Wenders took over the role. Schatzberg said that was bad news, as the film wasn't exactly pro-German.

The next movie of the day was "The Pornographer," fresh from Cannes in May where it won the Fribsci award. Its a French Canadian production about a 50-year old director of pornography played by a paunchy Jean-Pierre Leaud. He is retired from the business, but needs money and goes back to make one more film. His younger assistants don't have much respect for him. It is a film to look forward to. Then someone from the Munich film archives gave a 90-minute presentation of fragments of films left by Orson Welles including "The Merchant of Venice." It was a rare treat to see such footage, even though much of it wasn't in the best of shape.

Another rare treat was the 1925 Russian silent film "Jewish Happiness" under the Big Top with a piano accompaniment and introduced by J. Hoberman of the Village Voice. At 10:30 I followed it with the Iranian film "The Circle," winner of the best film at Venice. It too was exceptional. At one a.m. it was time for the 3D glasses under the circus tent for "Flesh for Frankenstein." That was out at 2:45 a.m. and I wasn't even yawning. There were eighteen stalwarts for "Cool and Crazy" at 3:15. We were rewarded by a very rousing film. It would have been impossible to nod off in it.

Later, George

Day Three

Friends: The first program each day of the Midnight Sun Film Festival is a discussion between Peter Van Bagh and one of the tributees. Yesterday it was with Freddie Francis, a little known titan of the industry, an 84-year old English director/cinematographer who has worked with many true titans including Michael Powell, Joseph Cotton, Joseph Losey and David Lynch. He had a lively, self-deprecating sense of humor, perfectly matching that of Van Bagh, one of the founders of the festival and the only director the festival has had in its sixteen years. Frances has won two Oscars, one for "Sons and Lovers" and the other for "Glory," both for his cinematography. When Van Bagh introduced him, he apologized that the festival program said he had won only one Oscar and not two. "We would have had twice as many people here," he said, "if I had gotten it right."

The two-hour conversation was interspersed with clips from "Time Without Pity," "Moby Dick," "The Evil of Frankenstein," "The Elephant Man" and "The Straight Story." He was accompanied by his daughter. She too worked in the industry, including a ten-year stint with David Lean. Van Bagh, the obsessed film scholar, was thrilled to meet her and brought her up on stage so he could pick her brain along with her father's. He commented that he will most remember this festival for meeting her.

I am filing this report from the festival press room at its sole computer at 9:45 a.m. Next up is Van Bagh's interrogation of Jerry Schatzberg in fifteen minutes. That ought to be sensational too. Schatzberg has minced no words when he has introduced his films, talking about the people he has worked with and the difficulty of making movies. Tomorrow's tributee will be Agnes Jaouri, the 37-year old French actress/director whose latest film, "It Takes All Kinds," was nominated for a best foreign picture Oscar this year and already played at the Landmark Theater in Chicago.

Last night the circus tent was filled to capacity with 500 people for the presentation of D. W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms" from 1919 starring Lillian Gish. It was accompanied by a twelve-piece orchestra. It earned a sustained standing ovation, the first of the festival, though the Finnish audiences have applauded every movie so far, sometimes immediately afterward, and sometimes a little later at the end of the credits.

Tonight's featured event under the Big Top will be "Jewish Happiness," a Russian movie from 1925. It will be introduced by Village Voice critic J. Hoberman. It will also have music accompaniment. The movie was directed by Aleksander Granowski. His cinematographer followed it up with the masterpiece "Battleship Potemkin," a film many critics consider one of the top ten movies of all time. Along with this rare event, my day will include four or five other movies and the Schatzberg interview. One more day of movies, and then I'm back on the bike, either to the far north, or west to the fjords of Norway, depending on the weather. There is a misty cold rain this morning here in the Arctic, a perfect day for movie-watching.

Later, George

Cyclomania

Friends: My 700 bicycle ride to The Midnight Sun Film Festival was rewarded by a bicycle messenger/bicycle racing movie. It was a Finnish feature called "Cyclomania,” and was the story of two young messengers who are nearly national caliber racers and their messenger girl friend. They spend at least a third of the movie on their bikes messengering, training and racing. It has already opened in Finland and has yet to hit the film festival circuit. 

It is easily the best of the six Finnish features I've seen so far, but probably not good enough to find interest beyond those of us devoted to the subject. I had my own private Q&A with the young director after the screening, as the public Q&A was conducted entirely in Finnish. I was hoping he could tell me about a whole set of European cycling movies I was unaware of. He knew of none. His two favorite bicycling movies were the same as mine--the classic "Breaking Away" and the recent French Canadian messenger movie "Two Seconds." He thought he had exceeded "Two Seconds." In some ways yes, in others no. That movie was strictly about messengering. Cyclomania is only marginally about the messengering and doesn't offer any insights nor insults into the profession as "Two Seconds" does. 

 I had more bicycling movies to offer him than he had for me, including a recent Italian movie on Coppi and the French movie, "The Training of a Champion" from about ten years ago about a racer nearing the end of his career. He said there was no famous Finnish bicycle racer though there have been a few who have ridden as domestiques in the Tour de France. I hope to talk to him again, as with all the Finns I've met, he was most affable and unpretentious and kindly and easy-going. 

 Yesterday morning's ten a.m. tribute to Sergio Sollima, an 80-year old Italian director who specialized in spaghetti westerns, was conducted only in Italian and Finnish. There was nowhere else to go, so I sat in the theater with about 150 Finns reading and with my ears perking at the occasional mention of John Wayne and Sergio Leone. 

This morning's tributee in half an hour will be Freddie Francis, an 84-year old English director-cinematographer who has worked on movies ranging from the "French Lieutenant's Wife" to John Houston's "Moulin Rouge" and "The Straight Story," all scheduled to be screened here. Last night I saw an old horror movie he directed called "Torture Garden." When he introduced it he said it had been so long since he'd seen it he'd have to wait until afterward to talk about it. 

Tonight D. W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms" from 1919 with live accompaniment will be playing under the Big Top. It is predicted to be the first sell-out in the tent. Of the four or five screenings I've attended in the tent it has yet to be even half-filled. There are less than fifty seats with backs, the rest are just narrow, not even a foot-wide, benches, yet the crowds don't gather early to get the seats. The Finns are proud of their ability to suffer. If they weren't tough, they wouldn't live in this land, they say. 

 Only once have I been I relegated to the benches. That was only because I talked to the bicycling director so long. My hundreds of games in the bleachers of Wrigley Field must have conditioned me to such hard sitting, as the bench wasn't as uncomfortable as I feared, even past the midnight hour. But then I've been sitting on nothing more than a bicycle seat for the past week. 

The ticket prices are little more than four dollars, or a little less, if one buys a twelve pack. I'm still happy to have a press pass letting me in gratis. The campground I'm at is exactly a kilometer away on the other side of a river that bisects the town. There are only three showers, but never has more than one been in use when I've needed one. With it light 24 hours people tend to stay up late and not rise so early. The town is quite deserted even at 9:30 am. 

It was quite a novelty to walk out of the tent past midnight last night and see pink clouds illuminated by the sun. One doesn't get tired when it is always light. I could have seen Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" starting at 12.30 a.m. in 3D under the big top, and put my fatigue theory to a more extreme test, but there were too many programs I didn't wish to doze off in the next day, so I passed on it. I'm sorry to report there are no Kaurismaki films on the schedule from either Aki or Maki. Nor have I detected their influence in any of the Finnish films I've seen so far. 

 Later, George