By Corey Sandler
As I write these words, we are five weeks into a six-week circumnavigation of the heart of the Baltic Sea, with a few side trips into the North Sea.
I’m looking forward to returning to home base soon and processing several hundred photos and many more thoughts and observations about this part of the world.
In the meantime, this month’s blog post features a day trip we made on a day off in Bergen, Norway.
We got off our ship very early and headed into town to catch the morning local train headed east at sea level up into the mountain spine of Norway; our goal was the highest railway station in this part of the world at a tiny settlement known as Finse, population about 15.
Finse sits at 1,222 meters or 4,009 feet along the shore of Finsevatnet lake, at the base of a glacier.
There are no roads that reach the place; the only access is on foot or snowshoe up and over the mountains on the Rallarvegen trail, a route originally built for railway construction, or to catch a ride on the Bergen Line railroad, one of the most spectacular lines in the world.
Construction began in 1901 and was completed in 1909 when a train made a full trip from Bergen to the capital city of Oslo. The line as it exists today has nearly 200 tunnels, some five miles in length. Around Finse there are also miles of snow sheds intended to keep the track clear in storms.
When we visited on May 22, the snowbanks along the tracks at Finse stood nearly 10 feet high. A manager at the Finse 1222 Hotel told me that snow often lingers until the end of August or early September, and then the winter cycle begins again.
Patches of snow began to grow as the train came to Voss and Myrdal on the west side of the mountain spine. And then Spring wound back to Winter.
Finse is at about 60 degrees north latitude, which is below the Arctic Circle. But the local weather conditions make it seem decidedly more frigid.
It was those conditions that brought Finse several moments of fame.
It was used as a training camp for numerous Arctic and Antarctic polar explorers, including Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton.
And then, in 1980, it became the site of the Battle of Hoth.
That event, of course, was one of the most famous action scenes of “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.” Despite its name, this was the second episode in the Star Wars canon, which goes backward and forward in time…or so I am told. Speaking for myself, I appreciate the filmmaking and effects, but I’m not a big fan of Westerns, even ones set in space.
Instead of trying to film within a studio, and years before special effects could make a blank wall into a glacier, location scouts visited places in Finland, Sweden, and the Arctic Circle to find a site to serve as the ice planet Hoth.
It had to be wintry, without signs of human construction, absent of trees, and with just enough access to housing and food and storage for the huge needs of a film crew.
They chose Finse, with the historic Finse Hotel 1222 as home base. The hotel was opened in 1909 as a waypoint on the new railroad.
Today the hotel is home base for skiers, snowshoers, and hikers who visit all year round. The interior is elegantly frozen in time, with a few additions including a large scrapbook of photos taken during the filming of the Star Wars movie.
Principal photography for the film was done in London, but the battle scene was done on location. Containers of equipment were flown in or shipped on the railroad.
Filming in Finse began March 5, 1979, originally scheduled to conclude on June 22.
The first shooting location was the Hardangerjøkulen glacier.
Finse was hit with its worst snowstorm in decades, delaying filming. Temperatures dropped to the point where film became brittle and cameras and lenses froze.
Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) was on site for his scenes; Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa) chose to join the crew to observe. And the Harrison Ford (Han Solo), who had not been scheduled to work in Norway, was brought to Finse to avoid having to try and recreate the setting back in the studio.
The remote hotel is used as base for winter and summer sports, and it also conducts annual Star Wars commemorations.
But on the day of our visit, we had the ice planet all to ourselves.
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