F rom the crest of the mountain the land splayed out before me like a ruffled green rug, its pudding-bowl curves carpeted with stunted summer bushes of lingonberry, crowberry and blueberry and studded with mushrooms. A trio of very blue freshwater lakes spilt into one another, leading the eye out to the unusually still sea, where a small white lookout tower stood on a dime of rock, like a candle waiting to be lit. Not a road, fence, electricity pylon or Instagrammer blocked my view.
It was late August and I was on a hiking trail near the Norwegian village of Nyksund, on the Vesteralen archipelago, about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. With the northern lights favourite Tromso collapsing under the weight of its own popularity and rumours of plans to introduce a tourist tax on the Lofoten Islands, travellers are starting to look for other Norwegian adventures . Vesteralen, the northerly neighbour of the Lofotens, offers an alternative that is far less travelled.
This greener, gentler mountain landscape is strewn with Viking graves, shows off the northern lights for eight months of the year and is one of the few places in Europe where you can see white-tailed eagles and whales year-round..