Hammerfest likes to call itself the northernmost town in the world, a title it has argued over for years with Honningsvåg further east, depending on how you define a town. Either way, you are a long way up: at seventy degrees north, on the island of Kvaløya, with the Barents Sea around the corner and a winter in which the sun does not rise above the horizon for about two months. In summer it does the opposite, and from mid-May to late July the midnight sun circles the sky without setting.
The town has had a hard history. It was a trading post for centuries, a base for Arctic fishing and hunting, and in 1891 it became the first town in Northern Europe to have electric street lighting, powered by its own hydroelectric plant. Then, in late 1944, the retreating German army burned Hammerfest to the ground as part of a scorched-earth policy across Finnmark, and the population was forcibly evacuated. Almost nothing survived except a small chapel in the cemetery. Today's town is a post-war rebuild, practical and colourful rather than old, and the local reconstruction museum tells the story well. On the headland stands the Meridian Column, a monument to the Struve Geodetic Arc, a nineteenth-century survey chain now listed by UNESCO.
The ride in is a long spur from the E6. You leave the main road at Skaidi and follow route 94 out across the treeless tundra and along the fjord, around sixty kilometres of gentle, well-kept road with reindeer wandering on and off the tarmac, so stay alert. The landscape is bare and rolling, with lichen, rock and water, and the wind can be relentless. Even in July, bring proper layers and waterproofs, because a sunny afternoon can turn to sleet in an hour.
Hammerfest has everything a rider needs after a long northern stage: fuel, supermarkets, cafes, hotels and a hospital, and it is the last town of this size before the long haul to the North Cape. The local economy now leans heavily on gas: the Melkøya liquefied natural gas plant just offshore processes gas from the Snøhvit field under the Barents Sea, and its flare stack is a strange sight at night. Fill the tank here, eat something hot, and check the forecast for the tundra crossing.