North of the
Arctic Circle

For me it began in Taiwan, with a children’s history book. I was a little girl turning pages, and there were the Vikings: Erik the Red, long wooden ships with curved prows, the endless grey sea, and immense mountains of the northern world. Later came Asterix and Obelix, and I pictured the Northmen sailing from somewhere steep and wild, where cliffs dropped straight into the water. I was on the other side of the world, in the steaming humid south, imagining the fjords.

Then the Kon-Tiki, in the pages of National Geographic: Thor Heyerdahl’s raft adrift on the Pacific, nothing around it but ocean and sky. I studied that picture again and again.

Many years later, my husband and I stood in front of the Kon-Tiki itself, at the museum in Oslo. It was smaller than the one I had in my mind all those years. A raft of balsa logs, wood so light it seemed made for floating on a pond, and he had taken it across an ocean. How could he do it? What drives a person to go that far, on an idea and a craft equally fragile?

Perhaps the same thing that kept a little girl in Taiwan dreaming of fjords.

Going North

A few years ago, in early October, I finally went. After teaching in Oslo, we rode the train to Flåm, where mountains close in around the water just as I had pictured them. From Bergen, north by ferry, the coast unfolding island by island, until we crossed the Arctic Circle and arrived in the Steigen Archipelago.

At Manshausen, Adrian took me out on the water to watch sea eagles. One swept down so low it nearly touched the waves, took a fish in its talons, and rose with it toward the rocks. Afterward I sat in the wood-fired hot tub, then ran down the dock and leapt straight into the cold northern sea, to come up laughing, with autumn leaves floating around me.

On Naustholmen, I found Randi, whose island it is, on the dock in a bright orange coat, cleaning crates of golden chanterelles she had foraged, with mountains rising behind her. That night we ate them for dinner. Later the island cat climbed into Randi’s arms on the sofa, and she laughed, her feet up in handknitted socks. Dani, the talented masseuse, gave me a massage, and I wept in gratitude into the wood-fired sauna as the heat settled into my bones.

Then the northern lights came. Green rose first above the dark line of mountains, then red, then pink and violet, until the whole sky was moving. On Manshausen we watched them from the bed, through the glass walls of the sea cabin, the mountain black against the light and the water below. On another night, on Naustholmen, I went outside and stood beside the Tank, looking up. At one point the light seemed to pour down directly above me, as though the sky had opened at a single point and was spilling over the islands. The little girl in Taiwan had imagined cliffs and longships. She had never imagined the sky could dance and sing.

It was more than I had imagined.

Come north with me

Next September, I am bringing a small group to these wild lands.

From September 12 to 18, 2027, we will stay on two islands in the Steigen Archipelago, north of the Arctic Circle. On Naustholmen, our rooms include the Tank, a round white tower by the water, and Randi’s main house. On Manshausen, we stay in the sea cabins. We will practice yoga facing the sea, kayak among the islands, watch for sea eagles, warm ourselves in the sauna and hot tub and plunge into the sea, and rest. If the sky is kind, the northern lights may come out for us.

I am creating this journey with my longtime friend Torunn Tronsvang, founder of Up Norway, who knows this coast as only a Norwegian can.

There are only 13 spots. To reserve yours, write to me at corayoga@me.com. Full details are HERE .

Some places wait for us a very long time. This one waited for me since I was a child in Taiwan.
Perhaps there is one waiting for you.