Saltstraumen
Interesting facts
- The strait's narrow mouth chokes the tide, so high and low water inside Skjerstad Fjord arrive about two hours later than in the open sea outside.
- Like all tidal currents, Saltstraumen runs at its fiercest just after new moon and full moon.
- Stone Age dwelling sites on both sides of the strait lie about 80 metres above today's sea level, marking where the shore stood after the ice retreated.
- Among finds near the strait is a small oval bone object identified as a bullroarer, considered the oldest musical instrument found in Norway.
- Excavations here uncovered traces of farming some 500 years older than any previously known in northern Norway.
- According to Snorri Sturluson's sagas, the pagan chieftain Raud the Strong lived by Saltstraumen and clashed with King Olaf Tryggvason.
- Some 33 Iron Age grave monuments have been recorded in the area around the strait.
- Recreational divers have found a small reef of horn corals just outside the current.
- In 2016 Norwegian broadcaster NRK aired a twelve-hour live slow-TV programme showing nothing but the current.
- The 17th-century poet-priest Petter Dass described the maelstrom in his celebrated work The Trumpet of Nordland.
Why it is worth it
Four times a day, the sea tries to squeeze through a gap 150 metres wide and three kilometres long near Bodø in northern Norway — and the result is one of the strongest tidal currents in the world. Saltstraumen is the narrow strait that links the outer Saltfjorden with the large Skjerstad Fjord behind it. As the tide rises and falls, up to 400 million cubic metres of seawater race through it in about six hours, at speeds that can reach some 40 km/h, and the difference in water level between the two sides can be up to a metre. At full strength the current spins up whirlpools as much as ten metres across and five metres deep.
The Norwegian pilot guides time the current by the high tide at Bodø: the strongest inflow comes about an hour and a quarter before high water, the strongest outflow some four and a half hours after it, reaching more than eight knots. Between the two, when the tide turns, the water briefly calms and the strait becomes navigable. Saltstraumen is young: it has existed in its present form for only two to three thousand years, since the land rebounded after the weight of the ice was lifted.
The churning water carries nutrients and prey, and fish gather here in great numbers — saithe, cod, wolffish, redfish and halibut among them — which makes the strait a celebrated angling spot; a coalfish of 22.7 kg is the largest documented catch. Eiders are the only birds able to dive for mussels in the torrent. People were drawn by the same abundance long ago: the remains of a hunters' settlement about 10,000 years old, the oldest known trace of people in Bodø, lie in the area. Above the strait arches the Saltstraumen Bridge, a 768-metre prestressed concrete span with 41 metres of clearance above the water.
Getting there
Saltstraumen lies in Bodø Municipality, Nordland, about 10–12 km south-east of the town of Bodø. County Road 17 crosses the strait on the Saltstraumen Bridge. The nearest airport is Bodø Airport (BOO), about 12 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Saltstraumen (Norwegian) or Stuorstrávve (Lule Sami) is a small strait with one of the strongest tidal currents in the world. It is located in Bodø Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is located about 10 km (6.2 mi) southeast of the town of Bodø. The narrow channel connects the outer Saltfjorden to the large Skjerstad Fjord between the islands of Straumøya and Knaplundsøya. The Saltstraumen Bridge on Norwegian County Road 17 crosses Saltstraumen.
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