Why a Booktrail?
2000s: The tale of two men in a very small boat on the trail of a very big fish
Shark Drunk
What you need to know before your trail
In the great depths surrounding the remote Lofoten islands in Norway lives the Greenland shark. Twenty-six feet in length and weighing more than a tonne, it can live for 200 years. Its fluorescent green, parasite-covered eyes are said to hypnotise its prey, and its meat is so riddled with poison that, when consumed, it sends people into a hallucinatory trance.
Armed with little more than their wits and a tiny rubber boat, Morten Strøksnes and his friend Hugo set out in pursuit of this enigmatic creature. Drawing on science, poetry, history, ecology and mythology, Shark Drunk is the story of their quixotic quest. Together, they tackle existential questions, experience the best and worst nature can throw at them, and explore the astonishing life teeming at the ocean’s depths.
Locations
Reset- Norway - Lofoten Islands
- A: Skrova
- B: Engeløya
- C: Svolvær, Norway
- D: Vestfjorden
- E: Moskenstraumen
- F: Røst
Travel Guide
Lofoten Islands
On the Plane to Bodo, I fixed my gaze on the land below. Through the oval window, I could see mountains, forests and plains , which I imagined as a raised seabed. A couple of billion years ago the entire earth was covered with water, except maybe for a few small islands here and there. Even today, the ocean still makes up more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface. It has been said that our planet’s name shouldn’t be earth. Instead, it would be more appropriate to call it ocean”
Imagine looking for a shark out here?
There are some interesting stories about looking for greenland sharks here! They’re very elusive it would seem but the journey of getting there and finding them is interesting. Their flesh seems to be poisonous however but that doesn’t stop people eating it! So many dangers in every part of this book!
“When the waves slam against the rocks, they shatter and turn to spray. Water molecules dance around on the world’s oceans, dissolving, evaporating, cooling, and combining in new ways. The drops that strike my face have been in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Bay of Biscay, through the Bering Strait, and around the Cape of Good Hope many times. Maybe over the eons they’ve actually been in all the oceans, both big and small. In the form of rain they have washed over dry land; there they have been lapped up thousands of times by animals, people, and plants, only to evaporate, transpire, or run back out to sea, again and again. Over billions of years the water molecules have been everywhere on earth.”
Norway’s Majestic Fjords
“Swelling seas to the west, until finally the fusion between sky and water dissolved”
The Sea
…free, endless,, rhythmic and swaying like the old sea chanteys “
Engeløya
Engeløyais an agricultural community. Skrova is a fishing village, where everything including the way of thinking, is different. There are only seabirds on Skrova. The birds of the forests in Engeløya can sing with enchanting beauty, whereas the seabirds around Skrova often have hoarse, croaking voices.”
Streetview Maps
B) Norway - Engeløya
C) Norway - Svolvær - Even the buildings have pointy fins!
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Shark Drunk
Destination: Lofoten Islands Author/Guide: Morten Strøksnes Departure Time: 2000s
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
