The 1952 North Cape Cruise

07 July 1952 Hammerfest & North Cape

Home of hardy, indomitable seafaring folk, Hammerfest was almost obliterated by enemy bombs during the war! Yet somehow it clung to life, and to its distinction as the northernmost town in the World. Five degrees above the Arctic Circle, it basks in a sunset-less summer and survives a winter night that is three months long.

North Cape

This gaunt promontory stands, huge and haggard, at the very edge of the World. After sailing past rocky islands inhabited by gulls, auks and puffins, the Caronia will drop anchor in sheltered Hornvik Bay a few hours before midnight.

The ship's launches will ferry you ashore to a rough path leading to the summit of the Cape, a great granite wedge dropping a thousand feet sheer into the ocean.

Beyond, in an unreal, ghostly light, is nothing but the Arctic Sea and, far to the north, the vast ice fields of the North Pole. Few scenes in the World are as elemental and impressive as the brilliant colours of the northern sky as seen from this lonely promontory.

“The incessant cares and pursuits of anxious mortals are recollected as a dream”, wrote an Italian traveller who stood here a century ago. “There is only the eternal granite beneath your feet, the restless ocean and sky, the burning orb of the Midnight Sun.”

Northernmost Town

Your cruise liner RMS Caronia, is due to cruise past Hammerfest at approx. 5pm Monday, 07 July. No passengers will go ashore here, but the Caronia will cruise past the port so that, weather permitting, the passengers may view from the decks of the ship this northernmost town in the World.