We are now back at Karen and Thomas’s house, in the Oslonian ‘burbs. Tomorrow we hit the road for the bulk of the Norwegian tour. As if to prove what an effect Karlsoy had, last night, Kang Mao asked if she thought it’d be a big problem if she got a Norwegian visa, went up to the island and chucked her passport into the ocean.

Ah, Karlsoy. Gorgeous. Freezing. Beautiful. Wacky. Amazing. Wild. We were taken very good care of, brought into peoples’ homes, treated like family and then... The weather opened up and it was even more beautiful.

 

Above, three very different boats sit just offshore. The biggest of the three is a Coast Guard vessel. Maybe it’s in case the activists get a little too active; I also heard that someone on the island or related to the festival or something has a boyfriend in the Guard, so he brings the ship around to hang out. The ship in the middle I know nothing about; the ship on the left, though, is an old fishing ship. It’s kinda got that Viking vibe, with the curved canoe-esque body and the tips on either end. It dates, if memory serves (and it often doesn’t), to the 1800s. There’s been a tradition among some Tromsonians (Tromsers?) to ride the ship the upwards of ten hours from Tromso to Karlsoy for the festival.

This is the crew of Radio Karlsoy Direct, the island’s pirate radio station, in their ‘studios’ (shared with the ‘media centre’). Yes, that’s a kid in the corner. It wasn’t clear how old he was, but he couldn’t have been more than 13. I happened to be attempting to link up to the ‘media centre’s network as the DJ was going through the schedule. She asked if I had a CD of Subs that they could play after the interview. I gave her a disc. Then, after a few minutes, I realized that I should probably find out when the interview was to happen. “In about a half hour,” I was told -- much like the seminar of the last entry, to my surprise. I collected the crew and we were on the air in no time. And, throughout the course of the rest of the afternoon, the only music broadcast across the festival grounds was the Subs’ CD. Over and over and over again. Fourteen gigs into the tour, not high on my request list, but, well, this was a Special festival.

Kang Mao is a vegetarian (and a non-fish-eater). She was more than a little shocked when Baba took a knife to the throat of the fish she caught. Zhu Lei was more of a natural -- even when it came time for the dirty work.

But the festival. The festival!

This guy, below, was waving a purple scarf around. Eventually, it made its way to Wu Hao’s head, completing the transition from punk to hippie to Hendrix.