Træna Festival originates on a remote Norwegian archipelago of stunning natural beauty, 33 nautical miles away from the Norwegian coast nearby the Arctic Circle, around there’s nothing but the Norwegian sea, a sincerely fascinating place where to organize a cultural event.
There’s a high probability of heavy rain being the festival organized in the North of Norway but the weather is not that important, it’s the vibration of the place, the nature, the romantic remoteness of the archipelago itself that makes this cultural happening so popular and appealing all around the world like no other.
Træna Festival got already attention from numerous world-renowned newspapers, one among all, The New York Times declared it to be “The world’s most remote and beautiful festival”. That’s really not a title one can laugh at.
On Træna archipelago live a few hundreds of people and once a year this exclusive festival is arranged just with a little more than 2000 tickets available, the population increases about 10 times with press coming to the festival from all over the world and suddenly the locals feel part of a much larger community for a weekend: the Norwegians make available also a public free sauna on the island of Husøy, ask them to know where it is located!
One thing to mention among all is the phenomenon of the Midnight Sun, which feels almost as bright as it is at Noon, a Nordic spectacle that is possible to appreciate even more at the far reaches of Træna archipelago, and because of this natural marvel it is seriously recommended to bring a sleepmask to efficiently sleep at “night hours”.
Concerts where mainly famous Pop Scandinavian musicians play (although time to time also international artists show up, Manu Chao has played there for 2 times!) are held in many different places: at the main festival area which is centrally located on the island of Husøy, in a small church, inside a chapel on a hill with a breathtaking oceanic view.
There’s even the possibility to attend a concert on top of a mountain and another in an inspiring prehistorical cavern: in 2018 for these more alternative gigs were played songs in English and in Sami (the language spoken by Scandinavian aborigines).
To attend both one must take a short ferry-ride to another major island of the archipelago which is called Sanna, go trough a dark tunnel enlightened by candle lights to see the first one, and after doing a challenging hike (which is like a walk in the park for all Norwegians but that truly is not that easy at all) as a reward one can finally enjoy the Highlight of the entire festival.
Getting to listen to a concert in a huge natural hole in the mountain is a wonderful experience in itself, the tranquillity of the landscape, the vibrations of millenia that has passed and music merge together in order to overwhelm the spectators in an explosive multisensorial experience that none of the people in the audience could ever forget.
One way to get to the festival is to take the train from Oslo to Mo i Rana, then a bus to Stokkvågen and finally a direct ferry that takes from 2 up to 5 hours depending on the weather conditions. When you finally manage to arrive to the little harbour of Husøy there’s a sign that even congratulates you for having arrived: “You made it, welcome to Træna!” This already says a lot about the atmosphere of the place.
Træna Festival in a nutshell is the happening that any music and nature lover should put immediately on his/her wishlist.
Written and Translated by Gerardo Iannacci
All pictures present in this article were taken by Gerardo Iannacci,
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