Where on earth?

Ok, Geography lesson for all you peeps out there. Norway is a country in northern Europe, sparsely populated with some 4,3 mill inhabitants. Capital: Oslo (450.000 inhbs). Regime: Constitutional Monarchy, reigning monarch: King Harald V. Independent since 1905, when the 89 year union with Sweden was cancelled. Prior to that Norway, was in a union with Denmark for well over 400 years. Currency: 1 krone = 100 øre.

Bodø is the administrative centre of Nordland county (Norway has 19 counties, which in turn are divided into some 440+ municipalities.). The municipality of Bodø numbers some 40.000 people, with most of these living in the town itself. The town is a nerve centre for southern Northern Norway, with an Air Force Base, Bodø International Airport, county administration, end station of the regional railway, and numerous colleges in addition to various industrial plants.

Givær is one of the smallest communities inside the borders of Bodø. But in spite of the ongoing depopulation of Norway's rural/remote districts, the inhabitants of Givær seems set on securing the island as a place to live and breed new generations for many years to come yet. Well north of the Arctic Circle, Givær experiences glorious sunny midsummer nights, as well as pitch dark midwinter days. With the highest point above sea level being at 26 meters above sea level, the islets are very exposed to the almost constant strong winds from the south-west. No wonder there has been talk of a windmill energy plant here... Temperatures seldom rise beyond +25 C in summer or below -10 C in winter.

To put things into another perspective: as Givær straddles 67 degrees northern latitude, it's as far north as the following places elsewhere on the planet: The Kola Peninsula in Russia, Narjan-Mar (the regional capital of the Nenets people in northern European Russia), Vorkuta (end station of the Ural Railway line), Verkhoyansk (Central Siberia, famous for the most extreme variations in temperatures annually), Fort Yukon (Alaska), Fort McPherson and Coppermine (North West Territories, Canada), Søndre Strømfjord (Greenland, refueling stop for northern transatlantic flights).

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