26 AUG 2019: As if we didn’t need a reminder that things are different north of the Arctic Circle, our first sight as we got off Seabourn Ovation in the surprisingly bustling city of Tromso was a reindeer, calmly strolling along the main street of town. The guide who met us on the pier said it’s an animal that strayed from a domestic herd.

Norway’s reindeer are herded by indigenous Sami families and are identified by cutting notches on the edge of their ears — the original ear-marks. This one also had a yellow collar around its neck and a blue band around one of its antlers. It had strayed from a meadow on the edge of town where the herds graze, we were told.

Then we headed out on a tour arranged by Seabourn Cruise Line  along roads that passed by bays of deep blue water and were soon on the narrow unpaved road to the Tromsø Wilderness Center, which is populated by a family and nearly 200 dogs.

Read it in The Cruisington Times: