It’s late morning on board the MS Trollfjord when the announcement comes through: “Land in sight!”

Welcome news after sailing 523 nautical miles — the distance between Honningsvag and Longyearbyen, between the North Cape and Spitsbergen of Norway’s remote polar north.

It’s the last major stage on the Spitsbergen route of the Norwegian shipping company Hurtigruten. The company discontinued the service in the 1980s, but resumed it this past summer. You can only book a trip aboard the MS Trollfjord from May to September.The cruise starts in Bergen on Norway’s southwestern coast and heads some 3,000 kilometers to the island group of Svalbard — Norwegian for “cool coast” — in the Arctic Ocean.

The 500 passengers can still use their mobile phones and laptops thanks to the ship’s reliable wireless network. But the need to explore worlds online seems absurd when sailing through a landscape of towering mountains and archipelagos, romantic lighthouses and large sailing ships. Who would want to miss that?

Nor is this the end of the natural wonders. In the summer, once the vessel on the third evening has crossed the Arctic Circle near Gjersvikgrenda, the sun never sets below the horizon. A strange, mystical light bathes the world any time of day, even if the skies are covered in clouds and the sun only occasionally peeks through.

“Up here, the weather is constantly changing,” says captain Geir Eriksen, who has skippered Hurtigruten ships for decades now. And still: The conditions are hardly ever predictable. From a smooth-as-glass surface to thundering high waves, anything is possible.

“We’re sailing along the boundary between the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea,” Eriksen reports. Here, a stiff wind is normal. Yet now, on stretches along the coastline, the weather is mostly calm, at least in the summer.

First stop: Andalsnes on Svalbard’s Isfjorden fjord. To explore the scenery a gondola takes you up a mountain, a good 700 meters elevation, with exciting, stupendous views of the fjord, the so-called Romsdal Alps and the emerald-green Rauma River.

Between heart-stopping mountain pass, Polar Circle

But a real heart-stopping experience is on a road negotiating one of Norway’s best-known mountain passes, the Trollstigen. Eleven hairpin turns must be overcome before visitors can virtually float above the abyss on the viewing platforms of the plateau.

Back on board ship, there’s time to recover from the adrenaline kick, with the vessel next taking nearly 24 hours to sail some 333 nautical miles to Traena, an archipelago of around 500 islands that stretch through the Arctic Circle.

Only four of the islands are inhabited, reports Marit Bertheussen, who serves as a guide during shore leave on one of the islands, Selvaer, home to around 40 people. The other three inhabited islands are Husoy, Sanoy and Sanna. On the last one, explorers found remnants indicating human habitation going back 9,000 years, and so Sanna claims to be “Norway’s oldest fishing village.”

You can’t see it, but with the right geographical orientation you feel it all the more — the Arctic Circle — as the MS Trollfjord glides quietly over it in the evening. It goes through the Lofoten in the direction of Trollfjord, after which the ship is named. More spectacular scenery awaits.

The strait in Raftsund between Lofoten and Vesterålen is one of the narrowest fjords in Norway. No road leads to the bay. The entrance is only 100 meters wide. Rugged mountains rise steeply up to 1,100 meters above sea level. High up, eagles are circling overhead.

At the island of Stokmarknes we change to a speedboat. After all, Hurtigruten does not miss the opportunity to show passengers Stokmarknes, the birthplace of the shipping company 130 years ago.

Dream destination: 71°10’21” N

From here, you have to cross the island once from south to north, and then reach the coordinates 71°10’21” N: The North Cape, which is the northernmost point in Europe that is accessible by road. The plateau lies high above the sea, and it is still a good 1,600 kilometers to the North Pole.

It takes another 36 hours to reach the next port, with the map coordinates 78°15’ N: Longyearbyen, the main town of Spitsbergen.

Along the way, you can see humpback and fin whales. Passengers might also spot walruses, but only during excursions from Longyearbyen. The large creatures with their massive tusks are seen searching for shellfish and fish or lounging in groups on the long-since abandoned shores of the coal mines on the Polar Sea.

While puffins and other Arctic birds buzz overhead and reindeer trot through the village, you see nothing of the largest, but threatened, land predator that is still native here: Road signs warn of polar bears.

Back on board, there’s no further worry about polar bears, nor for the remainder of the cruise — seven days’ return voyage to Bergen. Time to just take in the breathtaking scenery of Norway’s cool coast.

Distributed by Tribune News Service.