Alta

Seven thousand years of rock carvings, a cathedral clad in titanium, and the canyon up the river.

Alta has one thing no other town in Norway has: more than 3 000 figures carved into the shore rocks at Hjemmeluft between about 7 000 and 2 000 years ago, still where they were made, and on the World Heritage list since 1985. Reindeer, boats, bears, people hunting — a running account of what the first people here did, laid on rock you walk over on boardwalks. The modern town is three old villages joined by a road, burned in 1944 and rebuilt plain, and is not, in itself, much to look at; the guide is honest that you come here for what is on the rock and up the river rather than for the streets.

Going ashore

Ships berth at the quay on the fjord below Bukta, 20 minutes on foot from the centre and the cathedral, and Alta's problem for a walker is that its three villages are strung along fifteen kilometres of shore. Hjemmeluft is 3.5 kilometres along the flat shore road through Bossekop — 45 minutes on foot, a walk rather than an excursion — and the guide's advice is to walk there and ride back on the town bus from the museum door. The canyon needs a riverboat or a taxi and a booking, and it says that too rather than pretending otherwise.

The hikes

1. 01

   The shore to the rock carvings

   4 km · 4 hours · 40 m up

   From the quay the shore road runs south-west round the head of the fjord through Bossekop, the old trading village, to Hjemmeluft: a bay of smooth grey rock where, between 7 000 and 2 000 years ago, people cut reindeer, elk, bears, boats, dancers and hunters into the stone. More than 3 000 figures, the largest such site in northern Europe and a World Heritage Site since 1985. Alta Museum stands above the bay with the boardwalks going down from it. Forty-five minutes on foot, two hours there, and the bus back. Five stops.

2. 02

   Komsa — the first camp

   6 km · 3 hours · 200 m up

   The bare hill north of the centre is Komsa, 212 m, and it is where Alta's archaeology began: in 1925 the first Stone Age settlement in Finnmark was found on its slopes, 10 000 years old, and the whole early culture of the coast is named after it. A marked path climbs from the centre through birch to the open top, with the fjord, the town in its three pieces, the river and the plateau edge all round. Down the same way, with the cathedral on the return. Five stops, nothing to pay.

3. 03

   Sautso, the canyon

   12 km · 7.5 hours · 150 m up

   Northern Europe's largest canyon, 400 m deep and 25 km up the Alta river, and a whole day whichever way it is done: four and a half hours by riverboat from the town, or seven and a half on foot by the rim route, a marked plateau path of heath, birch, bog and rock that is wet after rain and has mosquitoes. Four stops. The hard part is the timetable, not the ground — the boat needs a nine-hour call and a booking, the walk needs ten hours, a dry day and a taxi both ways.

4. 04

   The cathedral and the centre

   4 km · 1.5 hours · 30 m up

   The short call, the wet morning, or the afternoon after the carvings: up from the quay through the houses of Bukta to the modern centre, the Northern Lights Cathedral of 2013, the square and the culture house, and back. Flat, plain, three stops, and the one roof in town worth going under.

What's inside

Look inside

Pages 1–6 are in the free sample. 34 pages in the full guide.

What the guide covers

• Hjemmeluft
• Alta Museum
• Amtmannsnes
• Nordlyskatedralen
• Alta kirke
• Bossekop
• Sautso
• Sorrisniva
• Altaelva
• Komsa

4 routes · 26 km · 34 pages

When to go

The carvings are readable whenever there is light on them and the boardwalks are cleared in summer; from October the site is snow-covered and the museum keeps winter hours, when the adult ticket also drops from kr 175 to kr 115. Midnight sun runs from 17 May to 27 July and the polar night from late November to late January. The canyon boat runs from about 20 June to mid-August and the rim walk from mid-June to September, mosquitoes and all, and the low sun that makes the carvings legible is the same low sun that makes an afternoon there worth planning for.