Escape & Evasion in Far North Norway

Jan Baalsrud, sent to Tromso in far northern Norway by Special Operations Executive in 1943, had one of the most extraordinary escapes of World War II. After eight days at sea, his operation ran into trouble from the start. He fled a fire-fight by running over the mountains and then had to swim from one island to another. Sheltered repeatedly by local inhabitants under the noses of the occupying German army - one morning he skied through a party of them at breakfast - he escaped into the Lyngen Alps, where he was caught in a storm, disoriented and emerged three days later snowblind. Thereafter he was unable to move, but he was helped by the local Norwegians, hauled up 3000 foot mountains and hidden in snow-holes for nearly two months before taken to Sweden by reindeer herders.

James Henderson of A Life of Adventure followed the trail of part of his escape, visiting places where he lay alone for weeks at a time, not knowing whether he would ever make it out alive. You can read the story here, A Ski Tour Challenge in Norway