Nordkapp Stories

The North Cape is little more than a car park and a gift shop at a misty end of the European continent. Yet it has been a magnet for travellers and oddballs for centuries.

When I reached it myself on my trusty old Vespa one endless summer, I was struck by the atmosphere on that last stretch of road. Little expeditions from all over the world seemed to come together. Weekend warriors, world travellers and asphalt munchers, together en route to the finish line. They had left weeks or months ago, from Germany, Canada, Myanmar or Belgium, on worn-out bicycles, scooters and skateboards, on muddy motorcycles with sidecars full of junk, in their grandfather’s restored old-timer or simply by raising a thumb. All those separate storylines from all over the world converged for a moment there, in the same mythical place.

Together with photographer Rafaël Balrak, I went back to the North Cape to collect some of those tales. Nordkapp Stories is an introduction to that world, a little anthology of peculiar characters and their vehicles. Collected while camping for a week under the midnight sun near that asphalt bookshelf, that last bit of serpentine road to the end of the world.

Michael Van Peel is a stand-up comedian, columnist and vespista. When the theatres close in summer, he likes to trot around the globe on his scooter. His previous exploits bore the book Antwerp-Dakar by Vespa.

Rafaël Balrak is a photographer, crossfit trainer and also far too easily persuaded to bivouac for a week on some chilly, windy cliff in Norway.