#stetinden

Back in 2021, I (as @virtual-winter) completed an analysis project that explored the geography of Frozen and what real-life places inspired the movies. One of these places was naturally the North Mountain (Nordfjell in Norwegian), the monolith that towers over Arendelle.

Having followed the fandom for many years, I had already seen plenty of examples of possible candidates for the inspiration behind the mountain (some of them I think were presented by the blog @findingarendelle).

For the first and second versions of my own project, I gathered a collection of the most recognizable peaks in Norway and concluded that the mountain in Frozen was probably a combination of several of them. The most obvious candidate was Stetinden, the most iconic of the bunch and recognised as Norway's national mountain since 2002.

In order of appearance (left to right): Stetinden Innerdalstårnet Hamarøyskaftet Tilthornet Segla

All of them (except Innerdalstårnet) are located in Nordland county in northern Norway.

It wasn't until earlier this year when I revisited some of my old work and took a closer look at some of the peaks that i noticed something very peculiar about Hamarøyskaftet. I had even excluded this one in the second version of my project in favour of Segla. However, it turned out i had just been (litellary) looking at it from the wrong angle.

Short background: Hamarøyskaftet is a 612-meter tall mountain in Hamarøy Municipality in Nordland county, Northern Norway. Despite being one of the lower peaks of the Hamarøytindarna range, it easily stands out as one of the most eye-catching mountains in the region.

Let's look at some close-up shots.

IDK about you but this peak literally screams "North Mountain" to me!

Group photo: