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Kirkenes: More Crabmeat Than Most People Will Ever See

by Zoe Strimpel
Thu, 15 Nov 2007 at 7:30 PM
updated Thu, 15 Nov 2007 at 7:35 PM

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KIRKENES, Norway — On to Kirkenes, a mining and fishing city east of Tromsø, close to the Russian border. Vessels from the Russian port of Murmansk (250 km away) loomed in the harbor, much to the comic distaste of our anti-Russian guides. (The Russians are less than transparent in their fishing practices.)

Kirkenes as a town in nothing to shout home about — it was entirely razed in 1944 by Germans on their way to Russia and looks as one might imagine a rebuilt arctic city to look. Brown, wooden, and functional.

But nobody comes here for the architecture. We were here, in one of National Geographic's recently named top 25 destinations in the world, to go king crab fishing and to learn about the industry. After iron ore, this particular patch of Finnmark (the northeast region of Norway, sandwiched between Russia and Finland) is known for its waters, which are crawling with enormous red king crab.

"This," we were proudly told on several occasions, "is the most important place for king crab production in Europe." Still, the town is not quite gilded in crab-riches, as catches are controlled by quotas (no more than 300,000 can be caught a year per boat). Certainly, what does get fished is treated well. The factory for processing and packaging the crab (much of it shipped to Japan and China, where it is favored as a present) was high-tech and spotless.

No wonder business is booming. The crab is delicious — the lunch prepared for us nearby contained more square inches of this meaty pale flesh than most people will ever see. Some of the Brits on the trip said they prefer the sweeter flavor of British crab. I disagreed: When it comes to crab, quantity can really pack a punch. Who wouldn't choose a mammoth claw of arctic crab, just caught, from which to extract a giant mouthful of dripping, squeaky-clean meat, over its midget sibling from the Suffolk coast, however sweet?

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