Ferries from Horn ferjekai

The boats from Horn reach Ylvingen, in the Vega archipelago — a UNESCO World Heritage site listed not for scenery but for eiderdown. For fifteen hundred years the people here built shelters for wild eider ducks and harvested the down they left behind, and by the ninth century it was about a third of their income.

Where the boats go

• Andalsvåg — about 18 minutes, 18 sailings. The county road link.
• Ylvingen — about 30 minutes, 12 sailings.

61 active sailings across the quay, in Brønnøy municipality on the Helgeland coast.

⚠ Two very different services from one quay

The Andalsvåg crossing is a road link — traffic moving through, in a hurry, on Fv17. The Ylvingen sailings are island supply, timed for residents.

They share the quay and nothing else. A boat leaving in ten minutes may be no use to you at all.

What the World Heritage listing is for

UNESCO listed Vegaøyan for a way of life rather than a landscape: fishing and farming on the edge of what is possible, and specifically the women's work of tending eider houses and cleaning down. The eider is a wild duck that chooses to nest in shelters people build for it, and the arrangement is thousands of years old.

It is one of the few World Heritage sites where the thing being protected is an economic practice.

Ylvingen

A small island in Vega municipality, familiar to Norwegian audiences from a television series filmed there. The population is small, the ferry is the road, and there is very little for a visitor beyond quiet.

Practicalities

County ferry rules: no booking, arrival order, AutoPASS by registration, foot passengers free. Summer traffic on the Fv17 link can exceed a sailing.