Vardø, Finnmark, Norway, 1617

The bulk of the novel occurs in the tiny village of Vardø, a small island in the northeast of Norway, which was part of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway at the time of the novel. The starting point of the novel is in the end of 1617, when the massive storm hits the coast of Vardø and kills most of the village's men. The village is mostly sustained by fishing, which of course becomes a rare event after the men die, and the local economy mostly works by trade, rather than money. The villagers, before the storm and Cornet's arrival, intermingled freely with the Sámi, even occasionally intermarrying, as was the case with Erik and Diinna. The people of Vardø are somewhat religious, though following the storm and Cornet's arrival, professing Christian belief and denouncing Sámi traditions and rituals becomes a matter of necessity, rather than...