Alta landmark home near Sarves!

Welcome to Bunæs, our historic Alta farm. Enjoy the northern lights or midnight sun on fjord, river, cliffs, skiing, & mountain hikes. In summer, we recommend collecting river stones, chatting with locals, and checking out nearby archaeological sites. In winter, Sarves ski hill is only five minutes away and our local waterfalls are frozen-spectacular. Whatever season, it’s nice to relax with a coffee in a well-appointed home. We call this “our cozy place,” and we hope you’ll make it yours, too! The space This house was built just after the war and has been lovingly refurbished. It is a solid Norwegian building with electric panel heating, new appliances, and three very cozy beds. It has no TV and three gas lamps in the place of an indoor fireplace (outdoor stone fire pit is awesome!). One bedroom has a private study attached to it which holds a fold-out couch for guests. All new sheets, towels, fluffy guest robes, and lots of natural light. Welcome! Guest access Guests have access to the main floor with kitchen, living room, bathroom, study, and one bedroom; and two bedrooms with a reading nook upstairs. Two other upstairs bedrooms are off limits (used for storage and kids’ rooms when we visit). The basement has a laundry room and several other storage rooms. If you have one tonne of potatoes after this fall’s harvest, I know where you can put them. Other things to note This farm was built by Israel and Åse Aslaksen. With other Alta residents, they returned after WWII to find their farm had been burned. They tore up the Nazi plane landing strip at the air field, hauling the wooden planks on carriages propelled by the strength not of horses but of men and determination. The small shack they built with these materials still stands in our property! Israel proved himself to be a strong community leader in this time. He developed his own small mill off the river on his property (it still exists, you can visit it!) to plane trees for construction. He became a construction inspector, helping residents around Alta to procure and use the materials they had sourced. He was the first person in Rafsbotn to get a telephone, paid by the minute, and neighbors would use it in exchange for a few coins dropped in a wooden box. A farm; a mill; a kitchen; an employer; a communications hub; the start of the unpaved old road to Sørelvdalen (it’s still there, just to the side of the garage, you can visit it!); “the white house before the bridge,” is still a landmark for travelers and older residents who remember the Aslaksen industriousness.