KIRKENES, NORWAY-Kirkenes is not big, but it was there, in one of the northernmost towns in the world, that I learned to come to terms with the side effects of this country’s extraordinary economic success.

Norway is officially the most developed nation in the world, according to the United Nations’ Human Development Index. That’s great if you’re Norwegian, but if you’re a tourist, it just means stuff is expensive. I converted prices to Canadian dollars and blanched. Sorry, the cheapest sweater is $300 (at Dale of Norway)? How about just the souvenir scarf then? $150? Ah, OK. I’ll show myself out.

In Norway I boarded a ship, part of the Hurtigruten line that started out as a cargo and mail ship that would also ferry people among remote coastal villages. It still does that, but you can also book a cabin on the vessel.

I was on the seven-day trip from Kirkenes to Bergen. From Bergen, I flew back to Oslo, and the trip turned out to be the best way I could have imagined seeing Norway.

During the voyage, the ship stopped in a dozen fjord-bound towns and villages. To not buy any of those great little pancakes with jam (or take advantage of the excellent bar at Oslo’s Thief hotel) would have made me sad.

Kirkenes is just 10 kilometres from the Russian border and the town’s economy is now based largely on the fact it’s the far end of the Hurtigruten route.

I was in town for just one night, with a 12:30 p.m. sailing the next day. I arrived just before noon, and immediately went dog sledding ($280 for two hours, organized by Hurtigruten). I visited the Snowhotel ($420 a night), which was just winding down for the season. The frescoes ice artists flown in from Japan had carved into each room were on the verge of melting away.

Driving around town, I saw stubby concrete boxes from time to time, beside or under waterfront homes: bunkers, remnants of Kirkenes’ role as a naval and Luftwaffe base during the Second World War.

I got back to the hotel late, hours since my reindeer sausage lunch ($5.50 each) at the Gabba Reindeer Safari Park. A lot of places had closed for the night, but a tiny trailer that sold doner kebabs was still open, right beside the Thon hotel, where I was staying. The kebab was big, and good, and 100 kroner, or about $15. But in addition to filling me up, that pile of randomized meat on a flatbread provided me with a new unit of currency.

It took a couple of days of sticker shock for me to come up with the idea, but I soon realized that if kebabs at home cost about $6, then denominating things in kebabs here would protect me from the emotional distress of doing the actual conversions, leaving me with the impression that things were roughly half the price they actually were, which is roughly what they should have been. Things went more smoothly from there.

Three hundred kroner ($47) for that souvenir toque? That’s just three kebabs. No biggie. That Aku-Aku mai tai is only a kebab. Get two. It especially helped when I went book shopping in Oslo at the end of the week, where two-and-a-half to three-kebab Jon Fosse and Per Petterson paperbacks were the norm.

I ended up with a few more kebabs on my credit-card statement than I would have liked, but I have no regrets.

Bert Archer was a guest of Toronto’s GLP Worldwide Expeditions, which didn’t review or approve this story.

When You Go

FLY: There are no regular direct flights from Toronto to Oslo. Icelandair (icelandair.ca) and British Airways (britishairways.com) tend to have the least expensive connections. Right now look at combinations of Jet Airways and either KLM or SAS (Scandinavian Airlines).

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STAY: I stayed at the Thon Hotel (thonhotels.com), part of a chain owned by billionaire Olav Thon, one of Norway’s richest people. It was about the only thing I encountered in the country that wasn’t weirdly expensive, with rooms starting around $150 a night.

FIND OUT MORE: Visitnorway.com