“I used to joke that if you get cold, I’ll give you your money back,” says Marion Frantzen, laughing. Owner of the world’s most northerly surf school, she’s used to hearing concerns about the icy waters they take people surfing in. “That’s one of the biggest fears,” she says. “People think it will be super cold but it’s not a problem – the technology of the new wetsuits is just so good. But I should probably offer a guarantee ...”

Unstad Arctic Surf is located on Norway’s Lofoten islands. With a latitude of 68 degrees the islands are north of Iceland and the Arctic Circle, and the average water temperature in that part of the North Atlantic ocean is between 7-9C.

That, however, doesn’t seem to put off the surfers who travel there, drawn by the wild, rugged beauty of the islands and an altogether different type of experience to that found in the popular (yet often more crowded) tropical surf destinations.

The first surfers at Unstad Bay were Thor Frantzen and Hans Egil Krane, who began riding the waves there in 1963, although it remained an almost unknown spot. In the early 1990s, Surfing Magazine joined a group of surfers on a trip to the bay but it wasn’t until the noughties that the scene began to really develop beyond a small group of hardy wave-riders.

“Back in the beginning, people thought we were crazy,” says Frantzen, whose parents founded the surf camp here in 2003 at a time when there were still only a handful of local surfers. “Now we get families coming here to surf.”

One of the aims of Unstad Arctic Surf has been to make the sport there more appealing to “normal” people. “At first it was just the more extreme people coming but now it’s completely different,” says Frantzen. “We believe surfing is for everybody and have been trying to make it more accessible.”

The surf in the area draws professionals from around the world. Since 2007 the Lofoten Masters surf tournament was set up to encourage more surfers to experience the “Arctic aloha”.

While the winter is the best time to visit for big waves, the summer is perfect for beginners who can expect to find swells of one to 2½ metres. Visitors can also travel to nearby spots to find waves to suit their ability.

And while temperatures in Unstad can be low, no one can complain about the amount of sunlight; during the summer months the sun never sets. “You can go for a midnight surf,” says Frantzen.

• A four-hour lesson with Unstad Arctic Surf costs NOK 1.195 (£113). For information on how to get to Unstad see unstadarcticsurf.com

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