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Posts tagged ‘hiking’

Northern Lights Tour Day 07

Day 07, Feb 03, 2025, NL Village to Karasjok, Norway

We wake up at 6:30 AM and walk across the Village to get breakfast in the hotel. We board the bus at 8:30 AM. This will be our longest driving day so far, we will drive 5+ hours today and end up in Norway.

After an hour in the bus, we stop at the Sodankyla Old Church. It is -36C, or -33F. Yes, you read that right! Walking around outdoors, we pull up our Neck Gators and pull our hats down over our ears! We have icicles forming on our eyelashes! The old church and adjoining graveyard make interesting sights for our cameras, which surprisingly work!

Driving on for several hours we come to the SIIDA Sami Village. The museum is interesting showing the ancient Sami culture. There is an interesting kilometer long trail to hike that shows the animal traps used and buildings the culture used. It is still -36C and I start out without my Gator pulled up. By the time I pull it up, I have icicles in my beard! The clever yet primitive animal traps are intriguing to see. There is even a courthouse and jail where errant residents were punished!

Moving on, we stop at a set of stores for sundries. It is interesting that in this part of the world, grocery stores cannot sell alcoholic beverages higher than 8% ABV (Alcohol By Volume). For reference, wine is normally 12-14% so wine is watered down here. There are separate stores for the good stuff and these are harder to find. But Mikael and Viktor find the “Alko” stores where the good stuff is found and a bottle of wine is purchased for the room.

The bus drives on through the night and the dusky view is eerie. We come to a sign announcing Norway and the bus pulls over. We all get out and Mikael pours shots of good Russian Vodka. We all drink to Norway!

Shortly ahead we make the actual crossing into Norway and arrive at our hotel, Scandic Karasjohka, for the night. It is snowing fairly heavily. We have 1.5 hours till dinner and settle into our room.

Temperature today stays around -30C to-36C. It feels good to be inside and get out of all the layers of clothing. Dinner comes with the Tour today and we are glad not to have to walk into town in this temperature! After dinner, we settle down for the night.

Northern Lights Tour Day 06

Day 06, Feb 02, 2025, Rovaniemi to NL Village

Leaving Rovaniemi, Viktor drives the bus further north. At 11:00 AM, the sun is barely above the horizon. It won’t go very high in the sky today. The scenery driving along the roads today through the snow covered trees is beautiful. But it is cold, very cold! Brrrrrr!

We stop at an old church to please our cameras. They shiver with us but they function which is a bit surprising!

We arrive at a dogsled camp around 2 PM and gear up (again) in snowmobile suits. It has warmed up to only minus 25C! It’s a heat wave! We are given a briefing as to how to drive a dogsled (and how to ride in one!). Each couple is assigned to a dog team. First, Elee drives and I ride. Elee falls off immediately! Not a good start! But the Guides get her back up and she gets the hang of it quickly. I refrain from even chuckling as I know my time is coming and who knows how well I’ll do! Half way through, we switch and I drive back. This next set of photos was taken by Mikael, our Guide!

Driving a dogsled team is quite the exhilarating experience! There is no steering controls on a dogsled. The dogs want to run and they want to run where ever they wish! Luckily for us, they decide to follow the other sled teams, for the most part! There is a rubber pad between the rails that you can step on to slow the dogs down. There is also a hard brake bar that you can step on to finally stop them! The first time I lift a leg to put my foot on the brake pad, I fear I will suffer the same fate as Elee! But I manage to hold on and slow the team down. On uphill runs, it is sometimes necessary to push off with a foot to give the dogs to impetus they need to run.

Once the dogs return us to camp, my fingers and especially my thumbs, are numb to the bone! We all huddle inside the Guides hut around a fire where I manage to painfully warm them up! Then it is off to our lodge, Northern Lights Village. Tonight we eat Moose for dinner and sleep in a glass roof cabin.

The cabin is fun for the most part. It is very warm inside and it turns out that even the floors are heated! The bed is positioned directly under the glass roof. There is a digital fireplace at the foot of the bed for ambiance. We fall asleep looking up at a partly cloudy sky, some stars and tall pine trees! In the middle of the night the sky has cleared and I get some fun photos. It is very comfortable to sit on the heated floor with the camera on a tripod! But alas, the Northern Lights do not come out. A shooting star does show in one photo though!