Okay, make yourself a cup of tea and get comfortable,
because this is going to be a looong one…
Being unable to force our families to feed us into a
bbq-induced stupor this year, thanks to a minor geographical hiccup, we had to come up
with other ideas about how to spend Christmas 2012. The options were plentiful, but we decided
that it would be brilliant if we could see the Northern Lights.
Apparently, although generally temperamental, the Northern
Lights operate on a reasonably reliable 11-year cycle with this winter being
the zenith of that cycle - which doesn’t really make sense, since circles by
definition don’t have a tip, but anyway, never let fact get in the way of a
good story, as Hollywood
would say. I digress. Again.
The short version is that now is the best time to go.
After a decent amount of googling we found a place in Finland that
offered Christmas trips that included a range of Arctic activities guaranteed
to ensure we had a fabulous time even if we weren’t lucky enough to see the
Lights.
We left London and bounced
through Helsinki to Kittila in northern Finland. Here we met our bus that took us to the hotel/resort
thing in Muonio, Lapland, right by the Swedish
border. In the week or so leading up, we
had been eagerly keeping an eye on the temperature – we wanted to experience proper
cold. We needn’t have worried. When we landed in Kittila (yes, the transport
keeps running regardless) it was -33 degrees outside and the snow was more than knee deep where it hadn't been plowed. It was so cold that when you breathe in
through your nose, your nose hairs freeze instantly, which is very bizarre the
first few times! The amazing thing is,
at that temperature, any moisture in the air freezes as well, so the world
looked sparkly and glittery like we were inside a snow globe or something. It was the first (and probably the last) time
I thought an airport looked pretty.
So the bus drops us off in time for dinner. They engineer the trips so that you spend all
your time with the other people in your tour group, which is cool. We were thrown together with a British couple
on the first leg of their honeymoon and a family from Australia – the Dad came
out on the first morning in an All Blacks jersey too, so, you know, he cool.
After dinner we had to go and collect out winter woollies –
the stuff that “would keep us alive” – very reassuring. You bring your thermals etc and they top you
up with the extras. We’ve worked out
that, to not die in the arctic, it’s customary to wear many items of
clothing. For example, I spent each day
in two pairs of woollen socks, 3 pairs thermal legs, 1 pair trackies, 2 thermal
tops, 2 merino tops, 1 cashmere sweater, 1 thick merino hoody, the standard
issue super sexy arctic onesie, 1 pair glove liners, one pair thermal mittens,
one pair leather mittens, scarf, balaclava, arctic boots and a hat. You put all of this on in your room where its
22 degrees, so you overheat and then you go outside to cool down. Crazy.
But supremely useful.
On our first morning, we met our guide, Dirk, who first
warned to wear “everything we own”, hence the above list. It was still -30 odd and you could tell he
was worried about us freezing to death.
Anyway, time to see some countryside.
On a snowmobile! We had to go in
pairs, so Kyle drove while I clung on the back trying to keep my fingers and
toes as warm as I could. We blitzed
through the forest and across frozen lakes – it was magnificent. Those machines pick up a fair amount of
speed! Kyle got ours up to about 90km/hr
or something. We stopped for lunch at
the sister hotel down the road where we got to warm up by a roaring fire and
eat a hearty lunch of salmon and potato soup, which was delicious. They were having a wedding there that day –
the bride arrived in a reindeer-drawn sleigh and then the couple made their
vows to each other inside a real igloo.
Magic stuff.
For the return journey, the girls were challenged to have a
go at driving the snowmobiles… I drove
all the way back and what a completely different experience! Not only is it always nice to be the one in
control, but you also get to have electric hand warmers in the handlebars and
you don’t have a helmet in the way blocking your view! After a tentative start at no more than
40-50km/hr I eventually hit my stride and had us whipping across the lakes at a
respectable 80 odd, but don’t tell Kyle, he was getting a little nervous… The best part, for me, was the bumps. If you hit them juuust right, you can make
hubby get some air off the back seat, just like he did to you on the way
out. BWAHAHA! We were exhausted and cold when we got back,
but exhilarated.
That night, the hotel was visited by a real Finnish Santa
who doled out presents to each guest.
“Santa” came in leaning heavily on a cane, dragging a large sack of
presents – so no one sat on his knee to save hurting him. Later, we found out he’s a French guy, not
much older than us who loves snowmobiling…
and he doesn’t have a beard. Most
convincing Santa. EVER.
Christmas Day revolved around reindeer. We visited a reindeer farm (there are as many
reindeer in Lapland as there are people) and dashed through the snow riding in
a reindeer sleigh stopping in a snow-covered tepee for lunch. We had reindeer soup for lunch that day… which was delicious, it just felt wrong
eating the same animal that just hauled us through the forest.
After dinner, we received an aurora alert on our phone. The weather was ripe for a viewing of the
Northern Lights. We donned all our gear
and rushed outside... After about half
an hour we saw:
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We were treated to about an hour’s display, in the end -
magnificent green lights would fade in and out of existence and dance across
the sky a little. It probably wasn’t the
most spectacular display ever witnessed but we were thrilled. There may have been some high-fiving
involved...
Boxing Day was more about taking it easy and we got to pick
what we did. We were fairly unanimous
that we wanted to give ice fishing a try, so we all trudged out to the lake to
give it a go. First, you have to use the
giant corkscrew to drill a hole through the ice. If you’re a guy, this is quite easy. If you’re a woman… it’s a team effort. It took the three of us ages to drill
through, with the guys laughing at us in the background, but we were so pleased
when we finally punched through. I still
maintain the drill was blunt. Ice
fishing was cool, if a little less fast-paced when compared to our earlier
activities. Dirk waited until we had all
drilled our holes before informing us that it was the wrong time of year to
catch anything… But, we did still get
some nibbles. 
At the risk of boasting, I
very nearly caught a black salmon (I have witnesses), I felt the tug on the
line, yanked and this black head shot up through the hole where, we think, the
fish got stuck. Kyle valiantly ripped
his mittens off and tried to grab it out, as my line had come loose, but
instead we think he just punched it in the face and helped it escape… so that fish got to live to fight another
day… with a sore lip. We could tell,
though, that fish was huge! Must have
been a good 20cm long… In the afternoon,
we walked to Sverige (Sweden). As you
do. It was only 2km away.
The next day marked our final activity and, frankly, the one
everyone had been looking forward to the most.
The overnight husky safari. We
were each put in charge of a team of four huskies who were tethered to a
sleigh. They pulled us over similar
terrain to where we’d snowmobiled but it was very different.
Controlling the dogs is more difficult to
controlling a snowmobile, for example,
the dogs don’t like to stop… We had a
brake, but they are so strong that you have to keep all your weight on it to
stop them taking off again. It was
great, it was actually snowing on the first day, so had snow getting in our
eyes, but it was magic. We all fell off
at least once, so we got skilled at grabbing other people’s teams as they tried
to make a run for it. When we got to the
wilderness cabin we had to provide all the care for our dogs – we had to take
them off the sleigh, take their harnesses off, feed them and make their straw
beds. That night we sat around this
giant dining table eating our reindeer stew, drinking gloggi and talking
crap. It was great.
In the morning, we had to repeat the previous evening’s
activities with the huskies in reverse, but this time we also go to pick up
their poo… that was an experience in
itself, but I won’t go into detail here…
Let me just say that it’s not as easy as it sounds and golfers would
have a slight edge. I am, however,
pleased to report that we didn’t fall off on the second day. Nailed it! Getting back was a bit bitter sweet. Once we'd played with the super cute husky pups for a while, the only thing we had left to do was return
our gear and wait… and have one last
group drink in the pub.
But Finland wasn't finished with us yet, we had one more small sighting of the Northern Lights - excellent!
The next day, we had to go back to London… Kyle and I actually sat on our bed and had a
serious conversation about whether or not we could feasibly hide in a cupboard
so we’d miss our flights. But we
couldn’t come up with a reason to make them keep feeding us and letting us do
cool stuff. So, back we went. Stink beans.
So that was the crown jewel in our incredible year. We came back to a dreary day in London, with
the biggest case of post-holiday blues we’ve ever experienced and with nothing
else to look forward to. The long faces
lasted a good couple of weeks, I’ll admit.
On reflection, 2012 was truly remarkable. Not without a couple of downers, on average
we’ve had a great time. Sure, we miss things
about home – family, friends, our favourite restaurants, Whittaker’s chocolate,
running through the hills (clearly that’s mostly Kyle), being able to get
places in under 45 minutes, driving around Wellington’s south coast on a Sunday
afternoon and not having people in our face every second of the day, but hey,
we all make sacrifices. But, if anyone
has any blocks of Whittaker’s berry and biscuit and dark caramel they don’t
want, we’re here to help!
In a nutshell, this is a very apt description of our year. But I really don't think we'd have it any other way.
Needless to say, there are high hopes for 2013!
M&K xxx
