A Quest for a Proper Winter

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The problem with having a job researching potential and current impacts of climate change, is that you know what the potential and current impacts of climate change actually are. Thus, my travel priority list has been adjusted somewhat to involve more places that within my lifetime will be inexorably altered.

As such, for this birthday I found myself up north of the Arctic Circle. Specifically, we were 2.5 degrees or a few hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle in Saariselka, Finland. I didn’t think I was a fan of cold places during cold times of year, however, it was beautiful. I also thought three days and three nights would have been plenty of time, but I could have stayed a lot longer.



This trip was a gift from mum and dad for getting my PhD and originally was offered as a weekend in Iceland to see the Northern Lights. Wisely, they left it to us to do the booking, knowing we knew the tricks to getting good deals. After some pondering, we realised that we would prefer to visit Iceland in summertime and go for a couple of weeks to be able to explore more of the island. Alternatively, Lapland had always appealed, minus the Santa bit, to experience proper cold winter, Arctic wildlife, Northern Lights and perhaps a bit of Sami culture. A long weekend there in February would still tick all the boxes mum and dad had hoped that Iceland would tick.



In the weeks leading up to the trip, close monitoring of Finnish weather websites revealed it had dropped below -30C. Coming from a country that essentially ceases functioning when the mercury drops below about -2C and being a person that makes every effort to time Africa fieldwork during the UK winter, I was quite apprehensive. What would we wear? What could anyone possibly wear to prevent instant total body frostbite?

The New Year trip to Poland and Ukraine meant we had the opportunity to stock up on Magdalena’s family’s cast-off winter gear from when Poland used to actually get similarly freezing winters – not so common these days. These massive down jackets were supplemented with padded skiing trousers and we planned to somehow pack them, or more likely wear them on the plane as they wouldn’t fit in hand luggage, along with thermals and mountaineering mittens. Then bizarrely, the weekend of our visit, the weather forecast predicted +2C! Can you really have a temperature swing of over 30C in a week?



A highlight of the trip was the snowshoe hike. The option of such a hike is why we’d selected Saariselka – it was in the middle of the Urho Kekkonen National Park. Consequently, all kinds of winter activities could be done immediately from the hotel (unavoidably called the Santa Hotel) without a bus ride first, as per places like Rovaniemi. The plastic contraptions, not at all like old tennis rackets, take some getting used to. I was very slow at first and kept getting left behind, though I was perfectly happy stumbling gracelessly through the forest in a scene straight from Narnia. The snowshoe route on the map took us to the top of a hill via a path that was far too busy for our liking. I think we passed seven people which was just too many for us in Europe’s biggest wilderness. Therefore, we decided to go off-piste. The reasoning was that it wouldn’t matter where we went as long as at a certain point we turned around and could follow our tracks home again. Our path took us through deep snow, that the snowshoes didn’t always preventing us from sinking into, up above the treeline onto bare white hills. Finland doesn’t have a lot of topography, ice sheets sorted that out 10,000 or so years ago, but it was still a seemingly endless view of low snowy hills with some sparse pine forest here and there, with absolutely no sign of anything human-made. The sun was never far above the horizon and thus took a long time to set. It was a murky dusk by the time we got back at about 16:30; we’d only covered about 15 km given we (actually just me) were tramping so awkwardly, but it felt we’d reached much further from civilisation than that.



A husky ride was planned for the next day. However, it was apparently too warm for the pooches! Anything above about -5C and they won’t run as they overheat. It was a shame, but it did save us a lot of money. We spent a fraction of the husky ride cost to go out on a snowmobile instead. I hadn’t been mega keen on this as far too often in many pretty parts of the world can the peace be shattered by “quad safaris”, which become “snowmobile safaris” up here in the far north. However, this day was so mild that it was actually spitting with rain so I accepted that probably nobody would be out snowshoeing or cross-country skiing and we were free to make as much noise as we liked. Though not as much noise as I would have liked as I soon realised that the snowmobiles had limiters restricting their speed to about 45 km/h. It was much more fun than expected, at least it was when you got used to the very heavy steering and realised you couldn’t lean to get around corners.



An unexpected highlight of the trip was the food. I know Nordic cuisine has become uber cool over the last few years, but I thought that was just in Michelin-starred ship containers in Copenhagen where they put moss on a pebble and charge you 100 quid. The first night I had Arctic char with some kind of unpronounceable berries on top. It may well be the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. It was so good I had it again on the last night; this time with a king crab’s leg balancing on top, which became the new best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. In the meantime, I think Magdalena only ate reindeer for the duration of the trip. Roasted, braised, a grilled rare steak, all delicious.



It's true that this part of the world is very expensive, but one of the best things was free: sledging. On the edge of the village was a slope reserved for sledging with a whole fleet of brightly coloured plastic sledges at the bottom. The fact that there were many many more sledges racked up in the “Please put your broken sleighs/taboggan here” pen compared to in the unbroken pen should have been a clue as to the extremeness of the descent. We thought it would be a gentle slope for kids but no, it was actually quite gnarly in a never-got-down-once-without-crashing-and-ended-with-a-very-bruised-bum-from-getting-air-off-the-many-bumps kind of way. The hike to the top was a steep one but the further you went the steeper and faster it got. We often couldn’t get back on after crashing and almost taking people out for laughing too much. Despite the bruises and potential permanent coccyx damage, we went back and did it again later – it was even more sketchy when it was getting dark and icy and you couldn’t even see the bumps.



I suppose the other thing that Finland is famous for is saunas. And we had our own in our room! It hadn’t cost that much extra for this novelty and despite it not being super freezing outside we still went in it twice a day to thaw out after any trip outside. I will note, though it should have been quite obvious, that if you take a mug of tea into a sauna and the sauna is 90C your tea won’t actually cool down. Not only that, you’ll burn your hands (as well as your lips) if you attempt a drink.



Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the Northern Lights. According to an App we’d downloaded, solar activity was high on the first two nights, but it was completely overcast. I got up a few times in the night to peer through the triple glazing but saw only thick cloud. The third night was clear as a bell, but solar activity was low so we saw nowt. We still had a nice little hike around midnight and laid on the snow for a bit but saw only shooting stars and satellites.



Despite initially thinking this trip would be a bit of a “travel north of the Arctic Circle – tick” type of trip, I could definitely visit those parts again. Next time I might actually get to go husky sledding, I’d like to have a go at cross-country skiing (Saariselka has loads of marked exclusive trails but we didn’t have time to partake), and maybe we’d get to see the Northern Lights. Although I suppose we were lucky to get the benefits of beautiful winter scenery but without winter temperatures. I may not have been so game for returning if it had been -30C!

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