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Published: March 21st 2013
White Landscape
View from the reindeer farm.It was the day from hell. Hell, it was the week from hell.
The week before Christmas, and I’m pulling twelve hour days trying to get my big work project delivered on time.
There was a shitload of things to do on my last day of work before my Christmas break but I had rather annoyingly and inconveniently been called to the Slough office for a meeting I couldn’t really miss.
That’s OK – I’ll go all the way out there in the morning and then go back into London in the afternoon, pick up my luggage from home, pop into the office to do work shit I need to do, before hot-stepping it to Stansted Airport.
The meeting runs two hours overtime; and then the ridiculously persistent rain we’d been having all month delays my train back into London by two hours. I have no keys to my house because they were lost by United Airlines on the return from the
last work trip I took so I’m frantically calling my flatmate Jess to make sure she’ll be home when I get back. I’m short on sleep and short on food – I haven’t even had time to eat all day.
By
Ice Hotel Reception
Disappointingly, the sliding doors are made of glass. the time I get home there is no time to do any of my work shit – like booking flights and hotels for another work trip I need to make out to San Francisco the week after I get back. There was already going to be hell to pay when I return from Lapland but now I’ve just doubled it. I explain to the boss that I have to go straight to the airport now and ask him to book my stuff for me. Then it’s off to Liverpool Street.
I miss my Stansted Express train by a minute – it was now touch and go whether I would make it on the plane. It was a nervous train ride to the airport – it would complete my month of misery if I was to miss the flight and I am already thinking about what I should do if I miss it.
Fortunately, Ryanair has a check-in desk for last-minute arrivals and within ten minutes I’m sprinting from security to the gate with three Swedish girls who are on my flight to Stockholm. We make it.
Talking to a local on the bus to Stockholm city centre, he tells
The Big One
This was the biggest and most regal of the reindeer living on the farm we visited. me the bus takes 80 minutes. I thought he had said
18 minutes. I still hadn’t eaten by this stage because sitting right at the back of the plane, the food trolley had run out of food by the time it got to me.
This being Ryanair, the airport is frickin’ miles away from the city. I have a map so that I can walk myself from the bus station to the hostel but once I get there I decide 'the hell with walking' after everything I had been through. It’s now 1am and it’s -5 degrees outside for Christ’s sake. I’m taking a cab.
A long day ends well however – just like
the last hostel I stayed at in Stockholm the place comes with free pasta – the first thing I had eaten in about 32 hours. I had almost done an unintentional 40 Hour Famine. Except without water or barley sugars.
This is Derek Seto’s travel blog – where the adventure often starts before I even get to my destination.
I had joined Sag, Sarah, John, Joy and Corb on an organized tour of Lapland for Christmas.
They had all arrived the previous night and had met the rest of the tour group
Downtown Kiruna
There isn't too much to this small town but this tree is rather pretty. who were headed out for a tour of the city the next morning. As mentioned earlier, this isn’t my first trip to Stockholm so I politely declined the tour and had a well needed sleep-in. When the cleaning lady berates me for sleeping past the checkout time, I play dumb as I have done so often in the past.
I needed to get as much sleep as possible because we were about to embark on what was quite possibly the longest bus ride I have ever been on – 18 hours from Stockholm to Kiruna, in Swedish Lapland, 50km inside the Arctic Circle. The forecasted temperature for our stay there was a chilly -24 degrees, easily the coldest temperature that I would ever experience. Gloves, long-johns, thermals, two pairs of thermal socks and a beanie were essential attire.
My favourite music artist is Swedish troubadour Jens Lekman, and I have named this blog entry after my favourite song of his, The Cold Swedish Winter. Entirely appropriate I think, because he wasn’t kidding.
The world was supposed to end today according to the Mayan calendar, and on our never-ending bus ride it really felt like we were journeying to
the world’s end. As the sun disappeared, there was a sense of finality about it, as we headed into a world of permanent Arctic darkness.
Now you would think an 18-hour overnight bus ride might be a bit of a nightmare but it was actually not too bad. They showed movies to while away the time and I even managed to get about four hours sleep. And then we arrived at our destination and we braced ourselves for our first venture into the sub -20 temperatures from the bus into the hostel.
It wasn’t too bad – but then again we were only outside for about a minute.
There was no time to go to bed however – as soon as we dropped off our stuff in our dorm it was time for breakfast, during which the sun actually started to rise. Similar to what I experienced in
Iceland (not the store), the sun never fully comes up and is in a state of permanent sunrise/sunset with a beautiful hue of red splashed across the sky. Although the sun was weak, it was more than enough light to do the first activities of the tour – snowmobiling and dog-sledding.
Snowmobiling
Sarah and Sag give us a wave. While waiting outside for the van to come pick us up for the activities, I realized that my toes had gone cold within five minutes. If this is what my feet would feel like after just five minutes outside, I was dreading how they might feel after a couple of hours on snowmobiles and sleds. I was questioning the wisdom of wearing my gumboots. I was also questioning the wisdom of jumping on a snowmobile straight after an 18-hour bus ride with next to no sleep.
Thankfully, the activity centre provides special snow suits for you to wear on the rides and more importantly, proper snow boots. I decided to wear the suit
over my snowboard pants and jacket – and thank God I did.
I have been snowmobiling before when I worked a ski season in Colorado during my time at university. If it was going to be anything like that, then this was going to be awesome.
Unlike the last time I went snowmobiling, I didn’t have my own snowmobile this time and I was sharing with Corb and we had to take turns to drive. We hit the front, just behind the guide as we all
Dogs, Teepees & A Winter Wonderland
Our scenic pit stop between the snowmobiling and dog-sledding. followed him down the trail in single file.
I was glad I had my snowboard goggles – standing outside was cold enough but when you have wind blowing in your face you get a burning sensation on your face in addition to it going numb with the cold. The scenery was beautiful – a landscape of frosted trees and completely white plains and hills, set against a backdrop of a permanent Arctic sunset.
The snowmobile was harder to control than I had remembered – the machine kept sliding to the left and keeping it on the track while dealing with all the bumps was a challenge. The guide ensured we never went too fast or got out of control.
And it was precisely this that made the ride a little disappointing. Like the last time I did it, I was expecting the guide to lead us to an open space where he would just let us at it. I remember reaching speeds of 80km/h last time but there would be no such daredevil antics this time. Hooning around on your own snowmobile is the best thing about snowmobiling so it was a shame that we weren’t given the opportunity.
We
Good Doggy
Me and one of the dogs who would later be pulling my sled. disembarked our snowmobiles at a teepee with a fire going inside of it, where we enjoyed a hot cup of tea. You had to drink it quickly, because it only took a couple of minutes for it got completely cold – and then another couple of minutes for it to freeze over. Even my camera was struggling to open because it was frozen shut.
Waiting for us at the teepee were the dogs. I was kind of expecting huskies to be towing our sleds but as one of the girls had forewarned us, they were more “mutty” – skinny, smaller, thinner-haired and more mongrel-like versions of huskies. They were still cute though and very enthusiastic. As we came out of the teepee and boarded the sleds they started to howl in expectation. They were raring to go – probably because they were freezing their balls off, literally.
As we finally got going and raced down the hill, it was exhilarating. Then after the initial rush, the dogs tired and we got stuck behind a slower sled in front of us. Then it was just sub-freezing cold and we couldn’t wait to get off those sleds. I was more preoccupied about
Inside The Teepee
A hot cup of tea doesn't give you as much respite from the cold as you'd hope... wriggling my toes to ensure they wouldn’t go numb than I was with the ride itself.
Dog-sledding is something I had always wanted to do however, and it was nevertheless a cool experience and I can now tick that box.
Changing out of our suits in the non-heated dressing room, I still couldn’t get myself and my toes warmed up. Andy, a Kiwi guy from the tour, and I ran about ten laps of the dressing room just to keep ourselves from shivering. Definitely the coldest conditions I have ever experienced.
It was a relief arriving back at the hostel.
We all pondered over lunch why anyone would want to live here – we were about to find out why that afternoon.
John, Sag, Corb and I signed up to do a tour of the iron mine that has in effect created and maintained the town of Kiruna.
Mining started here in 1898 and the mine itself is the largest iron ore mine in the world. It goes just over a kilometre underground with further plans to reach a depth of 1.365km.
There are no human lifts in the mine – the mine is only accessed by underground
Big Bulldozer
One of the many machines used down in the mines. "Fun Fact": The wheels are taller than you and tyres for them cost 2,000€. roads of which there are 400km. As the bus drove into bowels of the mine, there was a heightened sense of anticipation. The tunnels looked like an entrance into the lair of a Bond villain. Then the darkness of the tunnels and tiredness from the events of the last 24-hours put us to sleep.
Unfortunately, the tour itself struggled to wake us from our slumber.
Expecting something similar to the
salt mines in Krakow, we were to be disappointed.
It wasn’t helped by the most uncharismatic tour guide I have ever had, whose non-charisma was exacerbated by a sterile sense of humour. He just seemed to have a complete lack of understanding of what is actually funny.
Firstly, he made us understand in no uncertain terms that we had to let him know whenever we wanted to use the toilet and that the group could not be split up. In truth, we were stuck in the “visitor centre” part of the mine which consisted of two long tunnels about 300m long – there was no way anyone was going to be falling into a disused mine shaft in there.
We were then taken into an auditorium that looked every bit like the centrepiece
Bond Villain Lair
With our rather uncharismatic tour leader in the bowels of the Kiruna Iron Ore Mine. of a Bond villain’s lair. Like SPECTRE’s meeting headquarters or something. But that was where the intrigue ended. We continued our sleep through the subsequent video played in the auditorium.
Throughout the tour, the guide seemed to take great delight in delivering us several self-titled “fun facts”. Like how the tires of the massive bulldozer cost about 2,000€ each and the temperature in the mine is a constant 8-10 degrees. Stuff that was slightly interesting but “fun” would've been pushing it. He would also ask pointless rhetorical questions like;
“How fast do you think the mine lifts (for iron ore, not humans) go? I bet you’ll never guess!”
“Have you ever handled 100 tons?”
Why yes, I bench press that every other day.
There were some cool hut reconstructions and an old train in the mine museum which conveyed what life was like working the mines back in the day. Men used to mine outside in temperatures below -20 without the warmth technology we have today. I surely would not have survived doing that.
There were also loads and loads of information boards, some of which were interesting but on a day that we were running on very little sleep
Smoko
Corb and Sag enjoy some coffee and biscuits inside the mine's cafeteria. and had been doing activities in sub-freezing conditions, it would take a lot to pique our interest.
The girls decided to flag the tour – they didn’t miss much.
That night we ended up at the The Bishop's Arms English-style pub where we were served by an actual English barman from Newcastle. Asking what a Geordie was doing in a place like this, he said he was doing it for love, which warmed the hearts. The hearts of the girls that is.
And it was here that we all had moose-burgers! The meat was nice, but very gamey, like venison.
We then started naming doppelgangers for everyone - John is obviously Carles Puyol/Jonathan Creek, Sag is somehow Ryan Reynolds/Jamie Carragher, and Corb is David Bain/Sheldon Cooper. Corb wasn't too happy with his lot, but we sure were. Hilarious.
We then moved onto another bar where Corb and I decided to talk to some local girls given that 80% of our tour group were made up of couples. Elina and Jenni were very nice and friendly. Very talkative too. Just about all Swedes speak impeccable English, even up here in the Arctic Circle. Neither Corb or I got anywhere though.
Feeding Reindeer
With frozen lumps of hay. Not that I'd tell you even if we did, this is a family show.
The next day, our tour group visited a Sami reindeer farm. The Samis are the indigenous people of a large area in the Arctic Circle including the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Eastern Russia. They have their own language and are the only people allowed to herd reindeer in Sweden.
As we sat inside a teepee with a fire going in it, a Sami lady told us a bit about her people and what she does, while serving us some reindeer soup and reindeer meat. As a reindeer farmer she has to work outside in -35 degree temperatures, which I couldn't believe. She tells us that nothing keeps you warmer than wool and reindeer hide. I guess she would know.
As I listened to her, my toes were starting to go numb again, even inside the teepee with the fire going.
We then went back outside to feed the reindeer frozen clumps of hay. It was so cold out there - we were outside the city where it is significantly colder - about -30 degrees. The reindeer were cute and have really big
Locking Horns
John and Sag fool around with some antlers. Those things are really heavy! eyes. Where in normal temperatures we may have played around with the animals a bit more, in these conditions we were quite happy to feed the things, take a few photos, and then bolt it back to the bus. It was so cold that I could feel the moisture in my eyelashes and nostrils freeze, sticking the hairs together. Most definitely the coldest weather I have ever experienced. Until...
...we visited the world famous Ice Hotel. The mercury plummeted to -37 while we were here and any sort of wind would burn your face. The temperature inside the Ice Hotel is a constant -5 - I never thought I would see the day where going inside a building with a temperature of -5 would give me such a sense of relief.
The Ice Hotel is pretty cool though. They rebuild the thing every year and they have built a chapel completely out of ice as well as the hotel complex itself. All the ice used is taken from the river right next to the hotel.
Each year, different artists get to design a room each and this year there are some pretty cool creations. The rooms usually follow a
Ice Chapel
A church built from ice. Some couples get married in here. theme and the one I liked best was one with a dragon above the head of the bed.
Because the place is all made of ice, guests that actually stay here sleep in special sleeping bags and pyjamas, upon a reindeer skin that sits on the ice bed. All bathrooms are located in building twenty metres away. Imagine if you needed to pee in the middle of the night and had to run across to the building in -37 temperatures! Guests pay about 300€ a night for the privilege of staying here and is a popular spot for couples. I just don't see the romance in sleeping in it - you're sleeping in separate sleeping bags and it's too cold to get your kit off. Even if you get that far, the rooms aren't exactly discreet - the only thing separating the rooms from the hallway is a tiny curtain.
We then hung out in the ice bar where we all ordered a cocktail. It comes served to you in an ice glass - I don't think anyone had the cheek to ask for some ice with their drink. All the cocktails involved some flavour of Absolut Vodka and the
The Ice Bar
With a bottle of vodka displayed in a block of ice. pear concoction I had was very nice. It was a little weird sipping out of the ice glasses as the part of the glass that you sip from begins to melt. We literally smashed out glasses onto the floor when we finished.
Back at the hostel, we got stuck into our duty-free liquor while playing Uno and drinking games. Card games are underrated. We then went to the local pizzeria where we tried the reindeer pizza.
It was delicious. The pizzas on offer were a little different including a curry number that had banana on it, but the ones we got were all really good. Talking to the restaurant owner, it turns out that he competed at the Euros - the European Championship of pizza making, that is. As if the story couldn't get weirder, the guy himself is from Beirut, Lebanon.
From the Thai people that run the Thai restaurant adjacent to the hostel, and the Geordie working in the pub, to the Lebanese pizza maker, it is amazing the people that end up in such a remote place. This really is globalisation.
I am grateful for globalisation however, in the sense that it has made it
A Standard Room At The Ice Hotel
This is what a your room might look like if you stayed a night here - this is what you are sleeping on. so easy for me to travel to places I never thought I'd see. This is the 100th blog entry of this blog and I never envisaged the blog getting this far when I set off from Auckland five and a half years ago. It's hard work at times but I love it - the ability to express myself in prose and in pictures; being able to experience everything that the world has to offer and to share those experiences with you.
From Auckland to Kiruna and just about everywhere in between, I have had a blast. I am most definitely looking forward to the experiences that will make up my next 100 blog entries - starting next, with Christmas in Finnish Lapland.
Vi ses!
Derek
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