Lapland Trip - Part 1

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Our journey to Lapland started off from Helsinki. We decided to go on our Lapland experience with the Finnish student travel agency time travels, which meant that we would travel with exchange students from all over Finland. The bus left from Helsinki at 9 pm on Sunday night. We had about 1000 kilometers in front of us.

Both of us – Kathi and I were excited for the snow and the location but also worried, as we are finally fed up with icy roads and cold, windy weather.  As I got sick, about a week before our trip, I was especially worried, that it would get worse in Lapland.

The bus stopped every other hour for a potty break and to pick up fellow travel mates in Tampere, Oulu and several highway rest areas. Our first big stop was at a rest area near Jyvaskyla. As we drove by night, the rest areas as well as the highways were almost empty and gave me the impression of desolated, gloomy places. There were huge restaurants with lots of seating places. The only “customers” were some youngsters and tourist groups like us. It seemed like those destinations were waiting for crowds of people in vain. By the way – I counted 16 toilets at one place.

The lake - which wasn't a lake :D

At that time my sleep-pattern had been totally messed up, so I decided (more or less unintentionally) to stay awake all night. However my cervical spine collapsed several times, so I had quite a restless night. When the sun rose, at about 7 am, we had left Oulu, heading to Kemi. In Kemi, we visited the famous snow castle,which is built every year from scratch since 1996. The castle is quite a tourist attraction. It is rebuilt every winter with a different architecture. The area covered by the snow castle varies between 13.000 and 20.000 square meters. There were lots and lots of small rooms with decorations carved in the walls. Beside the castle, we spotted a huge lake. People were riding their snow mobiles, doing cross-country skiing or just going for a walk on this “lake”. The weather was great and we enjoyed a marvelous view across the white scenery. We later found out that this “lake” was part of the Baltic Sea. As Kemi is located in the Bothnian Bay. It was quite impressive how thick the ice was in this area and a few kilometers farther, we could see open water. Our next stop was the Santa Claus Village near Rovaniemi. At this point we crossed the Arctic Circle :)) In the Santa Claus Village, we visited lots of tourist shops, met Santa in person ;) ate a Finnish Salmon Soup and took lots of photos. I also approached my very first reindeer in Finland. It was a short and awkward encounter. We both seemed to be creeped out by each other’s appearance.

Finnish Salmon Soup!

After Rovaniemi, we drove another 4.5 hours to Saariselkä. The roads got more lonesome and there were hardly any street lights. The snow lighted up the curbs but the conifers on the sides of the road created a murky atmosphere. All of the occupants of our bus including the bus driver were exhausted. Our tour guide waited for us in Saariselkä and showed us our cottages and our neighbors for the next week. Our cottage mates were quite diverse. We had people from France, Italy and Brazil in our cottage and of course Germans ;) However on our first night we decided to climb the ski hill behind our house to get a glimpse at the Northern Lights. I have to say, we were lucky! Very lucky! At first we only saw light white stripes at the sky but the more we diverged from the village, the stronger they got. The guys in our group made us go to the very top of the mountain across country. There were no tracks so we sank into deep snow every other step. It was quite a workout! At the very top of the mountain, we enjoyed an impressive 20 minute “performance” of Northern Lights. We weren’t able to catch them on camera though. When we arrived back at the cottage, we all fell into our beds and slept like polar bears :)

After that trip I can tell, if you want to have a good night’s rest, you got to go to Lapland!

Our lead dogs :)

The fluffy swing dog <3

On Tuesday, we got up early to visit a Husky Farm. The bus took us to the ranch, which was located about 5 km outside of Saariselkä. We were welcomed by a horde of Husky puppies yowling at us. The keeper took us to a tent and gave us an introduction to life on a Husky Farm. She told us the difference between Siberian Huskies and Alaskian Huskies, Siberian Huskies seem to be prettier and are used as show dogs. One dog eats about 15 kilograms of meet per day and normally does not drink anything except for some kind of meat soup once a day. When they feel thirsty, they eat snow. We also had to opportunity to go on a Husky Safari for half an hour. For me, this has been the most impressive adventure of this trip. Before we met our dogs, we were told about the basics of steering a sleigh and the most important to never let the sleigh and the dogs go. The keeper told us that a sleigh is normally pulled by 5-6 dogs. There are two lead dogs in the front, one or two swing dogs, which are basically in training and two wheel dogs, who basically pull the sleigh. The dogs on our sleigh were very calm. However the lead dogs were quite excited and always tangled up in their team. I cannot tell, if steering the sleigh or sitting in it was better, but I really enjoyed the interaction with the animals. They seem to love their job and long for constantly moving their paws. When the safari started, I used the break quite a lot because I was afraid that we would crash. However it turned out that our dogs were quite nice and at the middle of the trip, they had perceived that we were slow, cautious passengers. The trip ended way too fast, but after 30 minutes, the Huskies were thirsty and new passengers were waiting.

 We spend the rest of the day in bed, eating and exploring the village. In the evening, we had booked a Snowmobile Safari. We were provided with snow suits, boots, helmets and gloves so we won’t freeze on the vehicles. Riding on the backseat of the snow mobile was another highlight of that day! Especially as we saw green Northern Lights, while riding through the forest. I have to say that it is physically demanding to keep the snow mobile on the tracks. I highly respect Kathi’s driving skills, especially since I kept on talking to her steadily and pointing at the Northern Lights. When we switched drivers, I got off the tracks immediately only after a couple of meters, so the guards had to rescue us from the deep snow and drive us back on the path. After that incident we were placed in the very front of the caravan, right after the leader of the group :D :D My driving skills still didn’t improve but with the help of Kathi, steering from the backseat, we were able to keep up and get home safe! :) I definitely preferred being a passenger on the Snowmobile! ;)

This day ended similar to the day before. We fell into our beds and slept immediately.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our Lapland Trip, when I will tell you about our trip to Norway, eating reindeer meet and our journey back!

Raisa