The Lapland journals

Day 1 What the Santa?

After a busride of a little more then 15 hours, too much stops and too less space. We arrived in Rovaniemi, proud capital of Lapland. We went to a very intresting museum about the north, Lapland and the Saami. The Saami are the inginous people of northern Scandinavia, who lived there before the Finns, Swedes and Norwagians arrived. The museum was very intresting designed in my opinion, on side was about the land it self, the other side about the people: Finns and Saami alike. In the museum there was a very enthousiastic guide. The coincedince was that we encounter her a lot, but this was absolutly not a shame. She had a great knowledge about the museum and it's subjects. Also she was very enthousiastic in explaining, so it was also very appealing to listen to her. We thought we had two hours time in the museum, but it was 90 minutes so we had to go earlier then expected. Although it was disappointing, I was also looking forward to explore Rovaniemi. Unfortunelly, disappointment again because we had only free time in a shoppingmall far outside the citycenter for only an hour.

But after this we went straight on to  the big boss of Lapland Santa Claus. His little village was overly commarcialized, but that didn't stoped the fun. We went straight to him before the others also found him. We were lucky that there was only a small queue so we could watch pictures of famous people. While waiting, a friend and I discussed which language he would speak to us, because the signs were everytime in 6 diffrent languages. We conclude it would probably a mixture of German and English. But we were supprised that Santa Claus could also speak some words in my native Dutch. It was only the greetings, but still he knew them and I could understand him even he had a thick accent. After meating Santa Claus  we wanderd around Santa village before we finally left to our main destination, Vasatokka in Inari. After we unpacked our suitcases, my friend and I went on hiking and on aurora hunting. We didn't find the nordic lights, but we found a beautiful scenery of a house at the lake and snow.

Day 2 Quinzee me up

A new day and a new adventure in front of us. This day, the artic skills and snowscooter ride was on the program. After a short instruction on the basic survival skills in the artic region, don't forget we were around 340 km above the polar circle, it was time to bind the ski's under our feet and go for cros-country skiing. Lucky me, I had broken ones so I had to change ski's before we went in to the forest. Although I missed more than half of the explenation because I had to change ski's, I was suprisingly good in it. I was al of the time at front of the group. I didn't expect this because normally I'm very clumbsy in these kind of things, but I did to much of my own suprise.

After a quick lunch, the real artic survival began by building a quinzee. A quinzee is nothing more then a big pile of frozen snow, where you dig a small hole and room in. It is not warm in a quinzee, but at least it is warmer then outside. The maximum temperature in a quinzee is around 0°c, even if it is outside -50°c. This is because snow is very isolating, from the inside and the outside. So it keeps your body warmth in and the cold out. After our amazing quinzee was finished. We went on for icefishing. Maybe the fish overheared us, maybe our holes were to close to each other, but no one catched a fish.

The adrenaline levels keep on rising as we went on a snowscooter ride in the evening. Although I was nervous as hell of doing it at first. It was amazing to do it, riding it at first and sitting on the back after that. Although I was very insecure about my riding skills and I was afraid that my stupid behaviour would cause a serious accident, I managed to ride at a stable 35km/h. When it was my friends turn, I sat behind and I had a amazing view of the nordic lights shining from behind a hill. Unfortunally I couldn't take a picture. After the snowscooter ride, me and my friend went on hiking again. This time we returend to the lake where we build our quinzee. We enjoye our staying there for a little two hourse and we went also inside the quinzee to get a drink in there. Afterwards we returned to Vasatokka to enjoy the sauna.

Day 3 the way to Norway

We had to wake up early today, because we went even more notheren then we already were: Norway. After a couple of stops at a Saami resting place, Utsjoki, the most nothern village of Finland, Nuorgam (Were I and a friend took the opertunity to ride a sledge.) and a stop with an amazing view on the artic ocean and mountains, we arrived at Bugøynes. A Norwegian village which was populated by Finns. People speak there Finnish, Norwegian or Saami. The village is rich and famous for it's king crab production. The king crabs became there by acceding because the escaped their cages in Murmansk, Russia and found their way to Bugøynes. At first the citizens thought it were creatures from hell and abonded the place. Later, people returend and the place florished again. We ate there some delisious fishsoup and went to exploring the town. We ended our visit with sauna and a dive in the artic ocean.

Back in Vasatokka, I went on a snowshoe aurora hunting trip trough the forest. Trip was pretty awesome as we were to parts of the forests I was never before. Also I liked the walking through the snow, this time I didn't sank away thanks to the snowshoes. Our hike was fruitfull as we saw vague pink nordic lights and a very rare moonrainbow. After the hike we had a barbeque around the campfire. I as a veggie could enjoy some very tasty sweet corn. I conclude the day with sauna.

Day 4 happy rendeer and the lame

Today was the day that we dived a little bit more in the local culture. As we visit Saami and a Saami museum. The museum about Saami way of life and the north was very intressting and the exibition area's gave good inpression about the north in all it's facests. It was also quite intresting to see that more then half of the group had a hangover or was at least very tired of partying the last night. So they all sleep in the cafetaria of the museum. After a quick stop at a shop it was time to go to the reindeer farm.

The reindeers at the farm were really cute, I even feed 3 rendeers and huged one. Even though the people said over there that the rendeers are not the cuddely type, this one tried to follow me when I walked away. But unfortunally I couldn't fit him in my bag so I had to leave him there. I went on to ride in a rendeersledge. After that we enjoyed a warm drink in the kota and a Saami woman sang for us. I really liked the singing and I wish someone will book her for my 25th birthday in may. That would be really awesome.

When we were back in Vasatokka, my friend and I geared up after dinner to go hiking again and on the hunt for northern lights. A Hungarian couple joined us in our hike. During our hike we were disappointed that we didn't see them. But when we were almost back, the northern lights showed up right above us and stayed there for more then 20 minutes. The swirling of the blue, white and green lights was really amazing and ashtonishing. It was a little sad when it was over, but nothing last forever. Me and my friend enjoyed the sauna as dayclosure.

Day 5 Horny husky ride and on top of the mountain

The last day in Lapland had arrived and I found it a pitty that I had to leave already. I really enjoyed my staying there and I had the feeling I had much more place to explore there. But as the saying goes: all good things come to an end. But before we left Lapland, there where a couple of things still on the program and one of them was riding on a husky sledge. It suprised me that we could ride our own sledges, but it also sounded cool to do so why not. Since I was the first to ride on a snowscooter, it was my friend's turn to ride the sledge first. The dogs who had to pull our sledge were far more calm and relaxed then then the dogs at the other sledge. We hoped that they were serving there energy for the ride. Unfortunally, our fear became true because our dogs were pretty lame. They didn't run that fast and in the beginning they wanted to pie against every tree we encounterd. Later they run faster and skipped the pieing. But one habbit they had the whole ride. Namely everytime we had to stop, they tried to bang eachother. And for the record, they were all male dogs. So our huskey team concesded from gay huskies who were appartently very horny at the moment. Everytime it was time to go again, someone of the staff had to come to our sledge to unwire the leashes and to tell the huskies the orgy was over. We had to stop quite many times, so we felt ashamed of our horny huskies quite a lot.

After the huskey orgy, we went to Saariselkä as a final destination point were we could ski. My friend and I didn't want to, so we went on hiking on the mountain. He probably thought I was a crazy fool because I went all crazy on the mountain. But I explained him that for us Dutch mountains are really magical. Some Dutch will never see a mountain in their intire life. We always have to go to France, southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, northern Italy, Czech Replic, Slovakia or Slovenia to see mountains. Because we are a really flat country, we think that everything above 500m and a incline 4%  or more is a mountain. He couldn't imagine it was true because he is so used to mountains because he is a Swiss, but it is true. After our hiking we hang around in the small village before we headed back to Turku in 15 hour busride in the same uncomfortable bus as we came.