Let me catch up with last week, and my time in Lapland. On Sunday morning, March 27, we took a one and half hour flight north to Kiruna, which is north of the Arctic circle. Jordana, our guide, collected us, gave us our snowsuits, hats, gloves and boots and drove us further north to the Saami village of Ovre Soppero (only 50 km from the Finnish border). The Saami people have lived in the north of what is now Norway, Sweden and Finland for thousands of years as nomadic reindeer herders. Now they have wooden houses and some of the modern conveniences, but they still rely on reindeer to provide a way of life.
Brit-Marie and Pere-Nils, our Saami hosts, cooked for us and instructed us on the Saami way of life. A hard life it was, and is…. but more on that later. Amazingly, the Northern Lights made an appearance the first night! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos, as I watched them from the window of the sleeping loft in the top of the house. And even though I checked every night after that, they never again appeared, so I guess we were lucky for our one sighting.
The next day we took a snowmobile and sleds to the river to go icefishing and have lunch (reindeer sausage and flatbread). The temperature was a balmy -10 C. Seriously, it felt warm after a night of -25C! Pere-Nils made a fire on the snowy river bank, and brewed strong Saami-style coffee – the most common drink in Lapland.
People lost interest in ice-fishing and only one small fish was caught (and thrown back), but we enjoyed seeing the countryside and getting a taste of the weather in preparation for the coming days.
Above: Me and Jordana relax on reindeer skins by the fire
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