Lapland 1

Lapland photo album:

Lapland album

First day in Lapland! I left Helsinki at 10:30 pm on an overnight train to Rovaniemi. We stayed in small sleeping cabins that had three beds each, a tiny sink, and nowhere to put your luggage (I had to share my bed with mine). I slept amazingly well on the train. It was very noisy (not just the steady chug-chug, but really loud rattling and squeaking) and very bumpy, but I liked the motion. It was like falling asleep in a car, but instead of not being able to stretch out your legs and trying to rest your head against the window, you actually get to lay down in a bed. I fell asleep to the white noise of my two Austrian bunkmates talking.

It was strange to fall asleep in one place and then wake up the next morning it a totally different one.
Lapland was snowy, sunny, and uninhabited. We arrived in Rovaniemi around 10:00 am, transfered over to a tour bus, and were taken to the grocery store to get supplies for the rest of the weekend. Then we went back on the bus and out to Korvala where we would be staying.

The place was amazing! It was run by a family who's ancestors had been on the land for centuries. They run a campground in the summer, a restaurant for the guests, cabins, huskies, and they had three cute little kids. First we got an introduction to the place by the mother, then we went to our cabins to unpack. I had some really great roommates: Outi, our "trip leader" who is Finnish, Gwen from Bavaria, Anna from Italy, and Fotini from Greece.
The cabins where so neat! The father had built them all himself, and they had the nicest little fire place and porch and were extremely well isolated (I actually had a really hard time sleeping because I was so hot). I want one.

After we got settled in we went for our "Reindeer driving lesson." There were three reindeer harnessed up to sleighs and we each got a turn "driving" them. It was kind of crazy. Reindeer don't seem to be very trainable, and although they would mostly just run around the loop through the woods on their own, they definitely had little moments of totally freaking out. And the reindeer owner was having us just jump on the sleds and see how fast we could get them to go. But for the most part, it was the equivalent of being pulled by a cow. But I now have an official "Reindeer Driver's License."



The next activity was dog sledding. That was really fun. The family owns about 40 huskies and they were all really sweet and LOVED to run. That one we didn't drive on our own, thank god. I couldn't believe how fast they could go! It was an exhilarating experience. I can see how working with your own dogs and being able to drive (and balance, that seemed like the hardest part) a sled would be incredible. I would like to try it again sometime.



By the time all that was over, I was the coldest I'd been in Finland yet. When we had been at the grocery store at noon it was -24 C, so when the sun started to go down, and the wind picked up, it was REALLY cold. Plus just standing around waiting for your turn at these activities didn't really warm you up much. By the time I went in that evening, I was seriously thinking "how am I going to be able to survive this weekend? I can't handle this!" But I made a fire when I got back (being the only one who knew how to built a fire, I became the official fire maker of our cabin) and before long it was time for dinner. The "restaurant" was an old farmhouse (or whatever it would be called in Lapland) style house/museum, with a long table that held all the food buffet style, and then two candle lit dinning rooms. All the food was made by the father with local ingredients. And it was SO GOOD!

That first night we had: meatballs, lingonberries, mashed potatoes, peas and corn, and salad (with homemade dressing) and bread. And for dessert: berry soup with vanilla cream.

After dinner I went on a little night hike, with the intent of seeing the northern lights. I was discourage by the fact that 1) the "Aurora Forecast" predicted the chance of seeing the lights as "minimal," the family had said that maybe if we were really really lucky we might see them, and 3) Outi, who's family owns a vacation house in Lapland, had only seen them twice in her life, and said even those times, she wasn't really sure if she saw them or not. The night was really clear and I started out by walking across the frozen lake. But this started to freak me out because I kept thinking about all that deep, dark water underneath me. So then I went back onto the ground and into the woods. This was good for awhile, until I realized I had no idea what kinds of ferocious creatures live in the boreal forest, and how it might not be smart to go wandering around in the dark in a place I am unfamiliar with. And then I started thinking about panthers and decided to head back.
I ended the night with a sauna and ice swimming. That's right: swimming in a hole cut in the ice. Not only did I not hate it, I actually loved it so much I went in three times. You just have to wear socks so the skin on you feet doesn't freeze to the ice when you get out.