Kiruna: THE trip! part 2

After everyone was across, we made our way to the campsite. There was two main cabins for the group, a sauna, an outhouse, a cabin that was used for the dinner and lunches, a little octagon gazebo with a fireplace in the middle where we had lunch later that day. The group was then split up into two groups of ten and our group got the Lappish cabin, one of the first thing built at the campsite, and was built by Henrik himself. It was definitely a tight fit, but the focus wasn't on staying in the cabin the whole time.

After we got our stuff settled in our rooms, one of the first things we had to do was cut and chop up some wood for the cabins, for the sauna, and for the lunch later on that day. We also needed to get fresh water from the river for drinking, cooking, and for the sauna as well.

With 20 people, it didn't take that long. There were only a couple axes, and a few more saws, so there was a bit of a bottleneck when the wood got to the axes for chopping. Three pairs of people would cut the wood while two people chopped. One of the axes broke fairly early in the wood cutting...so we were left with just one. We needed about 6 boxes of wood for the cabin and 2 boxes each for the sauna and BBQ.

The "P" doesn't stand for parking....

Overall, the food they gave us was great. I wasn't expecting it to be that tasty for what we paid for it, but the quality and quantity were better than I thought!

So for the first lunch, we had basically smoked meat..almost like a hotdog and was quite tasty with some homemade tomato sauce, ketchup, beans, potatoes and some red cabbage stuff that I had never tried before. I was a bit hesitant on the cabbage, because I don't usually like it, but this red cabbage stuff was pretty good.

The atmosphere was pretty good for eating too because of the octagon-shaped shelter we were in. The other four people from Austria and Germany were nice to be with. Maybe a bit more than the other group who had a bunch of French people that never said anything to the rest of us, always talking in French and didn't help out as much as the others when cutting and chopping wood...oh well, some people like to just let others do the work!

After lunch, there wasn't much else to do but go back to the cabin and just sit around and talk. After a while, we were able to figure out how to use the gas stove and get some hot water for tea/coffee.

It wasn't that long between lunch and dinner as I had hoped. I wasn't that hungry, but I knew I would probably want to eat then instead of missing out on dinner!! This time we ate in the kitchen/guest cabin. It was a guest cabin for a local guy I thought was named Steve, but I guess his name was Stick...he had a couple of dogs with him, including a very playful puppy that he was training for reindeer herding...so we couldn't pet him because of the training, but whenever he wasn't around, everyone would give him attention and pet him.

For dinner, we had reindeer meat with some noodles and sauce that was from the meat juices. The meat was great, just typing about it is making me hungry for some. It had a smoky and a bit more salty taste than most meats. Again, there were many helpings of dinner.

After dinner, the other group was going to use the sauna first, as everyone wouldn't be able to fit all at once. So the rest of us walked up and down the river and hoping for some clear skies and maybe a possibility of seeing the Northern Lights that everyone had on their mind before the trip even started. I had seen the Northern Lights a couple of times back in Ashland, Wisconsin but that was 2 times in a span of 10 years...so quite rare. But still a great image of green in the skies and I wanted to see them again, but throughout the whole trip we never saw them. It was clear the last night we were there, but no such luck. They were saying that the day after we were leaving there was a good chance of seeing them, but time wasn't on our side for that!

When we got back to the campsite, it was our turn for the sauna. I hadn't been in a sauna for a while, but it was nice to just relax after a long day of traveling and working. At different points in the night, people would go outside, roll in the snow, maybe scream and give their bodies a bit of a shock, then run back inside! It was an entertaining sauna session to say the least.

After the sauna session, Jai and I started a fire with the help of the information given to us by one of the guides for a fool-proof way of starting a fire. The more bark the better! We sat around the fire for a while. People would join us every once in a while, and Jai brought a little speaker, so we were able to hook up someone's iPod and listen to some music during the night.

At the dinner table, Stick had mentioned there was a Lappish tent set up not far from the campsite and said if anyone was interested, they could try sleeping there for the night. One phrase that Jai and I had been saying throughout the trip was: "what would Survivorman do?" Suvivorman for those of you who don't know, is a show about a Canadian who goes to these different places and all he has to do is survive for about 6 days. He has to film everything himself and he usually gives you survival tips. I introduced Jai to the show a few weeks before, so we were ready for the Arctic Circle :)

So we decided to give it a try, and if it didn't work after an hour, we would just go back to the cabin. No one else wanted to try the tent except for us. My bright idea, I just took the one sleeping bag they gave us, which wasn't very thick. If I had just looked a little closer, I would have seen the very thick blanket at the end of my bed...which would have made a world of difference, but I didn't and was stuck freezing for a while before getting some sleep. Luckily, I had set my alarm on my cell phone to wake me up a hour later. I woke up still cold and told Jai that I was going back. He was sleeping like a baby with HIS nice, thick blanket...silly me!!!

When we got back to the cabin, we decided to sleep in the kitchen/main room on the benches that are also used for beds. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep I've ever had, but at least it was better than in the tent!

Florie-Anne et Juilette in the kitchen/main room. I slept on that bench on the left

The next morning, we had a basket of sandwich stuff to make for ourselves and soon enough it was lunchtime. Usually, there would be more activities for us to do, like ice fishing or cross country skiing, but it was still pretty early in the season for cross country skiing and the river wasn't frozen yet. But some people went sledding around the campsite. I was more content with just relaxing a bit before lunch.

For lunch, they made a very tasty soup that also had reindeer meat and some vegetables. The guides definitely know what they were cooking, maybe because they have cooked it many times before. Nonetheless, it was tasty and filled us up.

The rest of the day didn't have too much else going on besides the cleaning of the cabins and getting ready to leave. As we were waiting, Henrik was bringing another group of 9 to the cabin. One of the guides asked me to help her bring in the raft and I got to meet some of the others from the new group. They were curious how it was, and I could only tell them how much fun I had.

After about an hour later, it was our turn to go back to Kiruna. We left around 3, so it was already dark. It was the same concept as when we first came: three groups, one on the dog sleds and two on snowmobiles. The group of 7 French people actually had to get back before their train was leaving around 5, so they got to go first on the dog sleds, and after their turn, one of the guides would drive them back with the snowmobiles a bit faster than 20 kph..

Everything seemed to be running smoothly until there was a stop of about 15 minutes. Something was loose on Henrik's trailer that was making the trail for the dogs. After a few attempts, it was fixed (I guess) and we continued on our way. I was stuck with the last group, so I think we got the dogs at their most tired state, but were still going pretty strong. There were a couple of fights between the dogs in front of us, and Henrik gave the dogs involved a swift kick to tell them to knock it off. We eventually got back to the starting point, returned some of the things we had to borrow, and got dropped off back at the hostel in town.

Jai and I sleddin'

When we scheduled the trip, we had to book two people at a different hostel besides the Point North one, because it was all booked. When we called this other place, we told them we wouldn't be there until the afternoon and they said it was ok and they "couldn't wait to have us"...Well when we got to the place, the reception office was closed...I called the place, got an answering machine saying they were closed today and to check back tomorrow...NEJ! (Swedish for NO) We couldn't get any hold of them and now had two people without a place to stay. Luckily we didn't pay for the room ahead of time, so no money was wasted on this confusing hostel...

We went back to Point North and after some discussion of either 1) telling the lady who runs the hostel our story, and hope that she understands and pay for the extra two 2) just try to keep the two people hidden the night and avoid the fee and avoid getting the two people kicked out into the night, we chose to tell her our story and hope she lets us have the two others stay in one of the rooms with us. She had been nice to us before, so we saw no risk in at least asking her. She was very understanding and said it was ok to have the others stay and pay for the night. We were very grateful and I have since then submitted some reviews of the hostel we stayed at, and the one that wasn't open when we needed it to be...it's on google maps if you like: type Kiruna, search for hostels and look for Point North and then Kirunarumsservice for the other one.

The rest of the night was spent just chilling and watching TV. We played some terrible memory game with National Geographic cards, watched Eregorn, ate some thai chicken and rice combo made by Jai. And again we tried seeing the Northern Lights but with no success. Oh well, that's for the next trip!

Next day, we woke up a bit later than we probably should have because we still needed to pack, but that ended up not taking as long because we knew how to pack all the stuff from before. We had a quick breakfast, then got in the taxi and headed to the airport. It was -17 Celsius (1 Fahrenheit) when we got to the airport. The flight itself was only 1.5 hours to Stockholm Alranda.

Then we took the shuttle bus to the bus station in Stockholm (about 50 minutes away). We said goodbye to Emanuel, Guillaume's friend who spoke no English who had to catch a bus to another airport. Next, we got some Burger King for lunch and said goodbye to Jai who was going to stay in Stockholm for one day, because he still hadn't seen the city...I'll probably have to do the same before leaving January 11th to go back home. After lunch, the rest of us took a direct bus back to Jönköping. I am not thrilled with taking the bus as compared to train because of the cramped feeling in the bus and it is a bit noisier...oh well!

It was a great trip, something I will remember for a loooong time. There's nothing else I can think to say about it, except maybe next time I find myself in Lappland, I go in February or March when it's a bit colder, you can do more stuff and see more things (Ice Hotel, ice fishing, etc), but who knows when the next time will be!