Arctic Adventure Day!

Drove 75km south of Tromsø to the Lyngsfjord Wilderness Camp. Took a guided snowmobile trip. Our Finnish guide: “If you drank a bottle of vodka for breakfast, you cannot do this activity.” Apparently, this is an issue they have to deal with frequently.

Did not fall on the ice today, but can now cross snowmobile crash off my bucket list. We hit a snow-buried tree stump and rolled the snowmobile. For the record, we did not have vodka for breakfast. Lessons: Helmets are heavy and uncomfortable, but important. Also, snowmobiles are heavy when they are laying on your leg. We’re fine, though. Nothing broken. Stiff and sore. Bruises forthcoming. I credit the 18 layers I had on under my 50 pound arctic weather suit with preventing injury.

Sidebar: the camp outfits you from head to toe in extreme cold weather gear. This is in case you get wet, then you have your dry stuff to put on when you get back from adventuring. This is also because some people show up for a day of Arctic adventure wearing jeans. JEANS. I am not making this up. My Arctic adventure mittens smelled like feet. Returned with comment: please wash or burn these.

After snowmobiling, we ate a traditional Sami (the indigenous people of far northern Scandinavia) meal of lamb stew. Didn’t love it. Also not sure it was lamb. I was way more interested in the hot beverage called, Solbærtoddy, made with black currants. I drank about eleven cups of it. For clarity: not alcoholic.

Got to meet and hang out with the camp husky dog-pack. All the dogs were super friendly. All they want to do is run. And get scratches. Best husky name: Duracell.

Learned how to grill reindeer sausage over an open fire in a traditional Sami tent before heading out on our reindeer sledding adventure this evening. Actually pretty tasty. Or I was really hungry.

Had no idea how labor intensive it is to keep a herd of reindeer (like 3,000 of them). Our Sami guide said the reindeers’ biggest predators here are wolverines, lynxes, and eagles (who carry off the baby reindeer). The Sami aren’t allowed to hunt any of the predators (Ken offered to help them out with this problem), so someone always has to stay with the herd to scare them off. Did not sign-up for the wolverine shoo-ing adventure.

Bonus: the clouds parted long enough to catch a weak aurora sighting tonight! 💚