In the Arctic Circle

We have just returned from a weekend up north, within the arctic circle. We boarded an overnight train on Friday afternoon, and were a little sorry that we weren't able to justify the additional expense for a private compartment as the dour Norwegians who were also seated in our compartment were not the ideal traveling companions (lots of trips to the bistro carriage to purchase beers & cheese 'n' onion chips which were then consumed in the carriage followed by mellifluous burping + they wanted to wait until midnight to turn the seats into beds - when Dr M had been up since 6am for work! + snoring which Dr M found impossible to sleep through). 

However the trip was still fun and the scenery that we could see out the windows (usually when the Norwegians were at the bar as they had the window seats) was very pretty and made me feel as though we were seeing a bit more of the real Sweden.

We disembarked at the Northernmost city of Sweden, Kiruna. It is a strange town, which depends on the local iron ore mine, and while it has tourist activities, they are not very many and of those some are shut on weekends! There are also no buses on weekends, so we ended up hiring a car as it was cheaper than catching a taxi to and from a single thing we were interested in. Dr M did an excellent job at his first time driving on the otherside of the road. I was excellent support.

Even though there is not much do do, you can cope as  the activities are quite unique and enjoyable! We started off with a visit a Sami traditional centre (Sami is the correct name for those you might know as Lapps from Lapland). We looked at traditional houses, crafts, learnt about the culture, attempted to feed the reindeer (but were rejected) and tried our hands at lassoing reindeer antlers (no longer connected to the reindeer). 

We then went to the site of the famous 'Icehotel' which is built each winter. We  learnt about how they construct the hotel and were able to inspect the harvested ice blocks (beautiful clear blocks weighing about 2T each cut from the river each March) waiting to be built into the hotel once it is cold enough, currently sitting in stacks in a large refrigerated warehouse. This was followed by a visit to the Icebar which contains more of the ice blocks, and some of the remaining furniture and sculptures from last years hotel.

It's quite amazing - it would be great to see the hotel built. It has been going now for 20 years and each year they push the boundaries a bit more to see what they can achieve.

That night we ate reindeer, elk, native fish and finished off with the swedish delicacy - cloudberries!

The next day we visited the Kiruna Church - a very famous church in Sweden. It had interesting gold statues outside on the roof, fabulous lights inside and a good looking set of organ pipes.

We then joined with a tour group to go down the local mine - the biggest single iron ore mine in the world! It is an unusual mine in that it produces magnetite - unlike Australian iron ore which is hematite. The mine is so profitable that they are about to start relocating the entire town so that they can continue mining the seam without worrying about the town falling to bits due to subsidence. It was a very interesting tour. At the end of the day we flew back to Stockholm for my last (part) week in Sweden.

(and for those wondering about the temperatures - I was probably warmer than you for most of the time. Saturday was about 20 degrees - I wandered around in bare legs and a t-shirt - I was a bit cold dressed like this looking at the ice blocks in the warehouse, but that was all. Sunday was colder and quite wet - but was easily about 10 degrees - the mine was cold at only 8 degrees. My thermals, beanie and extra jumpers will be coming home unworn.)