Finland - Day 4

Today is Finley'a 17th birthday!!  I am so excited that we are finally making her 16th birthday trip AND that she can spend this birthday on said trip.  We are so proud of this girl.  

We flew back to Finland late last night and had an incredibly early morning (thanks to a significant flight change we had no control over) to northern Finland.  We left Helsinki today for the Lapland area of the country - crossed back into the Arcitc Circle for the last part of our vacation.

We landed in the town of Rovaniemi.  It is decent weather here today - in the 70s during the day, but it drops into the 40s and 50s at night here in the summer.  They are also experiencing the midnight sun like Svalbard is.  I would say it dims a bit more than Svalbard does, but not much.  The sun never touches the horizon - no sunset.

Anyway - we got to Rovaniemi at 8:30am, and got our rental car sorted and headed for Santa's Village.  This is the home of Santa Clause, and they have built a village around this.  I guess in the winter it is a madhouse, so I was honestly glad we were here to check it out in the summer.  You can see Santa - he is here at the village for visits every day of the year.  It is a cute little place, but not as exciting as we were hoping.  Most of the activities on the grounds you have to pay for - and pay a lot for per person, so we didn't go many extras.

I had booked ahead of time a walk with Reindeer, though. This was on Finley's wish list and was available at Santa's village.  We got two reindeer and along with a guide were able to take them on a 30 minute nature walk.  The kids really liked that.  The Reindeer are shedding since it is summer, but their antlers were huge!  They are quite calm and quite sweet.  We even got to meet some babies.

We learned that all the reindeer in Finland are owned by Reindeer farms - none are wild.  There are about 200,000 reindeer in the county and that number is controled by the government because the numbers would just decimate the forest otherwise.  Twice a year the reindeer owners must gather their reindeer (which must be quite the task because they can roam the countryside) to be chosen to either be kept or killed to keep the numbers in check.  Reindeer who are killed - their meat and hides, etc are all used - there is no waste.

After the Reindeer walk we got to sit by a fire and drink some blueberry juice (famous around here) and relax before heading out.  We were quite tired, and found out we could check into our cabin early so we did that.

A big draw to Santa's Village is the cross into the Arctic Circle.

Arlington's reindeer had huge antlers.  We were told in the summer they have blood flow to them and they are fuzzy and cannot be touched.  They lose their antlers twice a year.

Our cabin.  In the winter I would imagine this place is busy with all the winter activities that are available

Saunas are huge in Finland.  They are in tons of homes (and we even found out that some people have them in their offices).  This cabin had a small one.  It was on Finley's list to try one out.  The Fins sauna in the nude, so I wanted to find a private one for us to use!

Norway - Svalbard - Day 2

 This morning we had some time after breakfast to look at the shops, and stroll around the town of Longyearbyen and down near the water before we had to head to the airport for our flight back to Finland.  The weather was quite beautiful - we didn't really need our winter coats today because it was quite sunny.  As we walked around the town we all talked about how we must come back someday.  These 2 days were not enough.  It is a beautiful place and I see what the draw is for the people who work here.  I am sure the winter is brutal.  The landscape is harsh but really beautiful.  I am so glad we came.

Below the pictures will be some fun facts about Svalbard

The houses were small and all pretty close together and of course close to the town.  There are some houses that are a few miles outside of town, but we were told that they very often don't have internet access, running water, etc - they were for escape.  (Which we also found amusing since there isn't much to escape from).  There is a famous You Tuber that built herself a nice house outside of town.

We saw snowmobiles everywhere.  This is a very common mode of transportation for their long winters.  But I took this one close up because I want you to notice the gun holder on the left hand side.  Every person who lives here must own and carry a gun.  There are more polar bears than people that live on Svalbard, so it is a requirement.  You can be fined if you are caught without it outside of the safety zone (which is basically the one mile radius of the town).  Our guides all had them and we saw several walking tours where the guide was carrying her gun.  The threat is real, but we were very sad we didn't see a polar bear while visiting.  It was just too warm.

We did go down to the water because we wanted to put our hands into the Arcitc Ocean (it was freezing of course).

This is the University.  They have anywhere from 300-500 students at a time.  And just a few majors - all related to where they are, obviously. There are families that live here.  We passed a school and a playground - saw quite a few kids.  The number of residents is about 2500.  We were told that they do not want to expand any bigger than that number.

So facts about Svalbard.  As I said above - there are more polar bears than people that live here.  They did have a tragedy in the past.  And last year a woman got scratched (but not killed).  Mostly the polar bears stay away from the town.

2) You cannot die or give birth here.  If you know you are going to die, you must move off Svalbard and to mainland Norway.  They cannot bury people here.  You also cannot give birth in case something goes wrong.  A month before your due date you leave to mainland Norway.

3) This is as far north as people live.  Longyearbyen.  Svalbard is at 78 degrees north.  The north pole is at 90 degrees north 500 miles.

4) Svalbard is in the Arctic Circle and from April-August they have what they call the midnight sun.  You have to be in the Arcitc Circle to experience this.  The sun never sets.  It doesn't even pretend to during this time.  IT is high in the sky like it is noon 24 hours a day.  It was crazy to see - the sun never moves from the center of the sky - it is bright no matter what time it is.  The reverse - Polar Nights - occurs here from October to February were there is no light at all.  Middle of the night darkness 24 hours a day.

5) The average temp. in the summers is from the 30s-50s (F). Winter isn't as cold as you would imagine - from about -4 degrees (F) to 8 degrees (F).  It is just LONG that these temps last.  The whole landscape freezes over in the winter where the locals told us it is hard to tell where the roads are - hence the sleds and dogs and snowmobiles to get around.

Norway - Day 1 - Svalbard

 We have arrived at the top of the world!  At 1:30am we touched down in Longyearbyen, Svalbard (Norway) after two flights to get here.  It was as bright as noon when we landed.  Svalbard is in the Arctic and has the midnight sun from April to August - where the sun doesn't even pretend to set and it never even dims.  It was wild to  see.

It wasn't jaringly cold, since it is summer - in the 40s F when we landed.  The airport is very small, so the bus to our hotel loaded quickly and within about 10 minutes we were getting checked in.  There are not a ton of flights to Svalbard, so our arrival was not unusal to the hotel.

We were up farily early this morning so that we could have breakfast before our first excursion.  We are only in Svalbard for one full day, so we are making the most of it.  (It was an add on for our trip once we watched a show and documentary on the place and knew we had to come and see it).   Our first excusion was a husky sled ride.  Since it is summer, the sleds are on wheels, but we had a fantastic time.  We were picked up at our hotel and taken to the kennels where they keep the sled dogs.  The kids were in heaven getting to pet all the dogs they could.  Our sled was pulled by 16 dogs and we had a nice 2 hour tour seeing the landscape.  Our guide was fantastic.  Arlington even took a turn driving the sled which she loved.

We were back in town by 1pm, and had time to grab lunch and look around the small town before being picked up for our section excursion.  We elected to take a Glacier tour in a Catamaran for our second outing.  It was wonderful to be able to see the glaciers and as a special treat we even got to see two blue whales (the largest animal on earth).  Our guide - who was also a marine biologist - was beyond excited that we got to see that.  He said it is very rare.  Sadly - our tour was not able to go as far out to sea as originally planned due to very high winds (all flights were canceled today) but we enjoyed the tour all the same.  Our guide was very knowledgable and very passionate about the wildlife and land they are trying to protect.  We also go to see two abandoned mining towns that used to be Russian.

It was a good day.  We had a late dinner at the restaurant at our hotel and were exhausted by the time we fell into bed tonight.

The view from the airport at 1:30am

Our hotel and area

Meeting the huskies

The kennels. People don't really keep their dogs in their small houses/apartments, so they are kept at the kennels and watched over by handlers.  Most dogs are working dogs because of the terrain and long winters.

Our dogs getting ready to go.  We all got to help get them harnessed and ready.  

Views while we waited to go

Our guide driving the dogs

The scenery was amazing.  They don't get much weather in the summer - mostly just wind.  Not really any rain.  IT is very dry and dusty.  Very very little grass or plants noticed.

Arlington taking a turn driving

End of our ride

The town.  It is so small = just a row of stores and restaurant.  We went into just about every one and realized that they really do have everything they would need on this strip.  Because this is it - on the whole continent

Coal is their major export here - you can see it everywhere.  They have a statue of a coal minor at the beginning of the town

We thought this sign was funny.  I am sure it is especially true in the winter when they use their dogs and sleds to get around

In the afternoon we saw some amazing glaciers and landscape on our boat tour.  Sadly the blue whales never surfaced well enough for me to get a good photo

It was quite cold on the boat as you can imagine.  We carted our winter gear for this trip

This is one of the abandoned mining towns.  Our guide told us that 1000 people use to live here and this is all that is left.  He told us that polar bears usually frequent the buildings now, but our day was pretty warm, so we didn't see any.

This is the Global Seed Vault.  It houses all the seeds available if there would ever be a global national disaster

In almost every public and private building, you are asked to remove your shoes.  Even in restaurants.  It stems from the days of heavy coal mining and all the dirt that can be dragged in.  This place is still quite dusty and dirty (and of course slushy in the winter) so the tradition stands.  It was quite weird to be in a nice restaurant with our shoes off.

Our guide told us that this wine glass shape of snow on this mountain is how they determine when summer starts.  He says when the stem of the wine glass breaks loose from the top, it is officially the first day of summer.  It happened while we were there.