Lapland – Day 1: Pink Skies and Green Lights
LAPLAND
Day 1: Pink Skies & Green Lights
December 02, 2024
When the time came to leave Tromsø, I can’t say I wasn’t the least bit gutted. I had grown to love the city and everything it had given me. That said, we had plenty left to see. Up next, we’d be hopping on a bus that would take us all the way to Finnish Lapland.
Lapland is a loosely defined geographical and cultural region stretching across northern Finland, Sweden and Norway, as well as the Kola Peninsula in north-western Russia. Much of it lies within the Arctic Circle, although the region also extends farther south in places. It overlaps with Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi, whose lands long predate the borders that now divide them between four countries. Another cool fact? The Sámi are recognised as the only Indigenous people within the European Union.
The region is characterised by vast forests, open fells, tundra, lakes and rivers, with long, snowy winters and short summers shaped by dramatic seasonal changes in daylight. Apart from its natural beauty, Finnish Lapland has become famous among tourists for activities such as skiing, husky sledding, snowshoeing and snowmobiling, as well as the possibility of seeing the aurora borealis.
The Moving Freezer
The road there kept us entertained throughout, with the views leaving all of us in awe. This was especially true when the sun rose, painting the sky in every imaginable shade of pink, only to disappear beneath the horizon again a couple of hours later.
The journey also had us trembling, though that was probably cause the bus’s air conditioning was broken, meaning we nearly froze to death on the damn contraption. It might’ve been bearable had the journey not lasted almost ten hours. Luckily, we made a few stops along the way, each one allowing us to warm up a little before we were forced back inside the moving ice box.
One prolonged torture session later, we finally found ourselves in Kittilä. From there, we took a shuttle to Kolari, rented a car and drove to Äkäslompolo, where we’d be spending the next few days. As though the day’s journey hadn’t already been strenuous enough, poor Rohan then had to drive all the way back to Kolari to collect Joshin, Zara and Akash, who had stayed behind with the rest of our luggage.
Then, upon reaching our beautiful lodge, we had to contact the owner and arrange to be relocated. We had been promised a house with two bathrooms, only to discover that ours had just one. With Akash, Zara and Priya’s notoriously long showering and getting-ready routines, that simply wasn’t an option.
A Light in the Darkness
That said, the unexpected relocation wasn’t entirely fruitless. While Manish, Priya and I were left to our own devices for a few hours, I decided to take a short walk around the neighbourhood. I had only made it a couple of blocks away when I noticed a strange cloud hanging in the sky.
It had a faint green glow to it. Then it moved. It was the friggin’ aurora borealis again! This time, however, it had been completely unplanned, making the sighting an incredible surprise. It still wasn’t quite the spectacular light show I had imagined before coming here, but it was already far better than the one we’d seen in Norway. As I scrambled to message the rest of the group and tell them to hurry up and join me, I remained where I was, staring into the sky and trying to take it all in.
I remembered Olaf telling us that, in some northern traditions, the aurora had been associated with the spirits of the dead. It might’ve been nothing more than a comforting fantasy, sure, but I liked the thought of my father being somewhere up there, looking over me. My grandparents too. Also my dogs.