This was going to be a massive day, with 3 activities planned. The first was an ice fishing expedition on the lake. We started out in a sleigh pulled by a snowmobile and made our away across frozen Lake Inari to the fishing spot which was just off the banks of the lake with a few scattered huts onshore for shelter.
Our guide Joche gave us a quick rundown and after that we were left to our own devices for the next couple of hours.
The first step was for each of us to drill our individual holes in the ice. This was done with a drill that looks a little like a giant version of the old-fashioned manual drill that papà used to use in his workshop. It wasn’t easy – the ice is about 40cm thick at the moment. I’m guessing it would be even harder by the end of the winter when the ice can be up to a metre thick!
The next step was to use a ladle to remove all the loose ice in the water. Then – plop – you dropped your fishing line in and the wait began.
Nothing to do but wait…
And wait some more….
And more after that….two hours in the snow….plenty of time to contemplate….
Impatience was getting the better of us – and to pass the time we would randomly get up and drill a new hole here and there – being careful not to step right through into an old one! But in the end it was worth it when Niran finally caught a fish! A perch, we think….or at least that’s what it sounded like in Finnish. Poor little thing – we let it go straight after this:
Then lunch – the boys enjoyed a yummy (so I was told) salmon and potato chowder soup – while I stole half a cheese sandwich from another tour group. We ate around a roaring fire – so nice! Seems every Finnish person knows how to start a campfire from scratch in the snow in half a minute flat!
Before returning home we got a chance to take a short walk to Pielpajärven Kirkko wilderness church which was built in 1860. It was a spare, whitewashed but very peaceful place – it’s easy to imagine that it would have been a haven in the harsh weather in times past. It also was a major Sami marketplace.
Then back to the campsite and home – where we arrived just in time to join the next group heading off on a 4 hour snowshoe trek! Barely enough time to pop into the loo!
We drove up to the top of a hill and the trek involved walking down through the forest in almost waist deep snow as the twilight slowly merged into night. The three of us kept tripping over our snowshoes landing face first into the snow – any idea how difficult it is to get yourself up when you can’t lean on anything firm?
But it was an energetic and satisfying walk – and our guide-cum-mountain goddess, Anya – gave us a lot of interesting info. She would pretend to find some interesting natural feature to talk about, but in reality I think she stopped that frequently so that those of us panting for breath at the back of the line could recover some semblance of humanity! I don’t believe these hardy Finnish – we were all in our arctic snow gear and she was in a jumper and vest! Later she told us that her permanent home is some distance from Inari – out in the country (ha!) – and that she has no electricity or running water. And she wasn’t the only one who lived like this – as we were to discover during the course of the trip. They are definitely a special breed of human!Anyway here are a few shots of us on our snowshoes – at those moments when we were actually standing upright!
We had a second “lunch” after the trek ended in a nice warm hut before a fire – which Anya, the mountain goddess – got started in literally a minute. Anya served toasted buns with reindeer meat, pickles and cranberry jam. Bread, jam and pickle for me sadly!
After we returned from the trek we had a spot of dinner – because we hadn’t had enough to eat (or at least I hadn’t!) – and then took off on what was euphemistically called the “Aurora By Car” experience – except that it was on a bus, and there was no aurora, and indeed we pretty much slept through it for a full two hours except when we woke up to see the blizzard outside. No matter…the day was still a good one!
