We woke to a pitch black day – goodness it’s hard to get up in the mornings here! Breakfast was in the main building so we geared up and hauled ourselves over there in the dark. We’re discovering that every time we step out of the chalet it’s a major logistical exercise. I’m hoping we get better at this!
It takes each of us about half hour to fully dress – thermals, a long sleeve T shirt, a fleecy top, a second fleecy top, a down parka, a shell jacket, two layers of socks, arctic overalls, snow boots, two beanies, two neck chutes and two sets of gloves. We waddle out of there like huge Michelin men!
Our first excursion today was a visit to a reindeer farm. Apparently there are no wild reindeer in Lapland – all the reindeer you see out in the wild are actually semi-domesticated and owned by private deer herders!
Today we spent some time with a Sami deer herder. There are 3 Sami tribes and he belonged to the Inari Sami, of whom there are only 1000 individuals, and of those only 300 who can still speak the local version of the Sami language.
He gave us a great rundown on deer herding and snippets of Sami culture, and of course we got to spend time with the deer and took a short sleigh ride. The place was just magical – everywhere you turned it looked like a Christmas card scene! So beautiful!
After we got back to the resort we decided to enjoy the last few minutes of daylight by going for a walk on Lake Inari which is directly in front of our cabin. It’s completely iced up and covered in about half metre or more of snow. Cal enjoyed rolling in the snow and making snow angels! It’s a quiet and enormous white wilderness – speechless!
In the evening another incredible experience. What better time to learn how to snowmobile than in the pitch dark in arctic conditions? We were each allocated a balaclava and helmet – just to add to the whole abominable snowman effect! They were pretty uncomfortable, but as were to learn over the next few days, absolutely essential when travelling at high speed on the ice.
Calum had a snowmobile to himself and Niran and I shared another – I was happy to play passenger this time! It was a little too hairy for me as the snowmobile veered and swerved across the ice and snow. Unfortunately, Niran and I were caught at the back of the pack and ended up falling way back behind everyone else. When Niran put on the pace to catch up we would end up veering uncontrollably off the track, which just added that little bit extra excitement to the journey! Calum seemed to take to it beautifully and was speeding way ahead of us throughout the night! We spent most of the time traversing the frozen lake and much narrower paths through forest. Magical! Have i said that already today?
