Husky safari and making snow angels in Finland

My northern lights holiday in Finland from 2014 currently ranks as one of my top 3 holidays alongside Petra in Jordan and Macchu Pichu in Peru. I've written parts about this holiday and there's so much more to share, perfect for another entry to WorldMapPin's #winterchallenge.

Let's start with my arrival at the hotel which was in the middle of nowhere. At 68.3 degrees and 150 km away from the Russian border, this is the furthest north I've ever been. I remember when we arrived at the hotel, the staff came out to help us take our luggage. They were wearing T-shirts and we were triple wrapped up in winter coats, scarves and woolly hat. To be fair, they were working indoors before we arrived and it was nice and cosy inside, but still, stepping out in the sub zero degrees cold in a T-shirt!!!

I don't have any photos of the actual hotel itself but I remember it was a very nice one, made of wood cabins. They also had some outbuildings. Everything and everywhere looked the same, covered in a blanket of beautiful pure white undisturbed snow. We don't have this sort of weather in UK where we live. It was serene and breathtaking.

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Our holiday was an all inclusive one and included a lot of activities. I previously wrote about driving a snowmobile and going on a reindeer sleigh ride, you can read about that here. These were the stunning views we drove by on the snowmobile, and during the entire drive, I never got tired of looking at the views even if the driving the snowmobile was quite hard work.

It was a big heavy beast!!

At one point we stopped by the roadside and waded into the forest. See my path? It didn't take me long till the snow was above my knee, and it was all fresh snow. I've never seen snow this thick, in fact, I don't think I've ever seen snow more than 10cm thick.

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On another day, we went on a husky safari. This, and the snowmobile were my two favorite activity. Two people share a husky pulled sled, this is ours and we started off with four huskys pulling us. Before we started, the guides assigned each pair to a particular sled based on eyeballing our weight and the size and number of huskys tied to each sled. One person stands at the back on a narrow plank, holding onto the handle bar, and the other person sits inside the sled.

Sitting inside the sled is not the most comfortable experience. You get a blanket to keep you warm, but the ride is extremely bumpy. Check out my video below.

I kept on sliding around as the husky's were going quite fast. Mid way during the ride, we took a rest and the guides switched some of the huskys around. There must have been about 20 sleds in the group, and some sleds like ours were going a little too fast because we had some strong huskys. The huskys go on automatic mode, you don't need to and can't control them, they just follow the pack ahead of them. The only 'control' you have is for the driver to step on a brake which is like a hook that digs into the ground. But bearing in mind we're on thick snow the brake doesn't cause much friction to slow down the huskys. Plus when the huskys are going at full speed, even if they slow down, the heavy sled will continue to slide along. I remember the sled in front of us had two Japanese girls about the same size as me, they had four big huskys and they nearly ran into the sled in front of them a few times. During the break, the guides removed one of their husky, and changed one of ours for a smaller one.

Despite all this, the ride was absolutely exhilarating and the best experience I've every had. Beats everything else I've tried. I'm told we did about 20km and we were out there from daytime to sunset. It was winter and we only had 2 hours of daylight. This is my view, and I was squeaking and shouting out to my husband at the back to see the amazing views left, right and centre. The poor guy told me afterwards that he was too busy holding onto the handle to maintain balance and couldn't barely concentrate on the views!! It was so funny! It's fair to say we each had our own very unique husky safari experience.

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The other activities were more peaceful. We were taken out by car for more sight seeing, and I turned myself into a snow angel

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Then we went on a snowshoeing trip. The snowshoe allows you to walk easier on the thick snow but it was still pretty hard work. Lots of exercise, but fun.

More stunning views are we trekked through the forest.

Our guide taught us basic survival skills if we're ever caught stranded in a snowy forest, and how to make a fire with no matches. He told us about his national service experience, about Norway and Russia's history, the relationship between the two countries, and of course how Russia tried to control Finland. Not a nice neighbor to have, as we all know. I'm surprised that Finland didn't join NATO earlier.

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And last but not the least, the creme de la creme - northern lights. We were in Finland for a week, and saw the northern lights on 5 or 6 nights, including the last night outside our hotel. I've written about it in this posts here and will leave you with one breathtaking image of my northern light experience. Enjoy.

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