Kiruna: The Arctic Circle

You know how I went to the south of Sweden during the fall break earlier in the year? Well this time I decided to head north.  I don't mean just a couple hours north to where there are a couple of inches of snow.  I mean I took a 14 hour train ride north into the Arctic Cirlce where there was snow up to my hips!!

Kiruna is the northernmost city in Sweden, about 90 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle.  The town itself is not very big but the area of Kiruna is quite large (seen on the map below).

And about now you will be asking why I wanted to sit for 14 hours on a train just to be stuck in a tiny town with nothing but snow? Why not? I am an exchange student, part of my description is to see as much of my host country as possible.  And that's what I'm doing!!

 Me and the other exchange student that went with me stayed in a youth hostel for the few days we were there.  It was very cool to see students from all around the world.  We heard French, German, Dutch, Danish, Chinese or Japenese (we think), English (Australien) and probably some other languages we just didn't recognize all within the first 24 hours of arriving in Kiruna.

 Kiruna's equivalent to bikes during winter :) Genious!!!

 The first day we just walked around admiring everything covered in snow and trying to remind ourselves that this was not a dream.  It was truely a winter wonderland!

 

 Unfortunely the first couple days were pretty cloudy and we could not see very much, especially at night when we were trying to see the northern lights.

 We visited the Kiruna Kyrkan (Kiruna church).  In 2001 this building was voted the most beautiful in all of Sweden!  It was georgous surrounded by white everywhere.  The interior was all wood, ceilings, walls, floor. Amazing!!

 We then visited the mine.  This mine is what the town thirves on, more than half of the people living in Kiruna work for it.  For the tour, the bus that took us from the town to the mine and actually went into the mine!  This is one of the most modernized mines (at least in Europe) with paved roads (even spped limits) inside the mountain. Today people are mining around 1500 meters down, but they know there is iron ore 2000 meters down.   On the tour we were only able to go 540 meters down but we were still able to see all of the machines and how everything works.

 There was even a cafe 540 meters below the surface!

One of the nights while we were looking for a darker spot to look for the Northern Lights we came across a park where there were huge ice blocks lining the path.

 Another one of the days we got to fulfill something that has always been on my bucket list.  Dog Sledding!!!!!!  Unfortunetly I was unable to take any pics because I was wearing two pairs of mittens and if I had taken them off I would have froze...but I got both to sit on the sled and drive a team of 6 dogs.  The dogs were mixes between Alaskan Huskies and Hunting dogs.  Hunting dogs have the stamina while Hukies have the strength.  I thought the dogs were going to be bigger and more husky but they were pretty small, I would say smaller than labradors.  But they were still the cutest things ever! :) It is amazing how excited the dogs are to run!  At the biginning right before we left I had all my wieght on "the break," a metal bar with pronges that goes into the snow, and these 6 little guys were able to pull the sleigh while I was standing on it and someone else was sitting on the sled!!! These dogs are amazingly powerful and they can go for hours aparently (60km a day sometimes more)!  We stopped about half way through the trip and the dogs were barking like crazy and pulling, trying to get going again because they were so excited.  I wish I had a hobby that I was that excited and good at!! :)

There was one day that I could see the sunset and sunrise.  The sun rose at 11:20 and set at I think it was 1:30.  It didn't even get more than an inch above the horizon before it moved a little to the right and then decided it was too cold out so went back down :)
Kiruna has 20 days out of the year that the sun doesn't even make it above the horizon and it is totally dark!  I am kind of glad I did not come then!
  

One of the clearer nights we decided to just head away from town, away from artificial light on one of the roads.  After the road we found a snow mobile trail that took us up a hill (what thee might consider a mountain) to where we had a very good view of everything (or nothing, depends how you look at it).  It was all black but unfortunetly we did not see the northern lights, just some bear tracks at the top of the hill :)

Our last day was absolutely georgous, not a cloud in the sky! Which you can probably imagine means that it was freazing (-25 degrees Celcius).  It was the perfect night to see the northern lights but unfortunetly not very well.  I saw them once from our window right before we were going out to try and see them.  It lasted about 15 seconds and was sooo faint which was very disappointing.  It almost seemed like I was delusional and just made them up in my head because I wanted to see them so badly but just at that moment there were a couple other groups of people who left the hostel to go outside so I do not think I was making it up.  But still they were very faint and not very satisfactory. :(

We took the night train home so that we could make it to school today and we sat next to a swedish man, an Australian teacher, and Argentinian (spelling?) man who married a swedish women.  These guys were really interesting and fun to talk to on the way back.  The Australian had stayed in Abisko Sky Station that is one of the best places to see the Northern Lights in world, but only saw them one of the three nights he was there and not even for 10 minutes.  It just hasn't been a good year for the lights.  Of course I am disappointed, but there is nothing I can do about it.  It just means I will have to come back again someday!