All dressed in white
The Arctic Circle is everything you might imagine. Spectacular natural wonders, endless expanses of beautiful white nothingness and temperatures that will freeze your whiskers. This particular expedition took me through the north of Sweden, passing wild open nature reserves and sparsely inhabited delta landscapes, and ended in the unspoiled wilderness of Sarek National Park, the most tremendous and grandiose of them all. Alpine massifs, deep valleys, near-2,000 metre mountains and roughly 100 glaciers embellish an inviting but unforgiving landscape that has been home to the Sami people for millennia. Ever since the ice began to melt hunters have survived on these lands, guided by migratory reindeer trails, glacial paths and the quiet determination of wild nature.
“I made a quick courtesy call to my ride I had been in touch with a few weeks prior. He didn’t answer. A couple of texts, still nothing. An hour later I called again but the phone had been switched off. I had been ditched.”
My inspiration stemmed from the Royal Geographical Society’s annual Explore conference held in November. After three days of workshops categorised by terrain, I left with an insatiable itch to sled the Swedish wilderness and the friends to make it happen. Three months later I had all my Arctic gear and my flights were booked. The sledding expedition wasn’t taking me to the Polar Arctic but the Arctic Circle, which begins roughly two hours north by car from Luleå, Sweden.
The first day started off too good to be true. My flights ran ahead of schedule and I even had time for coffee at Luleå arrivals. I made a quick courtesy call to my ride I had been in touch with a few weeks prior. He didn’t answer. A couple of texts, still nothing. An hour later I called again but the phone had been switched off. I had been ditched.
Thankfully Sweden is a helpful and English-fluent nation and I managed to organise a local connection to Jokkmokk, half-way to my destination - Saltoluokta Fjällstation (mountain station) on the edge of Sarek. I had only made it the airport car park when I received a text, “We are on the road to Jokkmokk, too far to turn back. We suggest you hire a car”. Their rejection of a one hour extension to their journey cost a seven hour extension to mine. We have words in England for these sorts of people, I’m sure your country does too. I called my contact, Per, who was waiting for me at Saltoluokta. He swiftly reminded me that “in Sweden, we never leave anyone behind”. I was to hang tight in Jokkmokk until his friend came to pick me up.
Jokkmokk is just within the Arctic Circle and is very well connected from Luleå if you fancy hiking or skiing the surrounding national parks. An inexpensive coach runs regularly and reliably from Luleå bus station and takes you through a large proportion of Norrbotten, Sweden’s northernmost county. As I waited for my onwards lift, I tried to pass the time by walking around the very much closed for the evening and bitterly cold town. After two hours a 1995 Volvo 850 appeared at the meeting point. My ride was a Sámi reindeer herder. Amazing. She had been delayed by an uncooperative reindeer that had wandered off. Typical, I would imagine. We pushed on north.
It was late in the day and I was beginning to hope the mountain station had kept some food back for me. Hungry and tired, we arrived at the edge of a frozen lake as darkness began to fall with no mountain station in sight. No sooner had the car shuddered to a halt, I was ushered into a group of men with urgent facial expressions as they heaved a sled container up a hill to its trailer. I barely had a chance to pull my thermals on before several Swedish men were shouting several Swedish things in several Swedish directions. Evidently introductions are not required here, you are expected to pitch in.
I started to wonder when, if ever, this journey was going to be over and done with but as the sun disappeared the Arctic had one more treat for me - a ‘short’ 10-minute lake crossing by snowmobile with wind chill that genuinely gave me brain freeze. I had finally made it.
Saltoluokta Fjällstation greeted me with an open fire, open kitchen and soon to be opened bottles of beer which satisfied my three most pressing needs and in the correct order. I stuffed my belly chronicling the adventures of my day and started to get to know my three expedition buddies. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to make small talk with the guys who had ditched me but it’s amazing what a mound of warm reindeer meat and mashed potatoes will do. I had to give it to them, I’d never heard such a well rehearsed and impressive list of excuses.
The day should have totally wiped me out but anticipation of the adventure ahead had given me a boundless store of excitable energy. I wanted to continue sharing travel stories with my new compadres over whiskey into the early hours but instead I sensibly decided it was time for bed. I needed to rest.
“Everything was covered in snow. The snow was covered in snow. Förfjälls, forests, plateaus and mountain precipices all dressed in white.”
The second day broke to the sound of howling huskies so loud they would send a middle-aged suburban curtain twitcher into despair. It was glorious. I couldn’t wait to meet my sled dogs. I practically inhaled my breakfast, geared up and ran out to get a head start. They were magnificent. It’s hard not to love being showered in husky kisses whilst trying to divvy out breakfast. Learning how to harness the huskies and how to secure the sled was vitally important. Tangled reins could endanger the dogs. “And the sledders!” I joked. “The dogs come first,” Per told me matter of factly. The dogs even wore little cotton booties to protect their paws from ice balls and rough terrain. Booting them up took some time. Have you ever had to put a toddler’s shoes on? That, exactly that, except there’s 24 of them.
I was given a heads up about my lead dog, Extreme. He was very strong and only occasionally did as he was told - exactly my kind of dog. We were going to get along just fine. I stood on my sled, full body weight on the spiked metal foot brake and a firm grip on the handle bar. This was it. Sled huskies pull on the reins at all times, they are born to run. The constant pull means the dogs can sense even the slightest release of the brake and I learned this the hard way. We were suddenly travelling at speed. Steering also had to be learned rapidly, there was no practice run and certainly no smooth ascent to the plateau. If my huskies turned too early, I was the only one to prevent the sled crashing into a tree, crashing into a rock or flipping on its side. I became proficient in all three.
We emerged onto an irregular hillock mercifully marked by fewer obstructions. Snow hikers and winter enthusiasts of all stripes were dispersing to the elevations surrounding the fjällstation. We kept picking up speed on the flattening terrain and I felt sure the brake wouldn’t stand a chance at slowing down Extreme. The craggy ascent continued to smooth and as we left the rutted plains of the cross country skiers behind, we were finally alone. The last evidence of humanity had now vanished.
“Tethering my sled was difficult on the icy sections but absolutely necessary just in case the dogs decided to do a runner and with Extreme up front, I took no chances. I booted that thing into the ground as far as it would go.”
The tundra appeared from every direction like smooth blankets of snow but the terrain still felt a little bumpy against the frame of the rigid wooden sled. Everything was covered in snow. The snow was covered in snow. Förfjälls, forests, plateaus and mountain precipices all dressed in white.
Among other neighbouring nature reserves and national parks, Sarek has been a world heritage site since 1996 noted for “natural phenomena of outstanding beauty”. Swans soared above us and elk munching on a mouthful of pine would nonchalantly raise their heads to observe us mushing past. If you’re really lucky, the endangered Eurasian lynx also roams the lakes here.
The dogs pulled us through avenues of snow-capped Norway spruces emerging onto frozen river deltas carved deep into the Scandinavian Caledonides. These rocks are the vestiges of an orogenic belt formed 400 million years ago and were once the size of the Himalayas. Millennia of erosion has left behind the massifs and nappes of Caledonian rock seen today.
No more than an hour had passed before we saw our first herd of reindeer scarpering into the safety of the tree-line. The montane tree zones are actually relatively rare and mostly restricted to South-Eastern Sarek. Much of the region is above the 500m altitude growth limit of the old conifer forests and Scots pines but this only served to make what forestry there was even more majestic.
Each afternoon just after midday we would pull the sleds over to the edge of a sparse section of forest and knock our metal sled tethers into the ground. Our lunch stops were one of my favourite daily rituals. Tethering my sled was difficult on the icy sections but absolutely necessary just in case the dogs decided to do a runner and with Extreme up front, I took no chances. I booted that thing into the ground as far as it would go.
“With a jacket pocket full of my favourite Swedish chocolate, hazelnut Marabou, I had a front row sled to watch one of the most enchanting shows on earth, the wild Arctic Circle”
We always fed the dogs first then got a fire going and settled in to make some coffee and sandwiches. I’m almost always hungry but the physical and mental demands of the bitterly cold wilderness meant my body needed frequent refuelling.
A couple of days into the journey I discovered my love of Fjällbrynt rökt renost which is smoked reindeer cream cheese in a squeezy tube. By day three I dispensed with any leafy greens, my preferred sandwich filling being one third meat and two thirds reindeer cheese. Apparently this is gross but I can’t understand what’s not to love.
After three or four reindeer sandwiches I would move on to the falukorv - a Swedish sausage made of smoked pork and veal. I preferred to cut big chunks and skewer them with tree branches to roast them over the fire. Nicely charred and smoky it is utterly delicious.
As the days always started early, we only ever needed to sled for another hour or so after lunch. The need to cover sufficient ground had usually disappeared by early afternoon which was when we liked to coincide our passage through the big open lakes. These stretches were ideal to just stand back on the sled bars and watch the wilderness go by. With a jacket pocket full of my favourite Swedish chocolate, hazelnut Marabou, I had a front row sled to watch one of the most enchanting shows on earth, the wild Arctic Circle.
On the third night, we chanced upon a nice rocky outcrop by a lake which would shelter us from the snow storms expected that night. As I brought my dogs to a halt, Extreme glanced back towards me inviting me to follow him for a quick spin around the lake. I was tempted but there was work to do. Our bivouac trenches needed to be dug out and being the one with the ice axe, it was my job to collect water from the lake. I considered taking Extreme with me but apparently he’d be gone for hours if I unleashed him from my sled. Good dog, I thought, but best to keep the pack together.
“The ancestors of southern Scandinavians arrived long before the Sámis settled the Fennoscandian Peninsula and they’re frequently reminded of it.”
By now my fellow mushers and I had gotten to know one another a bit better and our conversations had turned to more sensitive subject matters. We prepared dinner discussing the Sámi people.
The land settled by Sámis has altered over time but broadly speaking it comprises the northern arctic and sub-arctic regions of the Fennoscandian Peninsula (now northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Russian Kola Peninsula) or simply, Sápmi. The life and culture of these remote communities has for some time been at odds with the culture of Sweden’s south.
Throughout the 19th century, the Swedish and Norwegian governments increasingly asserted sovereignty over their northern territories, bringing with them the idea of civilising the Sámi whom they regarded and regularly portrayed as primitive, inferior and barbaric. The subsequent adoption of social assimilation programmes reversed the delicate but mostly harmonious relationship that had existed for hundreds of years between the southern Scandinavians and their northern arctic neighbours.
The ancestors of southern Scandinavians arrived long before the Sámis settled the Fennoscandian Peninsula and they’re frequently reminded of it. I must admit I had no prior knowledge of this but pursuing social assimilation, often by force, whilst believing segregation was required to maintain their way of life seems just as incoherent as it does divisive and all the while ceaselessly highlighting the differences between the two cultures.
Thankfully those programmes are a thing of the past but if this sort of story really gets you going, I’d recommend you watch Amanda Kernell’s directorial debut, Sami Blood (Sameblod), which offers an inside perspective on Sámi identity rather than the imperialist portrayal of Sámis as a savage culture that dominated 20th century Swedish film.
“Doggo could not have cared less. He had snuck his muzzle and front paws into the depths of my arctic parka and would not respond to being nudged.”
After a delicious freeze-dried dinner and many hot mugs of tea, I went to chill with my huskies. The heat from the stove was inviting but not more so than dusk with the dogs. My approach was marked by the sound of snow crunching under my boots. They had heard me coming. An army of wet noses ritually welcomed me into the pack. Kneeling at first, I ended up on my bottom underneath another relentless deluge of husky kisses. Heaven. I snuggled up with my best buddy Extreme and settled in to watch the remains of the day evanesce into night. I had tried not to show favouritism but, well, he was my favourite.
The vast white lake below us was flanked by a valley of conifer forests sloping and disappearing up into the distant mountains over which thick cloud had begun to loom.
I’ve seen the belts of the Milky Way from the Arabian Peninsula all the way to the New Zealand Alps but as the stars appeared amidst the violet sky, the scene kindled new veneration. There was something particularly magisterial about how the arctic climate so effortlessly brought infinity into sharp focus.
Whilst I sat thinking how all the adjectives that exist would still fall short of what I was seeing, Doggo could not have cared less. He had snuck his muzzle and front paws into the depths of my arctic parka and would not respond to being nudged. He even complained at me with a low grumble when I tried to position my legs more comfortably. My huskies were exceptionally responsive to command but clearly Extreme followed his own rules - ‘warm human, sit’.
“Amidst my confusion, the piercing arctic air hit me so hard that I had crawled three metres into snow before I realised what I was doing.”
The expedition was tough not least because I had never done anything like it before. There were no roads or paths this deep into Sarek, and the nearest sign of civilisation was always days away. Fatigue set in quickly and with temperatures on some days as low as -20C, my wet kit simply didn’t dry, it froze. Five days into the journey, I awoke before sunrise highly disorientated and confused. I could hear my heartbeat in the silence. As I tried to steady my breathing I couldn’t shake the thought of the disappointment my buddies would feel if I had to head south to seek shelter. I could not pinpoint what was happening to me. I eventually emerged from my bivouac and encountered a particularly cold day. It was certainly colder than the day before and that was -10C. Amidst my confusion, the piercing arctic air hit me so hard that I had crawled three metres into snow before I realised what I was doing.
Every inch of everything had been smothered in snow during a storm that had rolled past in the night and the whiteness of my surroundings blurred my vision. I got up and walked for what felt like half an hour (although this was likely 5 minutes or so) and sat by a huge rock looking over the valley. I stared at the enormity of the epic scene that played out in front of me. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. I watched the wind moving in the trees and began to gaze at them. I could see the individual branches shaking off the snow. Tiny flecks of the white valley peaked through the wooded cracks in the coverage of the trees, intermittently emerging and hiding away with the sway of the trunks.
As my concentration deepened, my senses re-awakened. I’d never felt anything like that before. It took some time but after another 10 minutes of deep breathing I began to feel the freshest breeze rushing through my hair and my heartbeat regained its usual rhythm. As clear thinking eventually returned, my first concern was that the dogs needed to be fed and harnessed. The dogs always come first.
Much of the Sámis connection with arctic nature and the natural migration cycles of reindeer is dependent on snow, or muohta. Indeed their relationship with snow is so deeply woven into the cultural traditions of this semi-nomadic life that they have over 350 words for it. One of these is guohtun which conveys the effect of snowfall on grazing conditions and the reindeer’s ability in wintertime to dig through to the ground lichen below.
It may not have been apparent to me at the time, when all I could see was white, but sadly the balance of this ecosystem is under threat. Our warming planet is impacting when and how much snow falls each year within the eight month long snow season, which determines the success of the herding year, getting shorter and arriving later. Reindeer herders would historically use various forest ecosystems in response to variable snow cover and structure but ongoing conflict with the commercial forestry industry over herding rights has reduced the extent of grazing lands. Predicting as well as finding alternative pastures as a result of changing guohtun is therefore becoming increasingly challenging.
Government policy has struggled to reconcile the recognition of historical Sámi settlements whilst simultaneously tapping into the natural resources under what many see as Sweden’s sovereign territory. Sámis complain of governmental interference and irritating encroachments on their way of life. A way of life that prevailed long before colonial ideas of land ownership were introduced and certainly without the burdens of mainstream society.
Placing reindeer herding under the sole jurisdiction of the Sámis, for example, was a fundamentally positive step but disputes over the ownership of land over which they roam has done little to ease tensions that have existed for generations. Threats to their way of life are now triggering cultural changes and impacting livelihoods. Protecting their indigenous rights remains a big conversation and arguably they need to be heard now more than ever.
Our own route planning was heavily weather-dependant and therefore ordinarily conducted over breakfast each day. After feedings the dogs, we would get the coffee bubbling over the fire and sit with our topographic maps. The terrain, the running distance required of the dogs (usually 25-30km a day) and the nightly snow fall dictated the way ahead.
Gliding through these endless plains of white felt like a ritual. Days passed neither slowly nor quickly as we traced the paths of frozen rivers and lakes, a roadmap entirely unique to winter. It was all about rhythm. Not our own but that of Sápmi and it doesn’t require much imagination to understand why many Sámis believe Sarek to be the soul and spirit of this region.
During our last breakfast, we spotted a shelter marking on the map roughly 30km away and we decided to treat ourselves for our final night in the tundra.
It was an easy approach. For a few hours we trailed the edge of a small but no less impressive mountain plateau with only a single forest section to navigate before we eventually pulled up outside the shelter. The cabin was surrounded by arctic-hardy blue whortleberry and lingonberry shrubs coated in snow, plenty of chopped wood and husky parking. No, really. This place had husky parking. It was abandoned but the gritty remnants of lichen and moss trodden into snow led us to the door. Evidence of civilisation had begun to return.
“He kept meandering in and out of the spindly obscurity of the surrounding tree cover taking advantage of all the getaways and hollows hidden up his foxy sleeve”
With the wood burner glowing, it wasn’t long before the cabin was nice and toasty. At some point before setting off I had mentioned in passing that my birthday was a few weeks away and one of the guys had packed a Daim cake with a single candle so we had a small celebration. Feasting on the cake and what was left in our sleds with several glugs of single malt, this was probably one of the best birthdays I had ever had and it wasn’t even my birthday.
Despite the appeal of more cake and whiskey, I wasn’t particularly interested in spending the entirety of my last evening inside and I certainly wasn’t going to see any wildlife through the cabin’s now very foggy window. With an hour or so to go before darkness fell, I left the cosy sounds of crackling fire behind and went out for a wander.
It was another chilly evening. Sledding the tundra for days on end had given me a better sense of the minus numbers and I guessed the air’s bite registered about -10C. I almost immediately spotted a red fox chancing himself a few morsels from our sleds but he refused to sit still for a photograph. He kept meandering in and out of the spindly obscurity of the surrounding tree cover taking advantage of all the getaways and hollows hidden up his foxy sleeve. Since I was wearing only my mid layers I retreated to the cabin, threw on my arctic gear and stuffed a couple of lenses and a bar of hazelnut Marabou into my parka pockets. This was going to take a while.
I wedged myself into the crook of a sturdy Scots Pine to await Mr Fox. Surrounded by a scrawny cluster of younger conifers, this was the perfect hideout, I thought. After keeping me waiting for 45 minutes, he crept up from behind my vantage and trotted alongside me with a wisenheimer swagger and smirk. Show off. He knew where I was all along.
After a whole bar of Marabou and an hour of patience with my telephoto lens, I got the shot. It took me an hour, but I got him.
I spent the final hours of the following morning lazily cleaning my camera gear starting to feel a little gloomy. Taking my foot off that break and setting off back to the fjällstation, my appreciation of the snow-capped everything became a resting thought. I started to miss the howls of the wind and the huskies, wondering if Extreme would remember me before realising I had begun to romanticise an expedition that wasn’t even over yet.
Living out of a sled was quite something. There was no supply run down the road. There were no roads. It was just me and my three expedition buddies, the dogs and the wild Arctic Circle. Over a week had passed and I hadn’t seen another human being. The vastness, the silence and the sheer grandeur of it all was just so staggeringly breathtaking. Then after three particularly pensive hours, we were back at Saltoluokta.
“So there we were, us nine very naked men waddling in for an afternoon constitutional when suddenly, out of nowhere, I am unceremoniously inducted into one of Sweden’s most puzzling pastimes - I am slapped from behind with an assortment of birch leaves.”
Having just returned from an exhausting expedition, my priority was a hot shower before supper. Sweden holds a big place in my heart, however its preference for nudity somewhat differs to mine. Five minutes in, no less than eight Swedes joined me in what was already a cramped shower for one.
My Swedish friends are naturally baffled by my aversion to mass public nudity. They laugh at my supposed exaggeration but the Brit inside finds no part of this a suitable subject for humour. ‘I can handle this’, I tell myself. Rule Britannia and all that nonsense. Not this time. They had seen me arrive and wanted to hear my sledding stories as they piled into the adjoining sauna. The last one in held the door open with a ‘what are you waiting for?’ expression on his face. In, I followed.
So there we were, us nine very naked men waddling in for an afternoon constitutional when suddenly, out of nowhere, I am unceremoniously inducted into one of Sweden’s most puzzling pastimes - I am slapped from behind with an assortment of birch leaves. It’s called a sauna whisk and yes, birch leaf slapping is really a thing. I had never before met the perpetrator until that moment. The eternal length of those three seconds as our eyes met was excruciating. This was not in my British middle class handbook. Do I say thank you? No, play it cool, this is Sweden.
Quickly coming to terms with my uncharted level of awkward, I decided to busy myself by pouring water on the coals somehow hoping to disappear into a plume of steam. Instead I dropped the wooden spoon and had to shimmy into a sideways crouch to prevent a premature full spring moon roughly two feet in front of my new audience. Idiot.
After several hugs and handshakes and the longest drawn out goodbye with my dogs, I spent the last hours of dusk awaiting my snowmobile ride with an Australian couple drinking plenty of beer regaling them with my theatrical matinee of pathetic sauna-related conservatism.
This was my last night within the Arctic Circle and it was time to bid a reluctant farewell. I didn’t want to leave though it was certainly difficult for an outsider like myself to imagine living all the year round in such an unforgiving climate. The enormity of Arctic nature had reminded me on several occasions that I was only a guest here but ever since Arctic Europe was settled some 3,500 years ago, the Sámi people have harnessed and nurtured the rhythm of this wild land. They evolved homogeneously with it. If the wild frontiers of Northern Europe aren’t on your bucket list, they should be.
