If you aren't the lead dog, this is the best view you're going to get
Ever since a visit to northern Minnesota in 2007, I promised myself to one day ride a dog sled. You know, shades of 'Call of the Wild' and 'White Fang'. For this trip, initially I signed up for 2 individual dog sled rides, scheduled in 2 different cities for the cruise. The first sled ride was canceled due to the lack of snow. So sad! The second dog sled ride was at the farthest northern stop off, in Kirkenes (pronounced 'Shirk-ee-nez') and there was snow so dog sledding was a 'go'!
The site with the dog sled rides was also the venue for the Ice Hotel. I could have visited the famed hotel, but I wasn't about to waste my energy getting there over a slippery surface of iced snow.
Pretty much as close as I got to the ice hotel
The ice hotel's interior is entirely just that - ice. Including the bar and the hotel rooms.
Also included in the Kirkenes excursion was a close up view of reindeer. Everyone carefully walked up icy stair steps to a wooden walkway poised over the reindeer pen. From there, several of Santa's best walked over to stare at us in return.
You can see all the tourists on the right on the walkway
I am always surprised to see that reindeer are much smaller than moose I suppose that has something to do with 8 of them to pull one massive, toy filled sleigh
Reindeer have the best hooves, all toe holds for not slipping on snow & ice
Balaclava
Done playing with reindeer games, we headed over to a shed where we could take advantage of cold weather gear, free to use for anyone hoping to not freeze to death on the sled ride. Available, were heavy duty gloves, full body snow suits and balaclavas (woolen face masks). In my excitement I asked a clerk for a 'baklava' (a dessert), then in a further flurry I spurted, "I meant balalaika", (a string instrument). I was joking of course (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).
Great Tit (told ya!)
Geared up in all the equipment listed above, I resembled a massive toddler in a snow suit. I stumped outside for a look around prior to our sled ride. Next to the gear shed was a pen full of playful Husky puppies. After a brief look at the pups, I waddled to a nearby group of pens where the local birdlife were gathered around some feeders. I took only crap photos, which I will blame on the gear I was wearing, not the photographer. There were the usual Hooded Crows, some Great Tits (get your mind out of the gutter, they are a type of tiny bird), European Magpies and the usual House Sparrows - I know you don't care but it's important to 'moi'.
Shortly before the ride began
In my imagination leading up to dog sledding, I was going to video the entire ride, however there is the matter of my massive snow suit. I'd put my cell phone -which frankly takes better pix and videos than my actual camera - into my jeans pocket and through two layers of outer clothing I could not access my jeans pocket to save my life. Ended up with sparse photos of the ride itself. Maybe next time, right?
My only photo of the actual ride, over Ila's shoulder
Enough complaining... the ride was so fun! The dogs were amazing, easily pulling passengers and their lady musher. The lady driver was wonderous. She told us her life story, having recently emigrated from Hungary to Norway to improve her chances of making a decent living. So here she was now, at her dream job, working with happy Huskies for more cash than she could earn as a teacher in Hungary.
I wasn't sure how far or how long the ride would last. I had imagined a route over hill and dale with us arriving in a different town. Nope. There is a route, a large loop that traverses perhaps a mile total, and we traveled over the trail, not once, but twice. The air was frigid and at one point we rode past a frozen lake where Hooded Crows hopped around the shoreline. The ride was fun, and now I'm doubly disappointed the first dogsled ride in Trombo had to be canceled.
The video below was quickly and expertly filmed by our lady dog musher. That's Ila in the front of the sled, and the giant tot in a snowsuit & Balaclava behind her is guess who? Scål!
The chieftain's wife greets all at the Viking longhouse
A small view of the v. massive longhouse
I so looked forward to this excursion. Being addicted to cosplay, I even considered attending this event in full Viking maiden costume. Thankfully I decided no one really needs that spectacle. The excursion bus was boarded at Stamsund. Throughout the drive to the Lofotr Viking Museum, a rather somber Viking told a bit of Viking history. Inside of an hour, we departed the bus at the site of a massive recreation of a Viking longhouse, based on an original one dated to 900 AD.
Plenty of atmosphere in the longhouse
The ship's passengers including me, were the honored guests to the Viking Cheftain's household. The feast began with the chieftain's wife beating a hand drum to open the required ceremony of sacrifices to the Norse gods. The sacrifices would hold the end of the world, aka Ragnaorok at arm's length.
Next, the resident witch entered the room and spoke the words that would keep us all safe.
The Viking cheftain next made his plea and vows to the gods (sadly, it's a rear view of the chef, draped in bearskins).
The ceremony complete, din-din was served. Here below is mine. Roast lamb with loganberry sauce, barley, carrot and turnips. There was a plentiful serving of sour cream and very old style triangles of grainy bread. All of it was delish and it was a delightful recreation of a genuine Viking meal.
The drinking glasses contain water on the left, and mead (honey wine) on the right
As the meal began, everyone's glasses, containing mead were hoisted up, everyone shouting SKÅL! along with our hosts. Scål,(which in English is 'Skol' which means Cheers or some such). Anyway, Scål was shouted with vigor at any and all excuses. Scål! See what I mean?
While the guests dug into their hearty meal, the hosts entertained all, with flute music and song. Scål!
Guests were also invited to take part in a dance around the room. Shockingly, I for once didn't partake - I wanted to film it instead, and the dance video is at the end of this post.
Stockfisk, split down the middle, then hung to dry
The meal was finished - Scål! - at leisure and we were told we could then visit the Viking Museum in the next room over. Entering the room you cross under 'stock fish' which are a type of cod, hung on long rods. The stock fish remain a valued export of modern Norway. Scål!
Fishing spears and other 'old school' tools
A separate room held a Viking asleep in his bed and sundries - Scål!
A huge ceramic Sea Serpent traversed the room - symbolically anyway...
Another Sea Serpent devouring a hapless eel
After a brief tour of the museum, I nervously left the longhouse, to traipse downhill along the well lit path, to the Museum store. No photos there because I was too busy gawking at the AWESOME goods for sale, the most tempting being the tankards identical to the ones from which I quaffed my mead and water. The metal bits were hand crafted by blacksmiths, and the glass, no doubt, hand blown. Sooo tempting! Scål!
How worried I was about missing the bus is that even though the bus only had 2 of the many passengers on it as yet, I didn't want to risk going back into the museum store and somehow miss catching the bus.
When the bus was finally full of happily stuffed folk, the bus headed north. The cool thing was although we disembarked the ship in Stamsund, we were to catch up with and get back on board in the town of Svolvaer. Here is the short vid of the evening of wining and dining with the Vikings, without any worry of the delightful calories consumed at the meal. Scål!
Photo, taken above the Arctic Circle, where the sun never rises above the horizon,
How wrong I was about life above the Arctic Circle! I've been north of it several times in Alaska. Those trips were during the summer, with 24/7 sunlight. So I 'assumed' being above the arctic circle means 24/7 dark. Nope. I was wrong. There are spots above the arctic circle that are in the dark 24/7, but generally I mostly just experienced very short spans of daylight. We were poised on planet earth, just at a point on the earth's axis that the sun, was just below the horizon.
Oh... and the food... OMG! The food was served buffet style for every breakfast and every lunch. Dinners were different. Ila and I were assigned to table 47. Our dining time for dinner was between 6:30 and 7 o'clock.
We got to know our table neighbors and our server Chris, all 6 foot 2' of him. Nordic men are as tall as Masai Warriors. Chris was quite friendly and didn't mind being bombarded with our questions. Some nights dinner too was buffet, it depended a lot on the number of passengers picked up and dropped off... I think.
Every night our menu was based on a city we docked at that day, and the food picked up there.
Here is typical shipboard dinner 'Mat' (food):
Starter:
The Entree:
Duck leg confit
And yummy dessert:
Looks weird, tasted like heaven on a plate
My favorite meal of the day is always breakfast and after the first day I had my routine down. Hot porridge topped with loads of cut-up fresh fruit, followed by a plate with fried egg, perhaps some potatoes, one or two of the many cheeses, salmon served every which way, i.e., smoked, peppered, and bread with fresh butter and a dollop of cloudberry jam. Norwegian bread was to DIE FOR! So grainy and yummy! I must learn to bake my own grainy bread.
I ate enough reindeer at the buffets to horrify my inner child
Up on the 7th floor was a gelato shop, where I purchased Beer Gelato, Brown Cheese Gelato and even Fish Gelato. The latter was way tastier than it sounds, even with the ensy fish bits in it.
Alongside the gelato were amazing pastries which meant I tried to avoid the shop altogether so I could manage to still fit through the deck doors.
Ah! But that wasn't the only opportunity to stuff one's jowls. Special events were held up on the 7th floor deck outside. A couple of nights I purchased drinks. The drinks were in adorable tiny tin mugs were dedicated to Norge Trolls, and filled with Aquavit, a tasty liquor that is 95% potato. Another frigid night the tiny mugs were sold containing a wonderous spiked hot chocolate. SKOL!
Daily, there were presentations offered in English and German, to keep us updated on what was on for the day's excursions, but also to educate us on various topics. It was amazing to hear our presenters switching from English to German on a Kroner, plus of course they also spoke Norwegian.
One of my favorite lectures was on the Sami people of northern Scandinavia. The Sami were the indigenous peoples who originally lived by herding reindeer. Many still do that, but many have taken on traditional roles.
Reindeer herding by Sami people
I love the Sami clothing
Another day I was fascinated by a lecture on the similarities between Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and the Icelandic languages. The 4 languages are from the same branch of the language tree so all four language speakers can pretty much understand each other.
But quirkily, Finnish is from a different, v-e-r-y different language family so it is the odd fellow out, and it is not understood by it's neighboring countries. Interestingly enough, the Sami language is of the same language family as is Finnish.
"My Name is" in 4 languages and you can see Finnish is the odd language out
I did a little 'Duolingo' studying of Norwegian (Norge) before the trip, but as pretty much all Norwegians speak English, learning Norge was really not necessary. The most 'Norge' I used was "Takk" (thank you), "Tusen Takk" (A thousand thanks, aka many thanks) and "Takk for Matten" (Thanks for the food!). I wore those 3 phrases to shreds.
How did we know where we were each day? There were occasional shipboard announcements, spoken in Norwegian, English, then German. After a while I was hallucinating that I could understand all three languages. There were also monitors strategically placed around the ship, that wised us all up on where we were, where we were going that day, as well as the current temperatures, and such.
Where the heck are we today?
On ship bound days (my choice as I could have disembarked but I developed a weird fear of getting left behind on shore). I spent my time journaling the trip in one of my many, many travel journals, and otherwise I watched the beautiful scenery skirting by.
A Mountain that is likely named Mt. Ski Cap
A little Norwegian Fishing Village
Cruising past a colorful Yule Fair
A quick look at a nighttime amenity offered to passengers on the top deck.
