Finland – In Search of the Northern Lights

One of the advantages of working for a global company is the opportunity to travel to offices in other locations… and tack on personal travel to those trips. I was planning a trip to the London office in February 2017. I’ve never been anywhere with tons of snow in the winter so I decided to tack on a trip to northern Finland to see the northern lights!

When planning my trip, I asked the London team what they would recommend – Sweden or Finland. Every single person said Sweden, mostly because Finland was “weird.” Of course, that made me want to go to Finland even more! I ended up going to Finland for two reasons:

• The travel company had some better options for me with their Finland options rather than their Sweden options.

• My husband didn’t have a strong desire to go to Finland, which made me feel better about going there on my own.

And so, in the middle of winter, I went to Finland! The flights were pretty standard. I flew from Seattle to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to Helsinki. I spent the night in the airport hotel in Helsinki, probably one of the most convenient airport hotels I’ve ever experienced. It was just a quick 2-minute walk out of baggage claim over to the hotel lobby. After a quiet evening and a good night’s sleep, I flew from Helsinki to Ivalo. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life! It was white the entire flight north was over snow-covered land. The 45-minute drive from the airport to the lodge demonstrated just how much snow was on the ground. The road was simply snow-packed and there was at least 4-feet of snow near the lodge. It was stunning.

I got all checked into my room and got settled. It was cold in my room so I was trying to decide if that was normal or not. Like “maybe they keep the rooms colder than what I’d normally expect because it’s so cold outside?” But after hanging out for 10 minutes, I realized it was way too cold to be “normal.” It turns out that the heating was broken in my room so the lodge staff spent the next hour fixing it up. The in-floor heating in the bathroom worked so I almost curled up on the floor in there! But they got it fixed, and I could get my room to a very comfy 70 degrees that felt blissful at this point.

Meals were served as a buffet in the main lounge of the hotel and were quite flavorful! The lounge was also a great place to relax between adventures. I spent my first afternoon there reading a book.

That night, I went on my first adventure, snowmobiling out in the dark to try to spot the northern lights. I’d never been on a snowmobile before or driven on. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun! There was a train of about 8 snowmobiles and I just had a blast driving around on my own machine. We stopped in several different locations, had tea and snacks and hung out waiting for the lights to appear. Sadly, it was cloudy that night so nothing appeared but I still had a blast.

The next day, my first full day, turned out to be the highlight of my time in Finland – dogsledding! It was about a 3-hour adventure. We got to meet and greet with the dogs and were assigned sleds. Each sled had 2 people. Since I was traveling by myself, I got paired up with a guy who was part of a group of 3 people. We each had a turn riding in the sled as well as driving the sled. I started by riding in the sled. It’s hard to describe but imagine the dogs getting all excited about running while you’re getting settled. The only thing holding them back is that the sled is anchored. As soon as you release the anchor, the dogs just run… and run…. and run. But it was almost entirely quiet. The only thing I heard was the dogs running. For the next hour and a half, I just got to watch the world go by.

<<<<<<< Video of dog sled>>>>>>>

The 3 guides rode on snowmobiles between the 8 sledding teams in case there were any issues. One of the things they said was that we had to maintain a standard distance between teams. If the teams get close to each other, the dogs get aggressive. Even worse, their lines get tangled together. And, of course, it happened to us! The team ahead of us slowed down and we didn’t, so we ended up tangled together. It was a bit scary seeing the dogs fight but the guides were on top of the situation and quickly fixed the situation.

We stopped to give the dogs a break and it was fun watching them roll around in the snow to cool down.

If I look cold, it’s because I was! The coldest part of me was my toes. They were sticking up the entire time with the wind blowing on them. My toes were freezing at this point! We stopped a bit later to have lunch in a little lodge while the dogs got to rest some more.

And then we headed back. My partner and I traded at this point, so I drove the dogsled back to the home base. It was an interesting experience. For the most part, the dogs do all the work. However, if you go uphill (even a small hill), you have to jump off and run while pushing the sled up the hill. It was hard running in huge boots and pushing the sled uphill. Fortunately, I only had to do it once. The other challenge was getting back on the sled after pushing. You had to jump back onto the 1-inch sled tracks which, at this point, were icy. I was so afraid of jumping back on and missing and being dragged behind the sled. But I jumped back on without issue and was able to enjoy the rest of the ride. Thankfully my partner did a bulk of the work heading to the lunch spot. I got the easy return! When we got back, the dogs got a well-deserved rest and we got to play with some of the up-and-comers.

That night, we took a large sled, towed by a snowmobile, out to a little cabin where we could look for the northern lights again. We traveled to a little cabin out in a field and warmed up with hot cocoa and a fire. We stood outside for periods of time, looking up at the sky, and would go back in the cabin to get warm again. Sadly, it was cloudy again so we didn’t see anything. But it was still a great evening.

<<<<<<< Video of night ride>>>>>>>

On my last full day, I went out snowmobiling again. We traveled what felt like a long distance to a lunch spot and then visited a reindeer farm. Some people went for a ride with reindeer but it was kind of lame… the reindeer just went in a great big circle once so it didn’t really seem worth it. It was more fun watching the team trying to get the reindeer to run!

<<<<<<< Video of reindeer>>>>>>>>

On the last night, I went out one more time snowmobiling. This was a very different experience because the guide seemed to want to go super fast… faster than anything we’d done previously. I was afraid of getting lost multiple times in the dark because some folks were so far ahead. Fortunately, there were several of us at the back of the pack and we never got lost. We stopped at an open field and lit a fire. We drank some cocoa while looking at the sky. At times, we could almost see the northern lights. It was cloudy but the cloud layer was much less than previous nights. We could see glimmers of green light coming through the clouds but not the stark green ribbons we’d have seen on a clear night.

Each time I went out, I had to get all bundled up. It certainly wasn’t a “throw on your jacket and go” kind of place. This video shows the entire process of getting ready to head outside. Thank goodness I only had to do this twice a day.

<<<<<<< Video of me getting dressed>>>>>>>>

On the last day, I returned to the airport and flew to London to go to work. I didn’t get to see the northern lights but the entire trip was completely worth it and I learned that I loved snowmobiling and dogsledding!