After almost 24 hours of traveling, I finally landed at my destination of Oulu, Finland. Yes, that would be Finland in December. You know me, when other people plan a Florida or Caribbean vacation, I look for the coldest place I can find, but with a unique twist. The main driver was going above the Arctic Circle, via a country I have never visited, with the vague promise of see Aurora Borealis. Well, two out of three isn’t bad. I’m taking an organized tour for the five days and then going back to my anti-social ways for a few more days in Helsinki and Tallinn. We’ll save my thoughts on the organized tour for later. We’ll get through the first three full days of touring and sightseeing first. On day one, the big highlight was going to Hailuoto, and island in the Bothnian Bay; relatively new in geological terms. We took a ferry out and one of the neatest things was watching the ice break and get churned up as we pushed through. We had a little tour of the island and learned about the history and the role of shipping for the island. We also had a brief stop at local, organic micro-brewery. I liked the introduction to the business and I like the idea of trying to make a sustainable business model, but beer really isn’t my thing.
After a day of riding the bus and still trying to adjust to the time change and the dramatic decrease in daylight, I was pretty exhausted. We had dinner on our own, so I wandered around Oulu, deciding between sitting down and falling asleep in my food or grabbing something fast, and slightly more familiar, like maybe McDonald’s. I don’t mind McDonald’s on holiday, but I try to at least wait a few meals, but I was not in the mood to experiment. I guess I did experiment because they didn’t have a fish sandwich, so I ordered the Chicken El Maco which was not what I thought it would be; I thought it was a chicken version of a Big Mac, but it turns out that it had a Mexican twist because it had taco sauce instead of ketchup, The clue may have been in the name.
Day two was a long day with an optional excursion to Raahe to see a town that had an old section where the buildings are made of wood, from the 1800s. This was another misunderstanding on my part (not the first, and probably not the last), because I thought we were going to see the original 17th century wooden buildings, but they were burned down in the late 1700s, early 1800s. Also, and I suppose this is what happens when you tour in the wintertime, we couldn’t really see too much, just the exteriors and one interior of a period pharmacy. There was some shopping that people did, but that’s really not my thing.
As we headed north to Tornio, the second item on our agenda was to go to a reindeer farm. We spent some time with a few reindeer; learned some interesting things, like the pattern of their antlers is unique and like a fingerprint; fed them a little and then left. Our guide thought it was great we saw them in the dark (I can’t say evening because it was only about 3:00 in the afternoon, but pitch dark), but I guess I would have liked to have gotten there a little earlier to see them in dusk, with maybe a little light. Especially because our day was not yet over.
After a little dinner break and brief rest, we headed out to hopefully see the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis. If you go back to one of my posts from December of 2018, I was unsuccessful in trying to see them. We all really wanted to see them and a few of us had experienced that crushing blow of disappointment when Mother Nature just laughs. The excursion outfitted everyone in flattering overalls, but I kept my gear; it had been tested in Iceland, China and Minnesota winters, I figured I was okay. We drove for about 45 minutes to an hour to a farm in Sweden. Our guide for the evening, Alessandro, explained what caused the Northern Lights, and that the phenomena is occurring even if we cannot see them because of clouds or light pollution. We eventually trudged out to the open field from the warmth of the farmhouse, full of cautious optimism. I lost track of time, I’m really not sure how long we were out there, 40 minutes? We were not seeing the gorgeous waves of colors we see posted on the websites, and the apps and forecasting tools were giving out mixed signals, so we just waited. Then in the distance, we could see a faint green glow playing behind the clouds. As usual, I just kept clicking the camera button, hoping whatever I couldn't see with my eyes would be picked up by the camera. I’m going to ask your indulgence as I will claim that the photos below have a faint hint of green. After a few more minutes, we walked back to the farmhouse and had a midnight snack, it wasn’t really midnight and it was far more substantial than a snack, but it was delicious. We finally headed back, all a little dejected and really tired from the day. Stay tuned for more tales from the Arctic.
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