http://www.flysaa.com/za/en/ | Hop onto one of SAA’s many flights from Johannesburg and experience the magic that is the Arctic Circle.

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A rhythmic “tonk, tonk, tonk” breaks the silence on the banks of the Torne River. It’s so quiet here that any sound reverberates and seems
intrusive. We trace the “tonking” to an intrepid boat-builder meticulously repairing the wooden struts on a traditional nuut. He’s so focused that
he hardly looks up as we ask about the piles of net and rope bundled in the boat. Instead, he explains the timeless beauty of these Arctic river
To get here – 200km into Sweden’s Arctic Circle – we took a 17-hour train trip from Stockholm, straight up the length of the country. This vast
Arctic wilderness has only tiny, remote villages punctuating its sweeping landscape, and we’re in one of them: Jukkasjärvi, with a population of
600 people and 900 dogs. This is because during winter, dog sleds are the only transport when the landscape’s frozen and dusted fairytale-white
with snow and ice. But in the summer months, from June to August, the huskies are on holiday too, though their wolverine howls
can sometimes be heard bouncing across the surface of the Torne. This wild river travels all the way from Norway, through Sweden to
Finland, bringing with it salmon and trillions of litres of pure, clean water. Here the river’s easily a mile wide, rushing cool and clear.
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“Right now you’re watching the
next ICEHOTEL,” smiles David
Lind, who works at the iconic
establishment. This is the water
that becomes the clear ice from
which the ICEHOTEL is built every
year. The Torne provides its building
blocks, which are harvested from
the frozen river each March. At 1m
thick, a single ice block weighs two
tons. Annual construction starts in
late November and it takes about
100 construction workers and artists
to complete the 65-room hotel.
Everything’s made of ice. Just imagine
and even the glasses you drink from
at the bar are solid ice. In summer, of
course, the hotel’s melted back into the Torne and wooden cabins
provide guest accommodation.
Jukkasjärvi means “meeting place at the lake” in the Sami language.
today, nearly half of Sweden is reindeer territory and there are 4 500
reindeer-owners in the country, with 230 000 animals between them.
To the nomadic Sami herders, reindeer are life and they move their
herds as the seasons change.
All of Sweden’s reindeer are owned by someone; there are no longer
wild herds. They’re simply too precious for that. It’s no surprise, then,
that a Sami herder’s most important tool is the lasso. He needs to keep
his herd together because every part of every one of these animals
is needed and used. Reindeer pull the heavy Sami sleds through
snow; their fur is the warmest possible, with hollow hair that traps
and blankets imaginable. Sinews are used for stitching and making
tough twine, while the meat is both delicious and
nutritious. The animals are the full package for
sustaining the Sami lifestyle.
Reindeer are small, but surprisingly tough and
well adapted for this harsh Arctic environment,
where the temperature can drop to -50°C in
species and when times are really lean, they dig
beneath the snow for lichen. Their hooves splay
to walk easily on snow. During summer the reindeer fatten themselves
up for the cold, dark months ahead. “Go and walk among them,” says
Therese Iversen from the Sami Siida Café in the village. “Take some
pellets with you and you’ll feel like a pied piper for reindeer.”
velvety and quite ungainly. We didn’t realise that their antlers moult,
nor that reindeer can be coloured white
and are very tame.
“The clicking is reindeer communication
and comes from a tendon in the hoof,”
explains Iversen. “It’s so that they can
because there are long months like that
here. But today you’d never believe that.”
It feels like late spring in Johannesburg:
bright, warm and drenched in sunshine,
with the temperature in the mid-20s. This,
then, is the height of the Arctic summer –
and a “heat wave” at the same time. “The
Torne rose to 20°C,” she adds, “and salmon
started dying of heat. They don’t know
these hot temperatures.”
Iversen herself is basking in the
sunshine, sitting outside and carefully
stitching an intricate soft leather and
silver thread bracelet. She’s not a
Sami, but she’s from Jukkasjärvi
and wants to keep their unique
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culture alive. “This is a traditional Sami adornment,” she says of the
bracelet. It will be fastened using a button of reindeer bone. Just
about everyone in Jukkasjärvi wears one, and now we do too.
Peckish for lunch, we step into the conical Lavvu tent, where
traditional Sami slow food is prepared and served by Iversen. She’s
a multi-talented woman and suggests we try the suovas, which is
jam and gurpi, the Sami rendition of a reindeer hamburger. Dessert
is lattegat – tart yellow cloud berries that only grow in the Arctic
iron pan, the smoke spiralling out the open-funnelled tent top. It’s
somehow all familiar and unfamiliar, the quiet of the wilderness,
version of our African experiences.
The red wooden Jukkasjärvi church next door is postcard-pretty and
the oldest preserved wooden church in Swedish Lapland. It’s shaded
by pine trees, while inside worn wooden pews and a mural above the
altar tell of real life in the Arctic Circle. The sense of simplicity here is
palpable. Life follows the rhythm of the seasons, wealth is in reindeer
and enjoyment is in the fellowship of friends and family.
You can walk everywhere in Jukkasjärvi: it’s tiny. The butter-yellow
torrid winters; verandahs festooned with hanging candles for light on
dark days; ladders lying on pitched roofs to clear snow. Other roofs are
covered in green growing grass. But today, doors and windows are wide
open to let in the warmth of summer, gardens are bursting with colour
between homes. It’s completely unexpected,
something like an Arctic Namaqualand.
Just as the Arctic Circle’s in constant
darkness for a month or two in winter, it has
constant sunshine in midsummer. So if you
only go to bed after dark, the Arctic midnight sun will have you
and then immediately rise again, as if teasing you that there’ll be
darkness. To sleep, homes have block-out curtains and blinds, but
the locals are familiar with turning in while the sun still shines; to us
it felt rather strange, until exhaustion overcame us.
En route back to our summer log cabin on the banks of the Torne,
we stop at the tiny supermarket to buy for the afternoon. It’s a
Swedish tradition to nurture blood sugar levels at 4pm. Even in the
capital of Stockholm, work halts for
and then promptly resumes with renewed energy and interest.
work, still “tonking” and still completely focused. Momentarily he
looks up, sees us and waves us closer. “Just look,” he says in a serious
smile and beckons us to follow him. “Come,” he says. “Let’s take a
break and have some I need some sugar energy.”
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