16 – 20 February 2024

Our Arctic Extravaganza has been about 20 years in the making. We left the kids at home with Auntie Jo, who flew in from San Jose, California to give us 4 days of time to fulfil Liz’s bucket list dream of seeing the Northern Lights. 2 flights from London, with some awfully tight connections but we made it within 5 -6 hours.

We made a quick stop off at the local supermarket to stock up on local treats – salmon, chocolate and meat in a tube. I just love how groceries really shine a light on the rich cultural differences – even down to how they stock their shelves. 

The town of Kiruna where we arrived is under-going a teeny tiny make over. It is being moved 3kms east. Subsidence from one of the world’s biggest iron ore mine (producing 80% of the EU supply) located nearby threatens to swallow up the town. Cracks started to appear in the hospital and a school is no longer safe for its students. The decision to move the town, which is being funded by the state-owned mine, was made in 2004. Apparently in 2021 the first homes in Kiruna’s new town centre were occupied, with the official opening taking place in September 2022. We asked one of the owners of the accommodation we were in what summer looks like in Kiruna and apparently most accommodation is just rented to the mining company to cater for all the construction workers who come in help shift the town sideways. So very strange… but makes sense why the towns exists at all in the way it does today. We suspect without the mine it would never be this occupied beyond the Sami given the harsh conditions. 

By the time we arrived at the Abisko Touristation (just over an hour from Kiruna and about 200kms north of the Arctic Circle) it was already dark. The Touristation was stunning – both inside and in terms of the views. The food also very good – a big high five all around. Our first night however we hit up the hostel kitchen for Anthony to cook up his famous smoked salmon salad and boiled sausage… the wine was amazing!

Suitably cowed by the freezing temperatures (-12 the first night, which the locals seem to think is tropical – they don’t get out of bed for anything less than -30) we went out in search of the Aurora. Following the guidance of the hostel receptionist (what could possibly go wrong?) and found ourselves walking (very tentatively) on a frozen lake (is that OK? We weren’t really sure) whilst any semblance of potential northern lights hid sneakily behind stubborn clouds. Being on the lake for the first time (with a plastic cup of rose) was a magical experience, but the only light we saw was streaming from our iphones (having cleverly forgotten our head torches). 

After our ‘lights based failure’ on our first night Liz was downcast – this was, afterall her 3rd aurora hunting trip and she had come up empty handed. We started making plans to not sleep during nighttime hours, and mount sorties at all hours based on strange metrics like ‘KP Index’ and ‘Solar Winds’ – we had no idea what these things meant, only that higher percentages were better than lower percentages (we think?) and that the pictures on the app were pretty.

Our first full day was spent exploring the area around the excellent Abisko Touristation – walking (tentatively at first, then with increasing confidence) on frozen lake Tornetrask (a massive lake on which Abisko sits, some 168 metres deep and 50 miles long), marvelling at frozen waterfalls.

By afternoon we steamed in our own private picturesque, lakeside sauna (whilst staring disbelievingly at the carefully built holes in the ice for those brave enough to jump in – not us) and thinking about our strategy to maximise our chances to see the lights. 

Tonight we had help. We were optimistic, despite the stubborn cloud cover that had settled on Abisko, as Kiruna – some 100km  south – was looking clear. Even with Liz’s mega-awesome-booking-capability we had found that Aurora chasing tours were hard to come by in Abisko (there were plenty of them, it was just that they were already booked 6 months in advance), and so we had ended up with Jake, the only tour that wasn’t booked out. Jake liked to cook, and what Jake liked to cook was reindeer. 

So, before we could go out light spotting, we had to sit and eat reindeer and talk about local traditions with Jake (who, it turns out, is actually Finnish). 

Liz was ancy, and had no interest in eating reindeer (on both culinary and ethical basis) and just wanted to go and see the lights. It turns out that Jake knows a lot about the local area (at least a lot more than we do), and reindeer is tasty (and continues to be very cute, which is complicated). Either way, it was 90 mins well spent and soon we were in our van driving south towards where we knew the forecast was better. 

Sure enough, our vans turned south. We asked Jake what his strategy was for seeing the lights. Was it the speed of the solar wind? The strength of the KP index? The twitch of a reindeer’s tail? Some secret satellite imaginary only available to the Sami people? We needed to know his secret, because he boasted of an 80% success rate, and we would be chasing solo for the next few nights. 

Jake looked pensive for a moment, clearly unsure whether he should spill the beans on his aurora hunting success, and thereby threaten the ongoing viability of his business, and maybe he was worried about breaking some secret Sami code. Clearly he thought we were trustworthy, and able to be brought into the circle of trust. He looked deeply into our eyes, and solemnly announced: 

“Go for clear skies”

Looking satisfied, like he’d shared knowledge to the next generation, thereby ensuring the continuation of great aurora hunting traditions, he turned back to the road. 

Really? 

That was it? 

No satellites? No KPI indexes? No solar wind speed?

Just look for holes in the cloud? 

Yep. 

So we drove south and looked for a hole in the clouds. We pulled in to a highway stop parking lot, some 70kms south of Abisko and maybe 30 kms north of Kiruna. There were street lights at one end, and cars whizzing down the freeway doing 100kms/h some 100m away.

‘This will do’ Jake declared, looking like he had just dropped another pearl of knowledge. 

We pile out of the van and into the snowy carpark, carefully looking away from the street lights so as not to ruin our ‘night vision’ (and convince ourselves that we were, in fact, in some arctic wonderland, not some highway rest stop that may have, in warmer times, been used for some nefarious purpose. 

Liz looked dubious.

Jake looked confident – to his credit the sky above us was clear, so based on his formula, he had done his job. 

As if on queue, suddenly the Aurora appeared and begun to dance, timidly at first then with increasing confidence. Jake just looked knowingly satisfied, as if there was no end to his spotting brilliance. 

At first the colours were faint to the naked eye (but still took lovely photographs) and then brighter and brighter across most of the sky. The colour was mainly green, but also red and purple. 

Liz was close to tears. 

The Aurora became brighter and brighter, and even Jake became excited, declaring this the best aurora sighting all month (who knows whether he also declared this the night before, and the night before that). In this excitement, he even let us stay out 90 mins later than planned. 

Needless to say, we were all smiles and compliments to his Aurora spotting genius strategy on our return trip – and his reviews will be excellent. 

Following another morning of walks around the Touristation and lake, we headed south towards Jukkasjarvi and the famous IceHotel – now in it’s 34th year and broken down into the permanent IceHotel365 (which sits in a large freezer and includes the IceBar) and the temporary IceHotel which melts every summer and is rebuilt each autumn/winter. The whole thing sits on the frozen banks of the Torne River, from where it’s famous ice is sourced. 

Each room in the hotel (which is effectively a giant igloo) is hand sculptured each year, the more expensive the rooms, the more elaborate the carvings – but even the basic ones are incredible. 

We were excited to have a night booked, and curious to see how it all worked. Liz looked concerned at the prospect of sleeping on an ice bed, in an igloo, with no toilet in sight. 

It turns out that it is the most expensive camping trip that we’re ever likely to do. After a fun couple of cocktails (out of ice glasses) at the stunning but completely empty IceBar, we walked down (on) the river to the Homestead for dinner – which served nothing but deer related products by Peter who later shared his dubious playlist with us. We hoped to spy some northern lights on the way home, but they were a bit shy tonight, so we had to settle for a beautiful moonlit night instead.

From there, we picked up our arctic sleeping bags, cleaned our teeth in the shared, gym style bathrooms, undressed down to our thermals and padded our way through the -15 degree outside into the -5 degree IceHotel, laid our sleeping bags on our reindeer skins and settled in for the night. 

It wasn’t the most comfortable night – particularly if you needed to walk the 50m to the bathroom – but it was an amazing experience and so beautifully done. 

Our final night of this trip was in an igloo, on the other side of the Torne River. Hoping for another Jake-style light display we stocked the fridge (read: snow pile outside) with champagne.

After Anthonys attempt at a run-trip-run-tumble-run in knee high snow (not sure his marathon training app envisaged artic conditions) we settled in for the night, propped up on pillows staring out our igloo window waiting for the brilliance. Alas we were not to be gifted this evening, clearly not enough clear sky we said to each other. But the view anyway was spectacular including the tourists peering in our window first thing in the morning. 

Anyone thinking of doing a northern light adventure we definitely recommend Sweden!