A trip to Murmansk – prelude Feb 24 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-02: A trip to Murmansk”.

Day 21 of my winter journey 2018

I think, I know northern Europe quite well, especially when it comes to Sweden and Norway. There are many gaps to fill as for example Iceland, the Faroe Islands or Greenland, but thats all island only reachable by plane or by ship.

There is however a huge arctic area that is reachable by land, although with minor difficulties. I’m talking about Russia.

The journey started two months ago with an idea. When Annika and I planned to visit Chris and Ørjan in Kirkenes, why shouldn’t we cross the Norwegian-Russian border and visit Murmansk, the world largest town north from the polar circle. Chris and Ørjan were as interested as us, so that we were four people on that short trip to Russia.

Unlike the other countries we use to visit we would need a valid visa to cross the border and travel to Russia. Even though we used the help of a travel agency in Kirkenes that helped us with the visa application it took some efforts until the visa were ready.

Two month later – or four days ago – we started our journey. At 2 o’clock we entered a small bus in Kirkenes and drove to the border, which is only 15 km away. First stop: the Norwegian side. We showed our passports and entered the small bus again. Next stop: the Russian border. Here things started to take more time.

We had to fill out a form in two copies, that was as small as the passport. Therefore some lines were so tiny that the letters hardly were three millimetres high. Even with instructions it took much concentration to fill out these forms and since we only had one ball pen it took a long time till we were ready with the form completion. After that we had to show our passports and the forms to the frontier guard. Motto: don’t smile! That took time, too, but after this accurate border check we were ready to enter the bus again.

I’ve never been in Russia before and I was really curious to see this country that is near in geography but remote in my mind. The first part of the bus tour however didn’t reveal anything new. Mostly we could see snow, hills and birch trees – the very same landscape as on the other side of the border. Even the street signs seemed to be alike beside of some Cyrillic letters.

But when we came to towns like Zapolyarny (Заполя́рный) or Pechenga (Печенга) it was quite visible that we had left Scandinavia. No wooden houses painted in red and other colours were visible, but large rectangular concrete buildings.

View on the town Zapolyarny (Заполя́рный)

After some time it begun to get dark and it started snowing. The snowfall quickly intensified and the bus driver who was very cautious slowed down. When we reached Sputnik (Спутник), the buildings were hardly visible anymore in the snowy dusk.

Soon after Sputnik we took a ten minute break. I would have loved to go to the toilet but they took (a) 25 Rubel and (b) only cash. We hadn’t any Russian cash and therefore couldn’t use the toilet, but at least Annika succeeded to buy some kind of pizza with credit card.

It became dark and I started to get tired. I love to travel by train but I consider it exhausting to sit in a bus. Soon I started to doze off. But finally Murmansk (Мурманск) on the other side of the Kola Bay (Кольский залив) came into view. We left the E 105, crossed the bay and drove through the outskirts of the town.

Two other passengers were brought to another hotel, then we four to our hotel Azimut. Internet reviews taught us, that you have a good view from the upper floors and were lucky to get our hotel rooms in floor 16, the floor right under the “Sky Bar”. The internet was right, the view was great:

Next day we would meet at 8 o’clock local time (Moscow Time) which is 6 o’clock Norwegian time. Two whole days of exploring Murmansk lay before us, but before that we had to sleep and rest.

Impressions of the Jokkmokk Winter Market Feb 3 2018

Day 1 and 2 of the winter journey 2018

The first time I’ve been on the Jokkmokksmarknad – the Jokkmokk Winter Market – was 2005. As many other tourists I strolled over the market looking at the many products, everything between fox furs, Sami handicraft and plastic tools for the everyday life.

Since then I’ve been on the market several times, last time in 2015. And I still enjoy the market. Some random impressions:

But my focus has started to change. More and more I want to talk to all the people on the market. With the old guy from Finland trading with fur products, with the American artist building objects from weaving looms, with the Sami women selling grammar books about “lulesamiska”, with the people selling double-walled sauna tents. So many interesting people, all with their own story.

Another way of storytelling I witnessed at 4 o’clock. Sofia Jannok, a famous Sami singer and songwriter presented her current program, which is very political from a Sami perspective. As a musician however I had a strong focus on the music, which I enjoyed very much even though it wasn’t the music I use to listen to. I asked Sofia after the concert if I may publish a photo and I may:

I could tell more but the laptop battery is almost empty and dinner is served in 15 minutes. Two strong arguments for closing the article. We’ll hear soon …

The river Umeälven freezes over Nov 28 2017

I’ve been in Umeå for some days. Mostly I was inside and worked for Once Upon, my current developer project. The weather was mostly ghastly these days. It rained, partly with snow at temperatures round 1 °C on half frozen ground leaving a mixture of very slippery roads and half frozen water puddles. That’s great weather for working inside!

Today however the weather has been completely different. It’s -9 °C outside and the sun is shining. Time to leave work and go for a walk along the river Umeälven. Transparent ice floes are drifting on the surface and at the shore the river has started to freeze over. The low sun shines on the ice and let it sparkle in many colours. What a pleasure after these dark, dim and colourless days.

Tomorrow I’ll return to Skelleftehamn. Hopefully the forecasted snow will come – I’m eager to test my new back country skis I bought some weeks ago.

29 August: Kungsleden day 10 – Alesjaure—Abiskojaure (7+15 km) Sep 12 2017

This article is part of the series “2017-08: Kungsleden hike”.

From Alesjaure to Abiskojaure it’s round about 22 km to go. That’s the longest day’s march on that part of the Kungsleden. The first 7 km go along the lake Alisjávri which is good for a special reason: In summer there’s a boat shuttle service that allows hikers to skip this part. We all decided to take the boat, both to shorten the distance and to enjoy the boat trip itself.

Since the first regular boat starts at 10 o’clock we had a very relaxed breakfast with a lot of time. The quite large shop had fresh eggs so we had the pleasure of boiled eggs for breakfast. And very special egg cups …

The sun came out and illuminated the Alisvággi, the valley that leads to Tjäktja.

We went to the shipping pear already at 9:30, to go sure that we would find places on the boat. Andi ran up the yellow flag – the signal for the boatsman. The sun came out and I decided to take a bath. Not so easy, since the water was only knee-deep (and as icecold as expected).

Soon the boat arrived with stugvärd J. onboard. He was out fishing and succeeded: eight big arctic chars he caught.

At ten o’clock we departed. I could have stayed on the boat for hours, not only because I love to go by ship or boat, but even more because the sami boatsman had so much to tell.

He was living in Alesjávri for the summer “together with his dog and three common gulls” to run this transport business that he considers as a holiday. In September he would continue herding his reindeers. There are 17 families left in his sameby that do reindeer husbandry full time. (A sameby is kind of juridic and economical collective for reindeer husbandry.) He told us much more (all in Swedish) but after barely half an hour we arrived at the other shipping pear and went ashore.

When we started to walk it started to rain – bad timing. It was more a series of rain showers and I put on my hood and put it off again many times. Almost all mountains lay in the clouds, only the Ádnji seemed to have sun the whole time.

While we went on something chirped. Beep – Beep – (silence) – Beep … . We had heard that sound before on our hiking tour, but it was the first time that we could spot the matching bird. It was a golden plover as we figured out later. The bird was a bit nervous while I crawled nearer and nearer to get a photo, but it didn’t flee. Unfortunately my travel tele lens is not the best but I got a photo anyway.

We crossed the long reindeer fence that separates the sameby Laevas in the south and the sameby Gabna in the north. We just had to climb some stairs, where the Kungsleden crossed the border.

I knew that I had to say farewell to the treeless kalfjäll soon. In a short while we would enter the valley Gárddenvággi that would lead us deeper and deeper into more forested terrain. I was a bit sad, when i said farewell to that wonderful landscape.

The next kilometres were rainy, stony and muddy and we all just wanted to arrive in Abiskojaure, well knowing that it still would take some hours until we would arrive. I just trotted along and didn’t use my camera until we arrived in Abiskojaure. Here we finally made the photo of our four backpacks that we had talked about for days, but I was much too lazy to arrange it nicely.

Four backpacks: Andi’s, mine, Annika’s, Katrin’s

The rain had stopped and the sun came out again so I took some last photos of the day, eager to eat something and to relax in the sauna.

Since Abiskojaure is the last hut before Abisko we found a lot of leftover food as dried vegetables, noodles or tuna sauce. That gave us a formidable afternoon meal. While we prepared for the sauna we heard, that there were moose on the other side of the lake. Indeed two female moose stood there in the wateraquatic plants. There were far away but we saw them dipping there heads into the water (they could hold their breeze really long) and eating aquatic plants. We saw them wading, swimming and shaking out the water. They had spotted us but knew that we were far away and no danger for them.

Katrin, Annika and Andi headed for the sauna, I watched a bit longer. When I went back to the hut I saw some others photoing something. It was a huge male moose, that stood amidst the huts and seemed to be not at all shy. I never saw a male moose so close! The moose went away, but stopped again, when he found rallarros flowers between the old toilet building and the wood shed. While watching us all the time he continued picking flowers with his huge mouth and eating them. At least twenty people stood there, watching, photographing and filming. Since all were quite sensible – no one was too hasty, too loud or came too near – we all could watch this big animal for some minutes. Then it took some step into the forest and almost instantly vanished in the shadows. What an experience!

28 August: Kungsleden day 9 – Vistas—Alesjaure (18 km) Sep 11 2017

This article is part of the series “2017-08: Kungsleden hike”.

Today Katrin, Annika, Andi and I would continue to Alesjaure, the longest distance to walk so far.

The morning was frosty with -2 °C and the petals of the flowers called rallarros (rosebay willowherb or fireweed) were covered with ice.

The sky was blue, the sun was shining, we had picture-book weather. As a photographer I would have preferred to hike two weeks later when leaf coloration would be in progress, but you can’t have everything. Anyway, the photo of the bridge over the Visttasjohka right at the Vistasstugan looks like a postcard motif:

This spot looked quite Canadian or Alaskan to me. I almost expected to spot some huge grizzly bears catching salmon in the river. But we’re still in Sweden where bears are brown bears and (luckily) very shy.

The first kilometres of the trail to Alesjaure lead through dense birch forest. Then gradually the forest got less and less dense and the snow covered mountains that frame the valley Visttasvággi were revealed.

The first kilometres were said to be muddy and they were, but not more than many other passages that we walked the days before. Unfortunately the trail continued to be both rocky and muddy and therefore wasn’t easy to walk.

After we left the birch forest the landscape became more rocky again. We found the resting place I remembered from two years ago. Someone had used a plank and some stones to build a bench in front of a huge block of stone. Still the sun was shining but gradually the sky become cloudy. Will we manage to arrive before the rain comes? We still hadn’t walked half of the distance.

We continued our tour until we reached the bridge over the stream Moarhmmájohka. Andi and I went down to refill out water bottles, then we took only a short rest since we were eager to arrive not too late.

After having crossed the bridge we had to go uphills quite steeply and we all slowed down more or less. Then we arrived at the plateau and looked back a last time into the beautiful valley Visttasvággi.

The clouds became denser, the wind increased but still it was dry. We passed the lakes Vuolip Čazajávri and Bajip Čazajávri. We went on and the sami village Alisjávri, located by the lake of the same name came into view. Now it was only 1.5 km left to the Alesjaurestugorna, our destination. As the day before we spotted the sauna first.

At 4 o’clock we arrived at Alesjaure and we stayed dry. Alesjaure is the largest mountain hut that we would stay at. It has as much as 86 regular beds (and more place if needed.)

I already found out, that stugvärd J. would be here, he whom Annika and I met in Nallo two years before and I again on my winter tour in Singi for some days. And really, he indeed was there and I was very glad to meet him again.

To meet J. means also to meet Simba, his kingsize dog. Simba dosed in the outside, stoically ignoring the mosquitoes in her eyes and on her nose. I said hello and started to pet her, which she apparently liked: she sighed and slumped onto her side. The photos I made before and afterwards:

I didn’t know, that Simba the dog is a helicopter

Alesjaure has several houses, which appear more like a youth hostel than a mountain hut. That may look less cozy but we all enjoyed our big beds in our own four-bed-room. Katrin and Annika went to the sauna and after that we cooked one kilo (!) of pasta with goulash soup as a sauce. No, we didn’t manage to eat it all, the rest would follow us to Abiskojaure the next day.

Alesjaure would the last place in the kalfjäll above the treeline on this tour. Tomorrow we would continue to Abiskojaure, which is round 22 km away. This could be the longest day’s march, but we took a shortcut …

23 August: Kungsleden day 4 – a resting day in Singi Sep 6 2017

This article is part of the series “2017-08: Kungsleden hike”.

After three hiking days we took a day off in Singi. It was cold and rainy and the higher mountain tops were powdered with a thin layer of fresh snow.

A good day to be lazy! Therefore there’s not much to tell. I’ve been in the sami village Goržževuolli and took some images, but the light was quite dull and soon I returned.

Annika had bought a food dehydrator some weeks ago and dried a lot of food for our Kungsleden hike, among others dried potatoes, dried onions and dried peppers. She had even powdered eggs with her. After rehydrating the potatoes and vegetables by watering them for some time they were ready to be roasted in a frying pan. Yummy!

Andi realised that someone took his hiking boots! Instead another pair of boots were left – the same model and size but much older and well-worn. We made a test hike to check if Andi would be able to hike with these shoes and luckily he was. Since it started to rain again we soon returned to the hut.

It’s said about hobbits that there prefer two warm meals a day when they can get them and so did we. We had rice with dried mushrooms for dinner.

As I said: A good day to be lazy!

Three trips round Tromsø Jul 30 2017

This article is part of the series “2017-07: Tromsø”.

It’s me who is thrilled by the North, who loves to travel to places like Tromsø or Kirkenes. It’s my mother however who has been much northerly than I was. She was in Spitsbergen/Svalbard with a cruise ship many years ago. But on the way back the route had to be changed due to fields of drifting ice and therefore the travellers couldn’t leave the ship in Tromsø. So my mother missed Tromsø on that cruise.

This year we managed to close this gap: three weeks ago my mother took a plane to Munich, another plane to Oslo and a third plane to Tromsø, where Annika and I picked her up from the airport. That’s why we’d travelled to Tromsø by car two days before.

We had four days in Tromsø, I will write mostly about the first two:

Monday, 10 July

Weather was better than forecasted and so the first thing we did after breakfast was taking the car, crossing the Tromsøysundet on the Tromsø Bridge and taking the Fjellheisen on the other side of the town. Fjellheisen is a cable car up the mountain Storsteinen (approx. 420 m), where you have an incredible view over the town Tromsø, the island Tromsøya and the mountain ranges on the neighbouring islands.

We stayed there the whole morning, enjoying the view, walking around, eating ice cream and looking at the arctic flowers that grew everywhere.

Pedicularis lapponica · lapland lousewort · Lappländisches Läusekraut · Lappspira

Viola biflora · arctic yellow violet · Zweiblütiges Veilchen · fjällviol

Finally we went down with the cable car again driving back to Tromsø and since the weather was sunny and nice we just continued driving, leaving Tromsøya again, this time using the Sandnessund Bridge. We continued our trip on the island Kvaløya (Whale island), Norway’s fifth largest island. At the western end there’s a bridge leading to the island Sommarøya which sometimes looks like like a caribbean island with it’s turquoise blue bays.

Annika and I were very keen to take a bath, but we all were hungry too, so we took a lunch first. While we were eating our fried fish, clouds approached and soon it started to rain. So much to our summer bath plans …

After looking around on Hillesøya (another bridge, another island) we drove back, this time taking the coastal way in the south of Kvaløya. Finally even the sun came back and illuminated the bright yellow blossoms of Lotus corniculatus, or common bird’s-foot trefoil that covered the sides of the narrow road.

Have a look at the beach photo above. It’s not sand, it’s corals covering this beach, which makes them looking even more caribbean – at least as long it’s sunny.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at our hotel after our first day together.

Tuesday, 11 July

After the rainfalls of the night sun came out again. Time for another trip to the surroundings – this time the island Senja, Norway’s second largest island (beside of Svalbard).

The first part of the tour was the same as the trip to Sommarøya the day before, but instead of turning right the last T-junction we turned left to Brensholmen and waited for the ferry to Botnhamn/Senja. Annika downloaded an app to pay the passage, since it was much cheaper than paying cash. As in Sweden it has become quite unusual to pay cash. The idea to start early was a good one, we were one of the last cars to fit on the ferry. Some others were unlucky – they had to wait for many hours or change plans.

Hour plan was to take a round trip on Senja using the roads 862, 86 and 861. In addition to that we planned to take some side trips.

The first side trip was special, since it led through a dark tunnel cut into the rock, that much too narrow for two cars to pass. In addition to that it was curved and bent so that you couldn’t see other approaching cars in advance. There were lay-bys were you could try to squeeze in and let others pass and I was really glad that the regular bus had left the tunnel minutes ago.

But when we left the tunnel we got “Norway in a nutshell”: Wide bogs, birch and pine forests, clear blue lakes, green meadows and fields and most impressive: big snow covered mountains, some of them looking unreachable by foot, so steep and harsh they were.

But it wouldn’t be Norway without the fjords. Sometimes the coast is as rocky as the mountains, sometimes it provides sandy beaches in beautiful bays. And finally we came to our bath, all three of us. Of course the water was cold, but the air was warm and we stayed in the water quite a long time.

We continued our round trip, again some clouds approached and again some rain drops fell. I thought we’d have to wait an hour for the ferry back, the ferry arrived simultaneously. I realised that I looked wrong when I checked the timetable, but we were lucky and found a place on the ship anyway.

On the way back we didn’t stop for taking pictures any longer. First of all the weather had become grey and dull and then we were tired and hungry. So we stopped only at the supermarket to buy some food for the dinner.

The other days

We did it right, making the larger trips in the beginning, because the other two days it was cloudy and rainy. Time for some sight seeing and indoor activities in the city that we hardly touched the last two days.

We visited the Polarmuseet – we went shopping (kind of) – we tried to visit the Tromsø Cathedral (in vain, it was closed). We visited a photo exhibition in the Universitetsmuseet – we were on board of the seal hunting ship Polstjerna (another museum) – we strolled around in the beautiful botanical garden (hard to find!). We ate lunch or dinner at the harbour – we visited the park Prestvannet – we visited the Hurtigruten ship Trollfjord, the very same ship Annika and I travelled with last winter. Did I forgot something? Certainly!

On friday we started our road trip back to Skelleftehamn were I live, but that’s another story.

Rainy Tromsø impressions Jul 26 2017

This article is part of the series “2017-07: Tromsø”.

Two weeks ago: I’m in Tromsø, it’s quite early in the morning and I cannot sleep any longer. Time to ignore the grey rainy weather, take the camera with the 35mm lens and go out for an hour to make some photos of Tromsø when the weather isn’t so nice, but neither bad.

Early April weather (a short log book) Apr 5 2017

Friday, 31 Mars: I rehearsed for next days jazz concert with AÅO Trio and Hans Åkesson and it was sunny in Skellefteå.

Saturday, 1 April: I played that concert at the very same place and it snowed. April weather!

Sunday, 2 April: It continued snowing and a new layer of 5 cm of snow covered Skelleftehamn. What a nice birthday present for a winter lover like me!

Still Sunday: While the ice fishing season in Skelleftehamn is finally over, the ice fishers on the big lake Burträsket beside the town Burträsk took advantage of the last days of save ice. And it was many of them!

Monday, 3 April: We had a great late winter day with blue sky above our heads and fresh, white snow under our feet, when we took a promenade along the river Skellefteälven. We – that’s not only Annika and me but also my mother who visited me for some days. It was the first time that she came outside of the summer months and I’m really glad that she got some nice winter impressions.

Yesterday, 4. April: Yesterday it was almost 13 °C in town.

Today, 5. April: it was colder and partly cloudy, but we got a fantastic sundown. What a colourful contrast to the dull weather the ice fishers had experienced.

And the weather next weekend? Well, I don’t know and the weather institute neither. That’s two weekend forecasts of the SMHI – the 1st from Monday afternoon, the 2nd from Tuesday morning:

Forecast for the weekend as shown on 3 April, 16:03

Forecast for the weekend as shown on 4 April, 06:42

Two days on the Hurtigruten Feb 25 2017

This article is part of the series “2017-02: Northern Norway”.

On Wednesday we left Kirkenes and started our journey to the next destination: Stokmarknes on the Vesterålen where we planned to visit good friends of mine.

Kirkenes—Stokmarknes would be 1000 km by car and take at least 14 hours, if you take the faster way through Finland and Sweden. Anyway there’s an alternative: The Hurtigruten express route, which connects many coastal towns, among others Kirkenes and Stokmarknes. That’s why we took the Hurtigruten ship instead of driving for at least two days. In Vardø we entered the vessel Trollfjord and 16:45 we started our two day long tour.

The first night we went to bed quite early and I only took some pictures in Berlevåg. Since the ship already was moving again I decided to make a longer exposure with the camera on a tripod. That’s Berlevåg by night seen from the Hurtigruten:

We missed Mehamn, Kjøllefjord, Honningsvåg. The first place with a landing stage I saw was Havøysund, were we anchored from 7:45 to 8:00. Shortly after we met the Lofoten, the oldest and smallest ship of the Hurtigruten fleet today. It was tiny compared to the much bigger Trollfjord (which is tiny compared to modern cruise ships).

I tried to be as much outside as possible. It was cold and quite windy, not only because of the airflow, but the gusty wind, too. First I thought, that I would be extremely overdressed in my Canada Goose expedition parka, but soon I found it quite comfortable to wear it in the chilly weather.

In Hammerfest we left the Hurtigruten, looked round in town and bought food. In Øksfjord it started to get dark and the black-white mountain ranges became blue.

… and blurred if you wanted to …

… and it got darker …

Then it started to snow. Sometimes the snowfall was quite heavy especially with the wind and I was even more glad about my warm parka.

In Tromsø we arrived at 23:35 and I made some night shots of this favourite town of me.

We could have left the ship for a visit of Tromsø but we preferred sleeping. We’ll probably visit Tromsø this summer.

The next morning came and the last day aboard began. Good for me, because even if I was glad to slip the car ride it’s not my world to be on a large ship looking at the landscape rolling by. Last night snow fall has brought much snow on the top deck. I never waded through snow drifts on a ship before.

At the same time the Trollfjord anchored in Harstad, a town on the island Hinnøya.

On our way to the next destination Risøyhamn it got extremely windy, the stabilised ship started to roll and to pitch and heavy snow showers appeared, reducing the view to some hundred metres.

Photographing on the Hurtigruten (Photo: Annika Kramer)

Suddenly the wind calmed down, the snow showers were left behind and for the first time of the whole cruise patches of blue sky and finally the sun came out. We approached Sortland, the last stop before our destination Stokmarknes where I gazed at the beautiful mountains of the Lofoten archipelago in the south.

I generally dislike the last 30 minutes of transportation, if it’s by train or by plane. I just want to arrive, and so it was on the Hurtigruten. Impatiently I waited in the inside of the Trollfjorden for its arrival in Stokmarknes, then another fifteen minutes for the allowance to enter the car deck and another ten until I was allowed to drive the car onto the very same car elevator which I used to enter the ship almost 46 hours ago.

I could write a lot more about the Hurtigruten and its passengers, but that’s another story. Short résumé: I love those ships for transportation, but cruising is not my cup of tea. (Anyway, the outside jacuzzi on the top deck is really great!)