Vancouver Sep 14 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-09: Canada”.

6 September

I am standing on the SkyTrain Expo Line that brings me to Waterfront station in central Vancouver. SkyTrain is fully automated and so I can stand at the front looking at the mountains to the right and the skyscrapers in the front.

At Waterfront I change to the Canada Line in the direction of the airport. It crosses the Fraser River on which tree trunks are floating, waiting to be transported.

Then I am at Vancouver Airport again. Yesterday I arrived here myself, today I am fetching my wife Annika. It takes some time before she is through the passport control and collects her luggage, then she is finally here, nineteen hours late. Our four-week Canadian holiday can begin.

As I was the day before, Annika is pretty tired from the flight but we don’t have any jet lag, although we travelled across nine time zones. We take the same trains back to Burnaby, enter bus 119 and arrive at our private host’s home.

After having a chat and leaving Annika’s luggage behind we go for a walk to Deer Lake, which is nearby. It is a beautiful lake in a park in the south of Burnaby which you can walk around. There are many signs that we are no longer in Scandinavia anymore: the many skyscrapers in the background, the bear and coyote warning signs but most of all: the huge trees.

After an afternoon nap we are looking for a restaurant. We were told that the local asian ones are all excellent. We choose the “Singapore Hawker” because it is crowded. We have to wait a while until we are seated. The interior is simple but the food is excellent. I ordered “G6. Nyonya Eggplant – Tender wok-fried eggplant and minced pork, enhanced with dried shrimp.” Have I ever eaten eggplant so tasty as it was here? I cannot remember.

7 September

Today Annika and I want to explore central Vancouver with Stanley Park. Again we take the SkyTrain into town, walk a bit and find a bicycle rental shop, where we hire two excellent bicycles for exploring.

There is a cycle path by the seaside that we follow to Stanley Park which lies on a peninsula north of the centre. Our first stop is at a group of totem poles.

We continue around, pass the Brockton Point Lighthouse and watch the seagulls carrying starfish in their beaks. They look like the birds’ versions of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.

We also spot some birds. A woodpecker, probably a pileated woodpecker. Then, also in the forest, a barred owl and finally at the beach a great blue heron. All beautiful birds of their kind.

At the end of Stanley Park there are several sandy beaches. Time for a swim – our first swim ever in the Pacific Ocean.

Now I am getting pretty hungry. We took Granville Bridge over False Creek and get some food at the Granville Park Public Market which was quite crowded. We cycled a bit more but I got tired and so we turned back, this time using the Burrard Street Bridge. After about thirty kilometres of cycling we were back at the rental shop to bring back the bikes.

In my option the bicycle is the perfect vehicle to explore Vancouver.

8 September

It is time to pick up our rental car at the airport. We’ll have it for three weeks to travel around in western Canada but today we’ll just make a day trip. We get a VW Tiguan with all-wheel drive and I am glad that Annika is driving this day, she handles big cities better than me. Our first stop is Richmond, a city near the airport where we buy some essentials and eat lunch, then we head off north to visit Whistler. In my view, Whistler is just a town and a ski resort, the journey there is very beautiful. We stop twice at designated tourist attractions. The first one is the Shannon Falls Provincial Park. The waterfall is beautiful, but what impresses us much more is the giant trees in the park. I’ve never been in a forest like this before.

We make another stop at the Brandywine Falls Provincial Park. First we take the short walk to the platform from which you can see the water falling down about 70 metres, then we take a small hike to a lake nearby. I’m a bit nervous, there are black bears and grizzly bears living in these forests as well as coyotes and cougars (though sightings of the latter are uncommon).

When we drive back the same way to our accommodation in Burnaby, it starts to get dark and when Annika parks the car in front of the house, it is dark.

Oulanka National Park, the Russian border, long dirt roads and Lokka reservoir Jun 26 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-06: Obbola—Finland—Tromsø”.

Part three of the journey from Obbola to Tromsø

Our first car trip today is short. From our mökki (cottage) by the lake where we slept to the Oulanka National Park it’s only 22 km. In the car park there are more reindeer than cars. While the older reindeer are undergoing a coat change and look quite ragged the younger ones look like animals from an old Disney film with their soft fur, their thin legs and their huge, dark eyes.

Our hiking tour to the Kiutaköngäs rapids starts through a beautiful, wild forest. After a while you can hear the roar of the water and then you see the narrow gorge through which the water of the river Oulankajoki rushes downwards.

The moss-covered rocks by the gorge look as impressive as the rapids – as if from ancient times.

We follow the yellow dots that mark the shortest circular route. The landscape is now less spectacular than the rapids but in its variety, it’s beautiful to walk in.

We pass a bog lake named Ylimmäinen Hiidenlampi. We are not alone, a group of students is doing research on freshwater and invertebrates.

For most of the walk, we were lucky with the weather but in the end we get caught in a rain shower. While we have lunch in the visitor centre our jackets start to dry.

Change of scenery. We are in the eastern part of Finland, a country that has a 1340-kilometre border with Russia. We take a small road to the east leading to the border. In the end, it is just a small forest road. It just ends with a simple barrier and a warning sign saying “Border zone—no entry without special permit” in five languages. On the other side there is an information sign – that’s it.

While this road probably never was a border crossing, there is one northeast of Salla. Or rather, was, because all checkpoints were closed in April 2024. Hardly imaginable that I crossed the border here on a journey to Murmansk in March 2019.

When will Russia’s terrible war against Ukraine end? Will there be a regime change in Russia that makes it possible to travel there again in my lifetime? I don’t know.

Change of scenery. We travel to Lokka, the most remote location we found with accommodation for overnight stay. Several roads marked in yellow on our paper map lead there and we decide to take some of them to get there. First there are some visible signs of other people – a cottage, a passing car, then we are all alone. We follow the roads according to Google’s navigation. First we drive on asphalt roads, then gravel roads and in the end narrow dirt roads with grass growing in the middle.

At one junction where we should turn right the road is closed. I follow the other road but it is difficult to know if we are on the right track. There are too many other dirt roads and there are no signs, nor is there any mobile coverage. Finally we find a way back to Hietaniemi that we passed perhaps an hour ago. From there it’s another 50 km back to a paved road. Another minor road finally leads us to Mummon Mökki, our cozy overnight stay where we arrive around 8 o’clock Finnish time.

The last part was fascinating. We passed Lokka Reservoir, one of the largest artificial lakes in Europe. There are large areas of grass and some birch trees by the shore. When I walk there after dinner I realise that these immense mats of grass are actually floating on the lake. Fascinating but not a place to stroll around. I take my photos from the safety of the road.

Around ten o’clock I’m back at the mökki. I try to jump in as fast as possible to keep the mosquitoes outside and take a hot shower. Then it’s time to sleep after this long and varied day.

Obbola—Tromsø via Finland – part two Jun 24 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-06: Obbola—Finland—Tromsø”.

Oulu

Just some random images from Oulu – old and newer buildings, the church organ in the cathedral, the city hall, some of the sculptures on the island Pikisaari and Nallikarin Uimaranta, the beach on the island Hietasaari where the water is as shallow as at yesterday’s beach.

Pikisaara environmental art I – Pikinen Poloku “City owl”

Pikisaara environmental art II – Pikinen Poloku

Pikisaara environmental art III – Päivi Pussilan “Do you hear”

Pikisaara environmental art V – Kari Södö “Mixed forest”

Bergen reloaded Jun 3 2026

On Sunday I flew to Bergen once more. While it had been sunny a few days ago, it now presented itself as Bergen is known for: rainy.

It was not the normal rain with raindrops falling from above. It was more like an omnipresent moisture coming at you from all directions. Invisible to the eye but you get wet anyway.

On Monday I went to work. I went from the hotel in the centre to the Port of Bergen, where it took me a while to find the entrance and then to get on the list for a day visit aboard the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon.

My pocket was full of cards – one for my hotel room, one visitor card for the port, one for the ship.

One of the instruments on the bridge is a radar used for sea ice navigation. On this day an engineer from Sea Hawk was installing additional hardware that delivered the radar video signal and additional data such as GPS and gyro to an auxiliary network. My responsibility was the other half: the laptop and the software to read and store the data. And so my workplace looked like:

After some hours of work the “radar” laptop showed the same data as the large overhead display on the bridge. The engineer calibrated the scan streamer unit and I used the rest of my working day to catch one hour of radar data as an example. As expected the amount of data was immense: about 74 GB per hour.

Radar view on the Laptop (Software: ScanView, dspnor)

Then it was time to head back to my hotel in Bergen, the city with about two hundred days of precipitation a year. Even the shops here reflect the omnipresence of rain.

Tor te rest of the day, I was a tourist and took some tourist photos in Bryggen, the famous historic quarter.

A day and half a night in Bergen May 30 2026

28 May – I am sitting on a plane to Bergen, Tromsø lies behind. Finally the layer of clouds has opened and Vestlandet – Western Norways reveals itself with vast glaciers, mountain ranges, fjords, forests, archipelagos and the open sea.

The reason I am in Bergen is sea ice in the Arctic. On board the ice-breaking research vessel Kronprins Haakon there is a special radar used for navigation through sea ice. Researcher Polona Itkin wants to store this data for scientific purposes. The companies Sea-Hawk Navigation AS and dspnor AS are responsible for the hardware, I handle the software to read and store the data. And since these companies are in Bergen and have a working setup including a radar on the roof, I am working there for two days. The only work-related detail I will mention is this: the data volume to be stored is immense and can exceed 2 TB a day. Quite a challenge.

At 16:00 I finish work. Since the weather is warm and sunny, I decide to walk to the hotel in the centre of Bergen on the other side of Puddefjorden. Let’s go down the concrete ramp and start our tour. First, I walk through an industrial area …

… but then the surroundings change revealing marinas, parks and older wooden houses.

I cross the Damsgårdssundet and head towards the centre. A myriad of small alleys, footpaths and stairs make me ignore the polite navigation of Google Maps and stroll around, enjoying the town in the sun.

I don’t want to own this car, but I envy the driver’s parking skills.

But of course Bergen is an evolving city, not a museum and a lot of contemporary architecture is found there too. But sometimes the glassy facades reflect the older world.

From there it is not long to Vågen, the central harbour bay with a view of the historic quarter Bryggen.

I check in at the hotel and leave again straight away, first to get some food (Pasha – Peruvian food – not cheap but delicious) and then to take Fløibanen, a 848-metre-long funicular railway that leads up to the mountain of Fløyen (320 m).

Of course I could have walked up the 302-metre ascent, but I have a plan: I want to walk to the mountain of Ulriken (643 m), the highest of De syv fjell that surround the city centre of Bergen. The route is between 13 and 15 km long and leads through hilly terrain. From there I want to take the cable car down and the last one leaves at 23:00. So I don’t have the whole day, just a long evening.

At 18:45 I start my tour. First, I cross a small, but surprisingly dense forest then I follow the wide hiking trail.

When I approach the mountain Rundemanen with its tall radio mast, the trail branches into many paths leading in different directions. I ask for directions twice and get it – together with the warning that it is a long hike. The younger women told me it would take four hours from here, another woman said it would take her six hours. I decide to walk a bit faster and see where I am after two hours. I could still turn back then.

Now the trail looks more like a mountain trail. Smaller, steeper, rougher and sometimes very wet. Normally I walk with rubber boots but on this journey I only have an old pair of low shoes, so I try to avoid all the wet patches walking around them or stepping onto the stones.

I pass the lake Øvre Jordalsvatnet, use the stone causeway to cross the small stream that transports water to the lower lake Tarlebøvatnet. My planned destination, the TV tower near Ulriken, can already be seen.

Now the trail is excellently marked by large square cairns with a sign “←Fløyen, /Ulriken→“. It is easy to follow them. I try to walk at least 4 km/h, ideally 4.5 to catch the cable car. At 20:30 I reach one of the few signposts with distances. I’m happy, because I made more than half the distance in one hour, forty-five minutes. Decision made: I carry on.

And on I go across the Vidden. Sometimes the point of interest is nearby, such as the tube with the first aid equipment including a stretcher. Sometimes it is far away, such as the snowy mountains in the east. Will I see snow here as well?

Tube with first aid equipment and stretcher

And there it is: one of the two patches of snow on the Vidden plateau.

Slowly the sun is setting and the light gets warmer. I walk against the sun and have to protect my eyes with one hand when the path descends steeply into one of the valley cuts. But I’m sure I’ll arrive in time.

I spot some cabins, first a small red one then a larger one. When I researched this while writing, I found out that this is Turnerhytten, a DNT cabin with thirty beds. I think that when I plan a trip to Bergen again, I should stay there rather in some hotel in the centre.

I decide not to climb to the top of Ulriken but to go straight to the cable car station. I’m tired and exhausted because my only rests were to take photos and once to put on a jacket. I follow the signs to the station, take another photo, one of the TV tower, buy a ticket at the ticket machine and two minutes later I am in the cable car that leads me down. It is 22:30, so the hike – 14½ km long – took me 3¾ hours.

From the descending cable car I watch the sunset …

… then I’m in town again. It is five more kilometres to my hotel, so I take a bus (the wrong one), a tram, and another bus. At 23:15 I am in my hotel room.

Today I walked around 25 kilometres in total and now I only want to take a shower and fall into bed and sleep until breakfast at 7:00 the next morning.

Reindeer on the road Mar 5 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-03: Ski tours”.

On Monday my wife Annika and I took the car from our house in Obbola, Sweden to Hetta in Lappi, Finland’s northernmost region. It was almost given that we would see reindeer on our 676-km drive. And we saw a herd of at least one hundred reindeer from the car.

However, we didn’t spot them in Överkalix, Pajala, or Palojoensuu, we saw them right in the beginning, just 2 km from our house. That is not a common sight at all, but it can happen when the Baltic Sea is frozen.

In the afternoon, we arrived at Hetan Kota, our accommodation for the night. The next day, we would start our first ski tour in Finland, directly from the doorstep.

Jokkmokk’s Market 2026 Feb 10 2026

How time flies! It has been eight years since I visited Jokkmokk’s Market, the traditional Sámi market in Swedish Lapland that took place for the 421st time this year. This year I was lucky, because my friend Sascha had moved to Jokkmokk and so I had not only good company but also a place to stay. The weather was just perfect: the sun shone from a perfect blue sky and the air was calm with temperatures between -15 and -20 °C.

Thursday, 5 February

I had started my drive in Tromsø on Thursday morning and was pretty tired when I arrived in Jokkmokk the same day. It is almost 600 km of driving and the conditions in Finland had been rather bad: -4 °C and freezing drizzle. In Sweden, however, it had slowly started clearing up.

Friday, 6 February

On Friday I was up early. At eight o’clock the market was empty; it would open at ten. I went to the lake Talvatissjön, enjoying the crisp air and the sunrise colours. When I went back to the market the first stalls were open.

The market is famous for the Sámi culture being presented there. You can, for example, attend Sámi concerts and you can buy Sámi handicraft – often made of natural materials such as leather or reindeer hides.

But don’t let yourself be fooled by these images, because a market is a market and even on the Jokkmokk Market you can find cheap plastic clothing and plastic toys, made in you-know-where. I don’t like it but it is part of the market as well.

At 10:20, the sun peeped over the tents. And at 12:15 the traditional renrajden crossed the market.

The market gets its special atmosphere when it gets dark. I had my tripod with me and made some long-exposure photos to catch my favourite time of the day at the market.

Saturday, 7 February

On Saturday I joined Sascha while he was walking his dog Roxy. Next to the lake Talvatissjön there are countless ski trails and winter footpaths. We went up Storknabben (The Big Knob) from which you have a wide view of Jokkmokk and the surrounding forests. We were completely alone until we were almost back at the lake.

Then I went back to the market, this time to the elementary school Västra skolan. In the sports hall you can see arts and crafts from local artists. In the corridor and outside you can see arts and crafts from the local children. Which of them will become a professional artist later on?

At lunchtime I met friends from Umeå who visited the market this day and we went together to Talvatissjön to watch the reindeer race. I watched it with mixed feelings. It looks like fun for us humans but it seems pretty stressful for the reindeer.

Will I visit the Jokkmokk Market again? Very likely, but not every year.

From inland to coast – a cold car ride Feb 9 2026

Yesterday morning, when I woke up I first checked the thermometer in the kitchen. It showed -27 °C.

I was in Jokkmokk to visit my friend Sascha and the Jokkmokk winter market. Would my car start when it’s that cold? After a coffee Sascha, his dog Roxy, and I went to the huge car park behind the railway line where my Suzuki had been parked the last two days. To my relief it started without any issues and even scraping ice off the car didn’t take as long as expected.

Farewell my friends – off I go.

The day was exceptionally beautiful and cold. The car thermometer went down to -29 °C and then stayed around -25 °C for the next hour. Should I switch to the Hägglunds that was parked beside the E45? Probably not the best idea with a distance of around 400 km ahead.

At half past eight, the sun rose. I parked my car and walked to a frozen lake nearby to take some photos. Was that where I froze my nose? It still itches a bit today.

Because of the cold weather in the last weeks the frost and snow on the trees has not melted and often I pulled into a lay-by to take more pictures. The small side roads were white with snow and looked absurdly beautiful.

I started to get hungry and stopped at the small shop in Kåbdalis, where I bought a kanelbulle that was still hot from the oven.

I continued my trip south and crossed the river Piteälven, which was mostly open. And so was the river Skellefteälven, which I crossed three hours later.

The sun sank lower and lower. When I arrived in Obbola at five in the afternoon it has become dark.

Today in Obbola the winter looked very different from the forest-dominated inland. The Baltic Sea has frozen due to the cold winter temperatures and if the icebreakers would not keep open channels for commercial seafaring you could walk the 45 km to Finland. I was on the ice as well, but only for a walk along the coast. I like the snowy forest, but I adore the sea ice!

Tromsø—Obbola by car Nov 16 2025

You may know that I have two places to live. My “work home” in Tromsø, where I work at the Norwegian Polar Institute and my “home home” in Obbola near Umeå, where my wife Annika works and we have a house together. Mostly we use the train and the bus to travel, sometimes the plane and occasionally even the car, although it’s a long way.

It is early Friday morning, I’m in Tromsø. My car is packed and I’ve cleared last night’s snow. It is mid-November and the conditions are wintry.

Norway

I start the trip at 6:50. In Tromsø the weather is fair, but then I experience some heavy snow showers. When it’s dark the snowflakes seem to form a tunnel that looks a bit as if a spaceship in a science fiction film were going to warp drive. Some short passages have streetlights. That makes seeing the road much easier.

Around half past eight it is bright enough outside to see the landscape, not only a fraction of the road. It is still snowing, but driving is easy. Around 9:20 I reach the border to …

Finland

The snowfall has stopped but a lot of snow lies on the road. I guess up to 15 cm with some deep tracks of a few cars. After a while a snowplough approaches, but it is clearing the opposite lane. In Kilpisjärvi I make a stop at the supermarket and buy some breakfast. The rear of my car is plastered with snow.

I continue south and it is clearing up. Even the road is in much better shape now. Easy driving.

In the Finnish village Karesuvanto I turn right, cross the Muonio River and thus the border to …

Sweden

… where I arrive in Karesuando. I turn right again and join the E45 which ends in Gela, Italy. The sky is clear and the outside temperature dropped more and more. In Övre Soppero the display in the car shows -13 °C. It also shows a lot of warnings because the packed snow in front of the car is confusing the sensors for the cruise control. I feel tired and find a parking bay where I take a nap.

I sleep less than half an hour but I feel refreshed again. I continue my car trip to Vittangi and while I’m following the road see the slowest sunset I can remember. Perhaps, because I’m driving southwards?

In Töre, where I reach the E4 I fill up the car with fuel. From there it is not far to Råneå, where I visit friends and stay overnight. I’m asleep before 9 o’clock.

Still Sweden

After ten hours of sleep and breakfast I feel fit again to continue my car trip. The day before I made already two thirds of the distance and today I’m more or less only on the E4, so driving will be easy. To be honest, it’s a bit boring. That’s also because I’m leaving winter behind. There is less and less snow and it gets warmer. The good thing – the snow on the car has melted and the cruise control is working again.

Around 14:15 I pass Obbola and drive southwards to “home home”. No snow.

And then, after driving 966.8 km I am finally home home again. Here I’ll stay for about three weeks, then Annika and I will make the return trip to Tromsø together.

The route

Tromsø—Nordkjosbotn—Kilpisjärvi—Karesuvanto—Karesuando—Övre Soppero—Nedre Soppero—Vittangi—Tärendö—Överkalix—Töre—Råneå—Skellefteå—Umeå—Obbola

Scotland NC500 – day 7 – a rainy day Nov 10 2025

This article is part of the series “2025-10: Northern Scotland”.

October 19

According to the weather forecast it will be pretty rainy in Northern Scotland the whole day. So, today we may interrupt our road trip less often than the other days. We will drive to AppleCross, where we’ve got a room in the Hartfield House Hostel & The Bunkhouse. If we arrive early, we may get a nap in the afternoon, which sounds tempting given the weather. We have breakfast in the hotel and take it easy. When we leave, it is half past ten. It is raining.

We make a stop at the visitor centre of the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve. There’s a small museum and a cabin, from where you can spot birds. There are also lovely spots outdoors, but – it is raining.

Next stop: The lake Loch Clair, where I go for a short walk. I put on rubber boots, waterproof trousers and a rain anorak, because – it is raining. Annika prefers to stay inside the car to read. A smart choice, because the trail is just a rather dull gravel road and – did I mention it? – it is raining.

No noteworthy stops after that. We arrive at the bunkhouse at three o’clock. Beside the house there is a fenced in pasture with Scottish highland cattle. They look pretty soaked, but I guess, they are used to this kind of weather.

After an afternoon-nap (we got one!) we take a small car trip southwards. On the photos it looks like the weather has finally brightened up a bit.

But if you see a photo taken from inside the car you realise – it is raining.

Landscape – as seen from the inside of the car

One of the last photos I take today is of the seafront of Applecross.

As Google has already told us, the pub is closed. So we head back to the bunkhouse and have our dinner there.

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