Home again Mar 2 2017

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

After a fantastic two week journey through the wintry Northern Norway Annika and I have arrived in Skelleftehamn today. But before I could park my car on my property we had a bit work to do: skotta snö – snow shovelling. A lot of snow came the last days and especially the 70 cm high plogkanten – the hard pressed snow of the snowplough – gave a good workout. I guess that 60-70 cm of snow lie on my backyard now, but I didn’t have measured yet.

“Plogkanten” – weather and snowplough left a lot of snow on my property

In Sweden people use to say “borta bra men hemma bäst” which means “being away is good, being home is best”. I however like to be home but I’m fond of travelling at least equally and one of the reasons why I live in Northern Sweden is that it simplifies travelling to all known and unknown places in Northern Scandinavia.

Addendum

We arrived too early. We had an appointment in Skellefteå in the evening and when we came back two hours later, someone has taken away all the snow on and round my garage driveway. I guess, it was a neighbour. I have to find out who it was to thank him or her.

Slippery When Wet Feb 13 2017

We got roller coaster weather again. Yesterday morning we had -15 °C and in the evening about +3 °C.

Today Annika, two friends and I made an excursion to Kågnäsudden onto the ice. It was even warmer than yesterday (+7°C) and quite windy. The surface of the thick ice was very wet with many puddles of clear ice water and the structure looked like the rippled sand of the tidal flats in Northern Germany. The wind gusts blew tiny ripples over the large meltwater pools and it looked like the ice shield would reach as far as Finland.

But no – it didn’t. The wind and the waves had started to break the ice. We crossed the ice and went to the near island Kågnäshällan. We all were equipped with either spikes or snowshoes to be able to go on the slippery, wet ice.

Right behind the seaside shore of Kågnäshällan we could see the waves lifting and lowering the ice and finally breaking it apart. The rocks round the light tower were bare of ice – too warm was this season’s winter weather.

The lighthouse on the islet Kågnäshällan

Along the rocky shore lay large blocks of ice. They glittered in the sun because they were wet and free of snow.

Icy landscape along the rocky coast of Kågnäshällan

These ice floes were found everywhere. Along the coast but even between the small alder trees further on land. I guess that one of the high water levels this winter had flushed these ice floes ashore where they razored the bark from the thin tree trunks.

And the winter on land? Less and less snow – much too warm – I’m longing for colder weather and snow. Probably it will come in the beginning of May …

Light snow fall in the sun Feb 9 2017

This morning the temperatures were round -12 °C, it was cloudy and snow fell. The snow looked like crystalline down feathers and was so light and fluffy that you could easily blow it away. Around noon the sun came out, but it didn’t snow snowing. This is probably one of my favourite winter weather sensations and I love the look of the sunlit glittering and glistening snow flakes slowly sinking down, covering the ground with a gentle layer of white, fresh snow.

Longing for snow and wintriness Jan 29 2017

The winter has been quite inconstant and too warm. When snow had fallen it melted away soon. Every other day in January the temperature has been above zero. According to the forecast it will stay like this the next ten days: A bit above zero, a bit below zero, a bit of snow, a bit of rain.

That’s not what I expect when living in Norra Norrland – the “northern northland” of Sweden. I’m longing for constant coldness, at least enough to prevent snow melting away. I’m longing for more snow than just some old hard patches remained from early November snow.

I guess, these ice fellows are longing for snow and wintriness, too. They look a bit sad:

The winter seems to be everywhere:

Record snow fall in California (460 cm the first weeks of 2017)
Record snow fall in Moscow (217 cm since late October 2017)
Record snow fall in the Sahara (up to a meter!)

And here? New snow? No, нет, لا! That’s hard to bear when you’re a photographer that tries to specialise in winter.

A wet business Jan 12 2017

It’s not often, that Västerbottens coast – where I live – is involved in three different weather warnings, two of them of class 2:

Land: Warning class 2 snowfall that can lead to strong snowdrifts – snowfall up to 15-30 cm
Sea: Warning class 2 very high water level – ca 110 above average
Sea: Warning class 1 gale (strong wind) – southeast ca 15 m/s average wind speed

I was out this morning to make some pictures of the high water mark. A wet business …

1. Storgrundet – not so wet

First I took the car and drove to Storgrundet. Big parts of the beach were under water – or rather slush. Some boats hibernating on the sandy beach were so surrounded by the sea again, but since they were safely tied they didn’t swim away.

2. Skellefteälven – wet

I continued to a parking place by the riverside of the river Skellefteälven. Here I had to change to chest waders since there was 50 cm of water and wet slush on the way – to much for my rubber boots. You should know where to go since the river bank is quite steep.

Since the parking place is lower than the street and covered with at least 15 cm fresh snow it took me five minutes to drive up the snowy slope. Again and again I sticked fast and had to roll backwards to give it another try. My next car definitely will have an AWD.

3. Näsgrundet – very wet

Näsgrundet is a small peninsula in the Baltic Sea and quite exposed to the elements. I stood in a mixture of ice slush and water and tried to keep the lens dry since the wet snow came just from ahead with great speed. At least the waves were not too high (I only had rubber boots on). This is probably my favourite motive from today.

4. Näsgrundet again – extremely wet

I love the motive on the photo above but wasn’t completely content with the image composition. So I went to the same place again, this time equipped more waterproof: Chest waders again and a rain coat over the fur trimmed winter anorak. While I shot the photo above with a 35mm lens I now used a 14-24mm wide angle lens and tried to get nearer to the motive.

Snow fall had increased and so did the wave height. It was impossible to keep the lens dry for half a second and after some minutes of trying anything was wet from a mixture of wet snow and sea spray. The ice-covered tripod started to freeze and I was afraid for my camera that looked quite soaked, so I abandoned this “photo session” and returned home.

Tomorrow the water level will be half a meter less, so these images cannot be retaken. I have to learn more about photography in really bad and wet weather.

The Baltic Sea freezes over Jan 5 2017

Yesterday the Baltic Sea was open and a lonely goosander paddled through the cold, gusty wind. Meanwhile the air got colder and colder.

This morning the temperature has dropped to -25 °C and I wondered whether the Baltic Sea froze over last night. And so it did.

Since it was not only cold, but also windy I was glad about my warm parka. The highest temperature I measured here in Skelleftehamn today was -22.5 °C, but in Örviken, hardly 7 km away the car thermometer showed -30 °C.

In Kautokeino (Norway) it was much colder: -42.4 °C was measured already yesterday evening. The coldest day of this winter season in Northern Scandinavia.

If the Swedish weather forecast is right, we’ll expect -23 °C this night and -3 °C the following night. That’s 20 °C warmer within 24 hours; almost springlike. Good news for the goosander. I hope, he’s well.

Midwinter Dec 21 2016

It’s winter solstice today, the shortest day of the year. Sunrise 9:39, sunset 13:27 – that’s less than 4 hours of sunlight.

I tried to catch the sun when it stood highest, which is only 2.2 °C above horizon but clouds brought my plan to nought. Anyway, this is how it looked like two hours ago. The brightest hour of the shortest day.

From now on the days will grow longer and longer. At the same time the astronomical winter has started today. Hopefully winter will come soon, the last weeks have been much to warm and most of the early November snow has melted away.

Six month ago: Summer solstice – “night shot” in Skelleftehamn

Snow fall at Solberget Dec 16 2016

I made this photo two weeks ago in Solberget and I think it’s a nice contrast to my last blog article here. Both photos show the Swedish winter but there are quite different. I like both the cold and sunny type of winter as snow fall.

What do you prefer?

#snowember16 – retrospect Nov 20 2016

This article is part of the series “2016-11: #snowember16”.

It was round two weeks ago, that Västerbotten, and especially Skelleftehamn got a lot of snow, more than 70 centimetres within four days. Such had happened before at least four times since I moved to this place but never so early.

Anyway, I love winter and was very happy to get it so soon. Sad to say, it was only an intermezzo. It became cold for two days the last weekend, when I tried canoeing but since then it has been quite warm and most of the precipitation came as rain that melted much of the beautiful snow away.

Two weeks ago the fence in the backyard was fully submerged in the snow, not it is completely visible again.

My backyard two weeks ago (2011-11-07 07:20)

I definitely prefer the first. Since the peak of 76 cm in my backyard thirteen days ago the snow cover become less and less deep. Today I measured 23 cm, which is less than a third of the former depth.

It is still quite warm and the global weather constellation is quite special: At the North Pole it’s 20 °C warmer than usual (and there’s full polar night!), whereas Siberia and Mongolia have witnessed an early cold wave with temperatures below -30 °C, partly below -40 °C.

How will the swedish winter 2016/17 will be? Too warm or freezing cold? Sleet and rain or masses of snow? Well, we’ll see … . What do you think?

Kayak – is it a boat or a sledge? Nov 12 2016

Today I was out and did some canoeing. There was a special reason for that: Johan from Sweet Earth wanted to make a short film about kayaking in wintry conditions for Skellefteå kommun, the municipality of Skellefteå. He asked me whether I wanted to be the canoeist and I accepted gladly. Since the weather forecast looked good for today we planned to make the film today.

And the weather was good – it was fantastic! When I woke up at 6 o’clock, the sky was still dark but starry and completely free of clouds. The thermometer showed -13.8 °C – the coldest temperature in Skelleftehamn this season. I was curious about Storgrundet, where it happened to be open water the day before. How would it look like today?

Some minutes later I stood on Storgrundet’s boat bridge and lit my strong flashlight. As almost excepted the water has completely frozen over last night and the rim of the new ice was about 3 cm thick. Too thick to break through with my kayak. Anyway, it could be less thick a bit farther away, I considered.

At 7 o’clock Johan arrived and we discussed the possibilities:

Plan A: starting at the Lotsstation farther away, where there’s open water and probably no ice at all, but perhaps less motives.
Plan B: trying to start at Storgrundet, where it might be impossible to kayak, but it would look nicer. And there would even be a Plan B2.

We decided for Plan A. I fetched the kayak from the garage and pulled it through the deep snow to the street where I put it onto the trolley. I pulled the kayak to the beach while Johan followed by car filming. Soon I arrived at Storgrundet’s parking place, but not Johan. Some minutes later my phone rang: Johan’s car got bogged down in the snow and he had to shovel it free. I returned to give him a push. Luckily his car was free soon again and we arrived at Storgrundet for sunrise.

I took off my winter anorak and slipped into my waterproof immersion suit – ugly but vital. I removed the kayak from the trolley and pulled it to the end of the boat bridge. Near the shore and round that boat bridge the ice was white, it was older and thicker. Some metres away it was transparent and you could see the sea bottom. That ice was less than 12 hours old. I positioned the kayak at the rim of the white ice that bore my weight and entered slowly the fresh ice. It took just some steps and – Splat! – the ice broke and I stood in chest deep water. Well, that came not unexpected. That’s why I had the waterproof suit on and my isdubbar round my neck.

“Isdubbar” or ice claws are sharp spikes with handles. These are attached to a cord to be worn round your neck. If you fall through the ice you can use the spikes of the ice claws to pull yourself out of the ice hole back to safety. A must have when going onto the ice in early winter or unknown terrain!

I managed to crawl onto the ice even without the ice claws, because the immersion suit has so much buoyancy. I put the kayak onto the little ice hole and climbed in. Unfortunately the kayak wasn’t heavy enough to break the ice. I tried and pushed, wiggled and jiggled until I managed to forge ahead perhaps ten meters. Anyway I only succeeded into bending down the fresh and soft ice, instead of breaking it. Since the paddle had zero grip on the wet ice I couldn’t steer at all and turning was completely impossible. Finally I gave up and pushed myself backwards with the glove protected hands.

When I came to the older and slightly higher ice I was kind of trapped. I couldn’t push myself backwards hard and fast enough to come up onto the safe ice surface. I tried several times and at last I just left the kayak – Splat! – went through the ice again, crawled onto the safe ice and dragged the kayak back to the boat bridge.

The result: Paddling on ice: round 25 m. Paddling in water: 0 m. Baths taken: 2. Photos taken: zero. I hope, that Johan filmed my abortive efforts. It will make me laugh watching it.

But as I said, there was Plan B2:

500 meters to the northwest the Baltic Sea is not in the lee of the island Storgrundet anymore. Here at the bay Flunderviken it usually takes much longer for the water to freeze over. While Johan had to take the save way on land I could go straight ahead by crossing the ice with my kayak in tow. First I had to plunge through soft ice and water again but then the ice was of the older and stronger kind and it was easy to get ahead. I knew, that Johan would be slower and I would had time to make some pictures.

Anyway even Plan B2 was in danger: Flunderviken was iced, too. At least I could see open water 100 or 150 meters ahead. Perhaps the ice would be weaker and I could go through the ice howsoever and reach open water. But first I had to wait for Johan who had to stomp through more than knee-deep snow to arrive. Time for another photo, time for going through the ice again, this time only knee-deep. Even here the ice was 3 cm thick – too thick to paddle.

Ice sculpture round a stone in shallow water

Soon Johan arrived and I made my reservations. I didn’t believe in “ice-paddling” that far. Johan got an idea: Wouldn’t it possible to use the ice claws to push oneself forward? Well, I could try. The idea appeared to be brilliant. It was quite easy to push oneself forward, even it was hard work for my non-existing arm muscles. It went great until the ice got weaker and the kayak started to break it. Here it was hard to reach ice solid enough to pull oneself forward with the spikes. It took a long time and I had to take breath several times until I reached the last meters of the ice cover where ice was so thin that I could use the paddle again and finally I was free. Hip, hip, hooray!

Now I was able to paddle freely as on a warm summer day. Beside of the floating ice needles. Beside of wearing my heavy immersion suit. Beside of the snow that covered all shores. Beside of the ice crust on my kayak …

And beside of my exhaustion because of the struggles traversing the ice. Anyway I wasn’t here for a long tour but for being filmed. I didn’t want to get too far away from Johan who was landbound. Therefore I took just a short round and made some more photos before I started back.

Selfie with immersion suit and dripping nose

I followed my old route where the ice already was cut and it was much easier to get ahead. Soon I reached the thicker ice – first still cracking under the weight of me and my kayak, then thick enough to bear us without any complaints – and then the shore where I had to plunge in into knee-deep water for the last time before I went ashore.

Conclusion

It was great fun testing out the limits of winter paddling in Skelleftehamn today. It won’t be the last time that I do such. However this is only possible with proper equipment. Without immersion suit or dry suit, isdubbar and such this tour wouldn’t have been possible at all.

So, folks: Be crazy and be safe!

And – as promised – the link to the video.