You may have noticed Theresa has been keeping the blog alive for the past week or so. And if you haven’t gotten around to commenting about where you want to go most because you’ve been thinking long and hard about it, head down below this and inspire us. While you may attribute my absence to general laziness, you would in fact be wrong. In fact, it was the exact opposite, as I was braving arctic blasts and gigantic snow drifts to venture into the far north, to Swedish Lappland. I spent three days and four nights over 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle, almost farther north than the entire state of Alaska. I visited Kiruna, Jukkasjarvi, and Abisko to try to accomplish four things:
1) Witness the Northern Lights
2) Venture inside the world famous Ice Hotel
3) Drive a dogsled
4) See a moose (and reindeer)
I’ll go ahead and spoil the last one right now, I did not see a moose, nor reindeer, though I can’t say I went out of my way to try. I did run across some tracks that I thought might come from a moose, though.
Anyone knows if those are moose tracks or something else? Chime in with your idle speculation and wild guesses. I really have no idea. But the picture also gives you an idea of the raw beauty that was everywhere.
But to find out if I was successful in accomplishing my other goals, you’ll have to stay tuned to Lives of Wander. This is the first of a three part series. I’m just too exhausted tonight to write more, and when you get to part three, you’ll understand why.
Moose tracks? That doesn’t look like that tasty flavor of ice cream to me. But I may be wrong. Beauty? Yes thats what I love, endless snow. If you hadn’t alerted me to the fact that its Sweden, I may have mistaken it for Muncie, since this so called beauty is what Muncie looked like through all of January and February.
To be continued?! This better be worth it.
Yeah, I agree with Greg. Now that its March and I have endured the dreariness of winter in a temperate climate, I have no intentions of extending by going to the tundra. Sorry, but thanks.
But I would like to see the Northern Lights, so I guess I’ll go in the summer when snow will be a treat.
Um, where would the other set of feet go? Those tracks are awfully close together. I’d imagine moose footprints would be at least a foot of two apart. Unless this was a moose missing a leg…or two…or three. I’m voting Arctic hare. Yes, definitely hare.
It looks beautiful! It looks a bit too cold for my liking though. 🙂 Theresa, you are totally right that it is an Arctic hare trail. I googled it and found pics just like Jeff’s. They’ve got the two long footprints nearly side-by-side, and then the smushy looking (that’s the technical term) smaller front print where their front paws come together.
http://tinyurl.com/2jwzcs
Yup, looks like Arctic Hare, thanks for the investigative reporting Kelly =). My thinking went along with Greg’s, that it looks like the “moose tracks” they put on the outside of the Moose Tracks ice cream containers. So yeah, I’m not exactly Survivorman out here.
And Greg/Mark, I think you’ll agree I topped Muncie by the end of this thing. Kiruna and Abisko aren’t quite as flat as Muncie/Bloomington.
Damn, I’m good. I should be on some National Geographic show!