We slept well last night after our Aurora Borealis experience. However, there is no rest for the weary, today we are doing a reindeer sleigh ride at 10:00 AM.
We set an alarm for 7:15 AM to give us enough time to get ready and go to eat breakfast at the Apukka Resort Restaurant.
We were not sure how crowded it might be since this was our first morning eating there.
We had set a time to leave our cabin around 8:00 AM for the five-minute walk to breakfast. Of course, it takes a while to put on all of the clothes, even for such a short walk. It was supposed to be around 8 degrees F this morning, so that is cold and we just don’t have enough experience at those temperatures to know if we could go with fewer clothes for the short walk over to breakfast.
We headed out at about 8:10 AM and walked to the Main Building where the restaurant is located. There were quite a few people already there, but it was far from being full or crowded. They had a good buffet spread set up and also had an egg cooking station. I ordered two eggs over easy, but apparently the term “over easy” is not well understood here. There was a lady who also ordered the same cook on her eggs, right after me. I had to tell the cook to turn them over, and then tell him they were done after about 20 seconds on the top side. He put them on the plate upside down, just like they were taken from the pan.
I said something about the lady needing the same thing for her eggs, she was getting other food, but she arrived just then and said hers were good not being flipped, which I thought strange, I was just trying to help….
Stephanie got a ham, cheese and mushroom omelet at the cooking station, and that was not confusing for the cook!
The breakfast was good and we enjoyed watching the sun beginning to make a glow on the horizon. Actual sunrise was still over an hour from then but there was a beautiful orange glowing sky out over the frozen lake.
After breakfast, we headed back to the cabin to get ready for our Reindeer Sleigh Ride. We bundled up and used our new heated vests for the first time. We left the cabin to make the five-minute walk over to the meeting point, which is an area that has signs inside a fenced area for each excursion offered here. There was a guide there who confirmed our names and then we were split into two groups, the first group was twenty people, and the next was smaller.
Our guide was Emily, and she told everyone we had to walk about ten minutes over to the reindeer area. There were two ladies in the group who said they could not walk that far, so they were put in the smaller group and two replacements were added to our group. The guide for the second group was going to have to figure out some type of transportation for the two ladies.
It was a good walk over to the sleigh areas. It was located across the main highway, and the trail we were on actually used a pathway under a bridge crossing over a stream as our route to get across under the busy highway.
We arrived at an area that had 10 sleds with reindeer attached to most of them. There were two reindeer off to the side, they were not attached to their sleds yet. Of course, Stephanie wanted a “white” reindeer, so she picked sled number 2, and that was one that did not have the reindeer attached. We learned after we sat in the sled that our reindeer was “in training”, and was a little skittish.
Once everyone was in their sleighs they attached our reindeer and the other one that was also in training farther back in the line. It was an effort for the guides to get our reindeer attached, he was trying to move and go before everyone was ready. The sleighs were guided at the front of the 5 sleighs that were attached to each other with a rope attached to the reindeer’s neck with a harness. Each reindeer in the group was attached to the back of the sleigh in front. There was another group of five sleighs behind our group.
We started off and our reindeer was trying to go faster than the first sleigh in front, so he was tight beside it at times, and right next to the passengers with his antlers. Then the reindeer behind us was also on the side of our sleigh with his antlers, right next to my head, which was a little disconcerting. After about 5 minutes, our reindeer settled down and seemed to be more inclined to follow in line, at least most of the time.
It was a long ride on a trail through the woods and along a frozen lake. It was sunny, but the sun was still low on the horizon. The sunshine was nice as it filtered through the icy trees.
Most of the time, our reindeer followed well, but occasionally, he would want to head off to the side or try to go onto another trail branching off to the side.
It was enjoyable and we never got cold, they had provided us with a blanket for our laps and legs, and we sat on a reindeer hide in the sled.
When we arrived back at the starting point, one of the guides had to come and hold our reindeer by his neck so we could get out of our sleigh without it moving. Everyone in the group then went over to the Lavvu, which is like Yurt. They had set it up with a fire pit inside. We all sat around the fire and had a cookie and some hot cider. Our guide Emily, who we found out was from Australia, then told us a lot about the reindeer.
They are only here for a couple of months and then they are set free to roam around in the area of Finland where they are brought from each year. Some are tracked with GPS, but most are not and have to be found and captured and then be brought back for these tours. It takes a lot of training for them so they try to get the same reindeer back each year if possible. Overall, Emily said that there were 80 reindeer at this facility.
Only the males are used for the sleds, they are stronger. All of the males used are also castrated, and part of that is in order to hold down the reindeer population, which is regulated in Finland to 200,000 reindeer, mostly because of food sources.
After our snack and info session, we went to two of the pens where the reindeer are kept to feed them Lichen, which is one of their favorite things to eat. It is the moss that grows on the trees. The first pen had younger reindeer in it and they were each tied off to a tree because they were in training so to speak, they were not old enough to be trusted to be on their own. It was fun to feed them.
Then, we went over to a second pen and these reindeer were not tied up, they were free to run around and come over for their treats. Of course, we had to watch where we stepped, not only for processed reindeer food, i,e, poop, but for young sapling trees that had been trimmed off near the ground but were still sticking up from the snow about 4 inches, just high enough to catch a wayward foot.
Overall, the tour was really great, we enjoyed the ride and also learning about the reindeer. Then we had the 10-minute walk back to the Resort along the same path we walked over on.
We were at the end of our group, not really worried about keeping up, the tour was basically over. We stopped for some photos of the stream and forest but eventually caught up to thank Emily for being our guide. It is nice to be on vacation in a non-tipping country, no one ever has their hand out nor do they expect anything.
It was about noon, so we headed back to the cabin to get warm and to eat some sandwiches for lunch. We had bought ham and cheese, bread and a spicy mustard yesterday at the grocery store, and it was nice that we have a mini fridge in the room to keep the refrigerated items in. The housekeeper came by just about the time we started eating, so we paused and let them clean the room while we were there.
After lunch, we got back into our polar gear and headed out to the rental car to drive to Rovaniemi to go to the liquor store for some wine since it had been closed on the Sunday we arrived. We also planned to stop on the way back at Santa’s Village because Stephanie wanted to call some of her work friends at work while we were on the Santa’s Village Web Cam.
We headed to the liquor store first, we wanted to purchase some more of the bagged Pinot Grigio wine there that we had bought some of while we were in Helsinki, that first purchase was for Sunday evening, but it was too bulky to carry more, and since we have the rental car, it is not a bad trip back into town, only about 17 km, a fifteen-minute drive from the resort.
First, we had to scrape all of the ice off of the windows of the rental car. Apparently, we had a lot of heavy frost last night and it left a thick layer of ice on all of the windows, and the car itself. We cranked the car up first to get the engine warm, and at the current 10-degree F temperature, the engine struggled but started. While I was scraping off the ice, the scraper/brush combo handle broke, just a couple of inches about the scraper itself. That made it harder, it was a cheap scraper, it was too thin to add any pressure to it, which was needed to scrape off the thick layer of ice. We added a new scraper to the list of items to purchase in Rovaniemi today.
Once all the ice was removed enough to see to drive, we headed out. The liquor store was saved in our Google Favorites, so we just used the phone and Android Auto on the car’s navigation screen to guide us there. The store was in a mall and was right next to another grocery store, which had been the one we planned on going to on arrival day until we had learned the liquor store next to it was not open on Sunday. The other grocery store was easier to get in and out of, and so that was the one we went to on Sunday.
We purchased our wine and then headed next door to the grocery store for a toothbrush for Stephanie, she could not find hers and was using a travel toothbrush from the airline, and we now also needed a scraper, which they also had. Stephane also wanted a lint brush, we needed something to remove all of the reindeer hide fur that had come off and stuck to her black leggings while we were on the reindeer ride this morning. She asked a store attendant, and the lady said we needed to go to the store next door, which was like a Target. We checked out and headed to the store next door.
We found the lint brush there, but only by asking, and we asked just about the time we passed a large display of them that we had not seen, we all got a laugh about how close they were to us when Stephanie asked the store clerk.
Now that we had everything, we headed back to the car in the parking garage and headed to Santa’s Village to do the webcam visit. It was not quite as icy in the parking and walking areas there as the other day, but it was close, so we had to be really careful walking there.
First, unknown to me, we were heading to the “Visit With Santa” building, something Stephane wanted to do but failed to inform me about. We headed inside and got to the end of a hallway and waited in a short line. We did not know it at first, but they let each group through a door into another room to visit with Santa one at a time, a group being the people you are there with, so for us, it was the two of us. There were two groups ahead of us, and it took a while for the first group of four to finish. Then we waited for the group of three just ahead of us to go in, and finally, after about 20 minutes of waiting, it was our turn.
It was OK, there was a nice authentic looking Santa, and that we chatted with for a couple of minutes, then we sat beside him for a photo, and that was the catch, it was free to see Santa, but no photos were allowed with him other than by their cameras for purchase.
We headed out and waited for our photo to get processed. We ended up getting just the digital copy for the small fee of Euro 30.00. Just a 5 x 7 print was also Euro 30. At least we can do more with the digital copy. They sent it to Stephanie’s email and we waited for it to arrive before we left.
We then headed over to the Santa’s Village webcam and Stephanie called her work friends and they got a kick out of seeing us on the webcam screen at work. Unfortunately, it was early in the morning at home, so not everyone was there, so, yippie, we get to come back and do this tomorrow after our Husky Ride Adventure. Our meeting point for that tour is at Santa’s Village.
We walked back to the car and then drove back to the cabin and unloaded our stuff. It was now pretty late in the afternoon, and not too long before sunset. We thought we would venture out onto the frozen lake again today and maybe get a glimpse of the sunset from there, it was wide open without any trees on the lake. It was about 3:30 PM, but we knew it was near to sunset time.
It took us a while to get dressed again, and get out there, and by the time we did, the sun had already set, but there was still an orange glow in the western sky. We walked pretty far out onto the frozen lake. There was an Apukka Resort guide out on the lake and she was set up for ice fishing. She came out on a snowmobile and also had a firepit in a small trailer on the back. The trailer was on skies or rails for the ice/snow. There was another lady with her, but she was not wearing any Apukka Resort gear, so we were not sure what she did, but she also seemed to know a lot about ice fishing because we stopped by to ask about it.
We did not see the first lady ever catch anything, but she said the normal catch is small perch. They had to be small, the hole in the ice was only about six inches in diameter if that.
Before we walked off the frozen lake, Stephanie played on a small ice sled, it had a small seat on the front, and the person on the back ran for a bit and then hopped onto the small rails to glide on the ice. It was sort of like a scooter for ice. The seat was too low for me to sit on, so I just watched and then had to walk to catch up.
We headed back to the cabin to try and decide on our dinner plans. We had stopped in at the bar earlier in the day and saw they had sandwiches. We also had asked via a WhatsApp text to the reception if we could order a reindeer hamburger from the restaurant, but eat it in the bar, and they said we could.
First, we took our staggered showers, we had to do them about 45 min apart for the hot water to regenerate, at least that was what they had told us when we checked in. We were not yet hungry and wanted to enjoy some wine and watch the stars from our igloo windows. In the end, we just opted for ham and cheese on crackers again with our wine and some cookies for dessert, all from the comfort of our warm and cozy cabin. We were just too tired to get into all of the cold weather gear again to go somewhere to eat.
“Santa” had told us when we visited him earlier that the Aurora would appear again tonight, and be even stronger than last night, so we were expecting it without fail. After all, Santa said so. We kept looking at the Aurora Tracking App, which had been very accurate last night but we could not see any sightings activity like we saw on the app last night, but we had our fingers crossed. It was nice to be in the warmth of our cabin waiting, and eventually, we did see some appearance faintly from our glassed windows Then it started to get brighter, but nowhere as bright as last night. About that time, the Aurora alarm on the app went off, so we decided to get into our outside clothing and try and get some pictures again tonight.
We hoped it would begin to get better as time passed, that was what happened last night, and while it may have gotten better, it was not near the strength of last night. We did get a few good photos from outside, some with my camera on the tripod, and some that Stephanie took with her phone. It was cold, and since it was not getting stronger, we decided to just enjoy watching what we could from our bed looking out our large glass windows and enjoying our wine. It did seem to last about an hour or better, but never got that strong, or strong enough to warrant getting redressed in all of the gear to go back outside.
At about 11:15 PM, we called it a night, it was getting a little hazy outside and the stars were not nearly as bright, so it was not going to be a perfect Aurora viewing night. We did get one more Aurora alarm about that time, but even then, it was not that bright.
We have an independent Husky Sleigh Ride adventure tomorrow, but not until 1:00 PM, so we were going to enjoy sleeping in a little longer before we get up and head to breakfast.
Leave a Reply