Scandinavian Traveller: Likki the Trimmed Beaver - Chapter Six

I wanted to go to the Arctic Circle.  When I first asked Hubby to go, he looked it up and informed me it was only opening May 1st.  Since the weekends haven't been that nice, we had decided to wait for a nice day to make our way there, it was, after all, a few hours away from Bodø.  When the sun is shinning, Bodø Kommune is a beautiful area.  The sad thing is, the sun rarely shines.  Saturday the sun was out. So we headed South to the Arctic Circle.  Yes, South.  Bodø is located at 67 degrees 16 minutes and 48 seconds latitude North and the Arctic Circle is at 66 degrees 33 minutes 45.7 seconds.  Did you know that its position varies?  It moves by something like 49 feet per year.

So, we packed a lunch and went on a drive, by a sunny day.  The way to get there was along the fjord, so we anticipated a nice drive.  Within about thirty minutes outside the city we were following the fljord.  The blue of the water, the sky and the puffy clouds here and there were making this gorgeous scenery that we had to stop and capture.

First stop along the way, where Likki had to pose despite the wind.

Look at that scenery...

Of course Likki had to be part of that!

Giving that the road was nice, barely any traffic, but quite winding and on the edge of the water, there wasn't many places we could stop to take pictures.  The further South we were going, the higher we were climber, and there the more snow we were seeing.  It actually got to a point that only the road was clear of snow, everything else around us was white.  It was beautiful, and somewhat bizarre.  I think it was my very first time being surrounded by snow like that.  Yes we do have lots of snow in Québec, but it's wasn't like that... Maybe it was because there weren't many trees, houses, or people, I don't know... It was just spooky. And beautiful.

Blue sky, white clouds and white snow...

The further South we went, the whiter it got. It looked like there was a lot of snow, not only what we were seeing on the surface. It looked deep.

After being in the car for over two and half hours, I was excited to see this sign:

We knew we were about to get there...

That sign has seen better days, but we got the point.

The Arctic Circle Center, on May 16, 2015

We were happy to see that there wasn't many people there.  And we were also a little surprise by how much snow there was...

Hubby is not short and that wasn't the highest accumulation either

Likki sitting on a snow bank...

The inside of the center is mostly a souvenir shop.  They do have a theater, not quite sure what they were showing, just noticed the price (60.00 NOK = about $10.00 CAD) for 20 min. film.  They had a bunch of wild animals on display (taxidermy), like a moose, a polar bear, a wolfe, a seal to name a few.  They sold everything from t-shirts, socks, underwares, cups, magnets, and lots more.  They also sold postcards AND had a special cancellation stamp.  They even offered to mail the cards for Christmas.  They had a special box for that, for cards to be sent out for Christmas. 

There was also a little cafeteria.  Their special of the day was Reindeer, potatoes and coffee.  I had a burger.  While our food was being prepared I wrote myself a special souvenir card, after all how often can one say that they've crossed the Arctic Circle and that they had to drive South to do so! ah!

Postcard Supervisor

After spending about one hour in there, shopping, eating and writing a little, we decided to head back to Bodø - we still had a few hours of driving ahead of us.  As we were leaving the Center, the sky got cloudy, but as we were heading North it was clearing up.  We were both wondering how much of all that snow would actually melt in the next few months.  The Center is open from May to September only, so we were wondering how soon did it start to snow, etc.  We even mentioned maybe doing that drive again before we go back home, just to see the difference a few weeks can make.

There is a national park we have to go through to get to the Center, and as we entered I saw a sign for Reindeer Crossing - I had never seen one before.  I wanted to take a picture, but Hubby wasn't stopping just then - maybe on the way back, there should have others.  Not long after we left the Center I saw that sign again.  I wanted him to turn back.  I wanted a picture of it.  He kept going looking for a spot where he could turn when I screamed in excitement, there, on the side of the road was a reindeer eating some green.  I barely had time to catch a picture of it.  We were being followed by a big truck and it was coming fairly fast, so we couldn't really stop and snap a good shot of my first reindeer ever!

Seeing it made my day! I'm still excited even as I'm writing this. That was so cool!

Scenery coming back was just as nice as the one going... I can't get tired of looking at this...

Along a gorgeous river...

You must admit, the place is fecking nice. Right?  Right!