When Nish & I decided to make the 5000-mile journey halfway across the world to Finnish Lapland, there wasn’t a smidgen of doubt that it was going to be well worth it! One experience, in particular, excited us more than anything else – the prospect of snuggling together in a glass igloo above the Arctic Circle and catching a stellar northern lights display. Do honeymoons get any dreamier than that?
The unpredictable nature of the phenomena and omnipresent cloud cover in peak winter meant our chances of finding Lady Aurora were slim. But, sometimes, the faintest of possibilities is all the heart needs to remain hopeful, doesn’t it? A few days before our scheduled stay at the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resorts, we spent hours testing Northern Lights Alert apps and deciphering solar activity information from various Facebook groups. At one point, it felt like we were back in school, trying to pioneer an entirely new subject overnight. Thankfully, our education system had prepared us for a scenario just like this (hint – Engineers). And voila! We realised there was a brief window on one of the nights between 2 am and 4 am when the activity was predicted to be fairly high with minimal cloud cover. Excitement overloaded!
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Cometh the day, cloud cover wasn’t our biggest worry anymore. Constant snowfall over the past few days meant there was a thick sheet of ice stuck to the glass panels of our igloo and the visibility from inside was nearly zero. Several calls to the front desk later, we watched the maintenance guy arrive with a broomstick and try in vain to clear the frost. He must have it confused with his magic, defrosting broomstick. The only option was to wait for the temperature to rise above 0 ยฐC for the ice to melt but we knew it wasn’t going to be the case for at least another week and our hopes of a special night were fading faster than sunlight on a winter evening.
After a carefully regimented program of staring into nothing for an hour, the Engineers in us finally woke up and decided to act. We ran the broomstick left behind under hot water from the bathroom and used the warmth on the bristles to make scrubbing ice off easier. As it was freezing outside, the warmth barely lasted for a minute or two. So, we had to run back in to the igloo every few minutes to wet the broom. About 2 hours & 200 sprints to the bathroom later, the front half of our igloo was fully clear. Ah, the sense of accomplishment!
Although we knew we weren’t going to fall asleep, we set a series of alarms, left our cameras to charge and settled in our bed waiting for the show to begin with a beaming smile on our faces. At half past 1, a small streak of bright neon green light whizzed past directly in front of us and before we knew, the entire sky was filled with green and purple dancing lights. We both didn’t utter a single word for the next hour or so completely smitten by one of nature’s most elusive spectacles
“There is no chance, no fate, no destiny that can circumvent, hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul” – Ella W. Wilcon
In our case, it was TWO determined souls which made the entire northern lights experience all the more rewarding!
About Endlessly Jetlagged
Singapore based Indian Travel couple Nish & Shiv firmly believe that there is no better way to refill oneโs brain juices than visiting a new place. A portfolio specialist by profession, Nish is the creative & the curious one,ย and a Manufacturing Engineer by day and writer of excessively long Instagram captions by night, Shiv is the sarcastic one. Together they share their travel tales as Endlessly Jetlagged.
