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Letters from 68 degrees, Kiruna

Blog at 68 degrees

What's happening here at 68 degrees, a bed and breakfast in Kiruna.

web page: www.68degrees.se

Whoopers and light

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Sun, April 17, 2022 22:37:48

Whooper swans gather on the small patches of water that have opened up on the Kalix river. They arrive, in pairs, in a whoosh of water and raucous whooping. On the water, group dynamics are visible. Some pairs on the ice are alternately lifting their heads up and down and flapping their wings. They’re preparing to set up home somewhere a bit more private as soon as more water appears. As the day is warm, and the snow and ice is melting fast, they won’t have to wait long.

After tramping on the ice along the river edge for a short while we see a snow-free patch on a small hillock under a tree. There are soft lingon plants to sit on, and if you’re lucky you find a remaining lingonberry, still tasty and sweet after months under the snow. We’ve plenty of layers on because the wind is still cold, and sitting on snow, or near it, isn’t like a sand beach, but the sun is warm enough to encourage us to remove one layer. And the gloves.

It’s calming to sit there and watch the swans. Nothing much happens, but you think about the swans’ long journey here, and the coming summer months with their cygnets. The sky is a wide fan of thin white cloud shooting up from behind the snow+covered fjäll. The light is so bright it hurts the eyes if you remove your sunglasses. Reflection from the water and snow is a sharp sort of sensation, hitting your senses like a shard of ice. It can make you feel very tired. ‘Spring tiredness’ they call it.

Eventually we climb back down through the packed snow and start to walk back. Just above us there are a couple of small wooden huts and as we pass one a man emerges with just a towel wrapped around his waist. We know it’s warm but not that warm. It takes a few seconds for us to realise he’s just come out of his sauna. He’s sitting on a bench with a can of beer in his hand, looking out over the river, the swans and the sky. ‘Things could be much worse,’ he calls out to us as we pass.



Don’t miss the real thing

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Sun, April 17, 2022 22:30:29

Driving along the road near the Kalix river you pass a few ‘moose warning’ signs. It has been explained to me that these are more like ‘animal crossing’ signs than specific ‘moose’ ones, and we note that if you see moose it’s hardly ever anywhere near one of these signs. However the signs do provide some local colour for tourists, and apparently have value as a souvenir. They are known to disappear.

There are a number of favourite places we stop along this road and we pass a couple of them, with a plan to get out on the ice at a wide part of the river where there’s a good view of the fjäll. On our return journey we pull in to a small parking area by a hut that’s provided for the public. It’s a place we have spent a lot of time, but today we just pulled over to check something, and were just driving off again when a car slowed down as it drove by us and a man wound his window down. I did likewise. ‘It’s a great place here to spend some time,’ he told us, helpfully. We thanked him for the information and agreed that it was, we knew. He was clearly a visitor, on his own, who’d just chanced on a good spot to see the river and wanted to share his good fortune with someone else. It gave me a nice warm feeling, that someone should be so thoughtful. He drove off ahead of us at great speed.

As we carried on down the road I spotted moose among the trees by the roadside. I never tire of watching these beautiful creatures. They stare at you with their big brown nuzzly heads before eventually turning tail to chew on a bit more birch. After we’d admired them for a while we drove on, and on the road ahead we saw the man from earlier, out of his car, taking a picture of the ‘moose warning’ sign. I understand the appeal of the prospect of a photo of the sign, but given the speed he drove off earlier I was wondering if he’d missed seeing the actual moose.

So we stopped and wound down the window. ‘Did you see the moose?’ I asked. He looked surprised. ‘Just back there, on the left’. He thanked us and immediately got in his car and drove back. Perhaps a visitor that sees a real moose won’t need a sign, or a photograph of a sign, as a souvenir. They’ll go home with a real memory, and I think he deserved that.



Haydn and the beast

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Wed, April 13, 2022 21:54:31

A typical spring morning in our living room. A bright glare from high piles of snow reflects into the room and the sun warms us through the triple glazed windows. We’re enjoying a slow start to the day, reading, drinking coffee. Waxwings flutter around the rowan berries in the trees outside.

A Haydn symphony is playing in the background. Rolf’s absorbed in his book.

Outside, just a metre from the window, a machine completely blocks the light from the window, a huge glowering monster that roars and bleeps. Inside there’s a child at the wheel. Well maybe he’s 12. Oh I suppose he could be 17. Anyway he’s obviously been driving these huge machines since he was three because his skillfull manoevering of the beast is plain to see.

The monster’s scooping arm towers above us, then swoops down on its prey and back up to the sky in one smooth movement. Then it bleeps furiously, backing away like a mad animal. It’s removing snow that’s begun to block the street.

I look behind me, through another window, where a lorry is parked. The back of the lorry receives the snow and will later drive it out of town to dump it. The snow-clearing machine will take five minutes to fill up the lorry. So, while he’s waiting, the driver of the lorry is catching up on social media, alternately staring at his phone and out the window.

We’re reading, and listening to the tranquil music. The driver is calmly reading, passing the time. The monster roars up and down devouring the snow, it’s massive iron arm so close to the glass of our window, hard steel and vulnerable glass so close in contact you might think you were in danger, sitting on your soft sofa, sipping coffee. But you know it won’t, and you aren’t, because this is Kiruna. It’s a typical spring morning in our living room.



We used to have a table just like that

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Mon, April 11, 2022 23:02:29

We have to sell our house. Events conspired to bring an end to this period of our lives, running a bed and breakfast here. We’re ready for a different focus, but we are at the stage of looking back with both pleasure and sadness at the times we’ve had here, experiences we’ll never forget, and people we’ve met.

It is hard to leave both the house and the landscape, but leaving the town – that’s a bit easier, because we leave Kiruna at the same time it’s leaving us. Shops and businesses are moving into the new town centre this summer, and after that the original town will become a fenced-off, no-go area while all the buildings are demolished, and after that it will be covered with earth, and probably grass, ‘where sheep may safely graze’ – at least until the land finally collapses. It’s not that we don’t like the new town, but it isn’t one with which we share a history, and it was the old town that held the magic of its beginnings as a frontier town.

We’ve been trying to prepare for this, psychologically for a couple of years, and practically for about six months. We’ve been going through our collected papers, records of activities, projects, diaries, and interests, stored in books and pamphlets and magazines. A lot of paper and memorabilia we’ve thrown away, but plenty still sits there asking to be kept.

When we bought the house we had nothing much except a couple of beds and a chair, and a large non-functioning chest freezer, all left by the previous owners. Now we have a house full of furniture, and most of it will have go. These are not expensive items but they have value for us so it’s hard to say goodbye to them. Most are secondhand, gathered piece by piece, wherever and whenever we could, in the early days when we had a large empty house and a crazy plan to run a bed and breakfast.

That was only ten years ago but back then the secondhand market flourished in ways it doesn’t now. When we saw something advertised that might be useful we rang the person direct and went to have a look. These were our very first contacts in the town, people wanting to sell a table, a cupboard, a chair. They were friendly and helpful, and keen to have the furniture taken away almost regardless of the price. When we look around the house now we don’t just see furniture but also the people and places we bought them from.

We were lucky, the way suitable furniture appeared when we were looking for it. We saw an ad for a large table, exactly the dimensions we could fit in our front room and use for large groups for breakfast. When we went to see it we realised that even folded down it was far too large to fit in our car, and far too heavy for us to get into the house. ‘No problem,’ said the owners, ‘where do you live?’. They drove it over to us on a trailer and helped heave it into the house, with a smile and no extra charge. Another family urged us to take more items than we were buying – they were just keen to get them out the house and didn’t ask for any payment.

To supplement these finds we regularly visited a local secondhand shop. We were familiar and frequent customers, there most days hanging around looking for bargains. In this way we furnished the whole house, and the only items we bought new were beds, and a sofa, that arrived long-distance from IKEA. Even the recycling site – ‘the dump’ – yielded some prize items – a decorative blue bowl, for instance, which has sat on our living room table for years. I wonder who used to own that.

We will be taking what we can back to the secondhand shop and we hoping they get a new lease of life there. But first there is the event of the estate agent taking photos of the house, perhaps our furniture’s finest hour. The kitchen table got a sanding and polishing and glows now like never before. The chairs and side tables and bookshelves are all arranged carefully, set off with decorative pieces and bright cushions, looking their very best. We are looking for a new life, and so are they.

In my imagination local people are looking at houses for sale and when they see the photos of our rooms they think, ‘we used to have a table just like that’. And then they wonder if that could be their table. Or their chair. Or their cupboard. Perhaps the previous owners are intrigued to see their house on the market again and amazed to see some of their old furniture still in it.

People might even discover that other people in the town also recognise furniture of theirs in our house. It might become a topic of conversation between them – ‘do you think there’s anything in the house that isn’t secondhand?!’, and ‘I always liked that chair, perhaps we should have kept it?’, and ‘that cupboard looked much better where we used to have it’. Or perhaps they will just look wistfully at their old furniture, and keep quiet. Or maybe they’ll see it and feel really pleased they got rid of it.

We went back to the secondhand shop. I wasn’t supposed to be looking for things to buy, but my eye was caught by a bright yellow flower tealight holder. Not altogether in good taste, and very noticeable. Mainly noticeable to me because I used to have one, years ago. I wondered what had happened to it. Could I have donated it to the secondhand shop when we left Kiruna for a while, some years ago? It looked more battered than my old one, but then we’ve all aged a bit. I bought it, and brought it home.



Out on the tracks

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Mon, September 07, 2020 20:53:22

I like to run on tracks, rather than roads, and outside the winter season that’s mainly cross country ski runs that climb up into the hills into areas I can’t normally reach (not being a very good skier).

There’s a slight problem with these though. When not in use as ski tracks they aren’t very well signed, so I have to do some orienteering. I only need some high points in the landscape to orient myself by, and a watch to measure distance in time. If I lose the track I can still get back, but in any case I find I like the excitement of not knowing exactly where I am.

Getting lost is a luxury many people never experience, living in more populated areas. When I first came to Sweden – to the relatively high-populated south – Rolf told me his family in western Sweden had friends who disappeared in the forest. They went out one day and were never found – at least not for many years, by which time it was too late. I marvelled at this possibility, and it frightened me. Even around the capital city I could see it was possible to lose one’s way in the forests on the edge of the suburbs.

Years later I am less frightened even though in the summer I rarely encounter anyone out on the tracks. It’s silent – no roads anywhere near – and the low birch scrub often hides the route and conceals landmarks. If I broke an ankle I wouldn’t be found for a long time. I should, I know, carry a phone. I will, I promise myself, each time I’m out there, lost. And yet I’m not unhappy being lost, at least temporarily.

This week I was exploring a new track and at some point lost contact with it and didn’t know where I was. I’d run quite a long way. I made several false turnings, ending up in bogs, at wire fences, or on tracks that meandered far away into the forest in a direction which felt like the wrong one. At some point I have to rely on my common sense to tell me that now is the time to turn back. I’d reached that point but I couldn’t find the way back either.

I stood still for a moment to make sure I was making rational decisions. I bent to pick some blueberries as a distraction. Then I looked out at the green, silent landscape around me, and thought: so here I am, alone and quite lost, and it felt really good. Then I found my way back.



Suddenly it’s Christmas

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Mon, August 31, 2020 22:12:47

Now we have darkness again for several hours of the night. When the first real darkness appears after two months of constant daylight, it’s a shock, and we yearn to have those light summer nights back. But quickly I am comforted again by the darkness arriving before sleep. I can relax from the summer ritual of shutting all the blinds an hour before bed, which works like putting a bag over a bird’s cage.

So I welcomed the darkness. Seeing street lights again is the autumn equivalent of hearing the first cuckoo. It’s a sign of the change of season. The seasons come so fast they create interesting blends. Summer and autumn seem to have joined forces right now and there are brilliant summer wildflowers among autumn coloured leaves. We’re working as much as we can in the garden, removing all the fading green growth because we know one day soon we’ll notice that autumn has gone too, and there will be snow.

Not only is cold weather and winter on the way but, we are reminded, in fact it’s not long until Christmas. A couple of days after the street lights came back on we noticed that the decorative, seasonal, let’s face it Christmas lighting had reappeared on the trees in the park over the road. In August? I’m trying not to see snow. It isn’t there yet, but my brain keeps adding it.

So now I’m shutting the blinds again so I don’t have to look at them. There’s only so much of Christmas one can take.



The one that got away

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Thu, August 20, 2020 13:42:07

His eyes opened wide with excitement. ‘Grayling,’ he said, as if whispering the name of the holy grail. We don’t fish, so it was hard to share his enthusiasm, but we tried.

We’d been trudging along a muddy path hoping to get access to another part of the Rautas river. It’s a sort of personal challenge, to get to see as much of local rivers as we can. Many are hidden and inaccessible, so seeking out obscure paths used by people who go fishing is the only way. This path turned out to be, predictably, not only muddy but swarming with biting insects, which is normal for the time of the year. On the other hand, there are degrees of insect concentration, and this was a particularly dense one.

The man telling us about fish was head to toe in protective gear – protective not against weather, but insects. He also wore glasses like goggles, covered on the sides, because insects often go for the eyes. And he was smoking a cigarette, despite having to carry gear and tread carefully around muddy holes.

He surveyed us like creatures that had emerged from the bog. Rolf’s muddy trainers – no boots – and my pair of shorts. Clearly, we weren’t familiar with this path. Rolf asked him about the fish he caught and he gave us a list, with additions about relative difficulty in catching, and occasional cooking tips. He told us about catches he’d made. It was a variation on ‘the one that got away’ fisherman’s traditional tale. He was just sharing his enthusiasm for fish – fair enough.

We complained about the insects, and he agreed, commenting that in a two hours’ time there would be even more of them – ‘that’s when they really party’. He had a dogged, determined look about him. That’s how you have to be, if you regularly walk this path in the summer. I realised the cigarette smoke was there to keep insects at bay.

He was curious about us of course. Why would we be there, struggling through mud and mosquitos, if it wasn’t to fish? We tried to explain we were interested in the river. His blank expression indicated polite disbelief. He asked if we were looking for berries. Although we said we weren’t, he gave us an update on the state of berries. The much treasured cloudberry, he said, was completely tasteless this year – just water. The warm weather had come at the wrong time, he said. Cloudberries out in the fjäll area might be better though, because they matured a few weeks later.

‘Ah yes,’ joked Rolf, ‘you say that to stop us picking them!’ The warning wasn’t necessary though, because with this number of insects, and the predicted insect rave happening in just a couple of hours, there was no way we were going out now looking for berries.

The man continued along the path towards his beloved grayling, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and we beat a retreat in the opposite direction, heading for the protective shell of the car.

We delayed a berry picking outing for a couple of weeks until we thought the insect count had gone down. As usual when we are here in August, we headed out to the fjäll area to look for cloudberries. We know a place where there are usually quite a few, and we enjoy wandering around – picking, tasting, the thrill of the chase. We wondered if this year we would discover the fisherman had been right, and even these berries were watery.

The cloudberry has a gorgeous pale orange yellow colour, and that’s what your eye is searching for among the mass of early autumn colours spreading over the earth. But wandering around the cloudberry area there were none to be seen. Maybe half a one here or there. Sometimes you know someone has been there before you and swooped them all up, but no-one can be quite this efficient. We deduced that the berries were not watery, as predicted, this year, but absent.

Finding the berries, though, is only part of the pleasure. The carpet of different plants that is spread over the ground is a pleasure in itself. Soft mounds of burnt-orange coloured moss, bright green blueberry plants, pale green grasses, and the occasional spread of tiny red leaves. The smell is even more stunning, a warm sweet smell of autumn. Instead of picking berries I got out my camera. I found a particularly colourful spot and focussed in on a billowing hill of autumn colour.

When I got home I looked at the image. Proud and bold in the middle of the picture, there it was. The one that got away.



The joy of tarmac

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Fri, August 14, 2020 12:23:01

You can’t help noticing animals on roads. It makes you wonder why, because there’s so much land around what’s the attraction to tarmac? A first reaction is to imagine the animals are seeking company. They’re not though.

Reindeer on the road. They can easily hold up the traffic – a herd of reindeer have a tendency to run from side to side so it’s hard to judge when it’s safe to drive by them, and then just as you do they start running ahead of you – they’re herd animals after all and think you’re herding them. But what are they doing there in the first place?

A nice cosy and safe place to feed your young is, apparently, a road or driveway.

And one of the best places to hang out on a warm summer night is, a driveway.

It’s taken us a while to catch up with what they’re doing. It’s the time of year when we can spend ages trying to decide where to go for the day. A walk along the river, perhaps, or a trek through a low birch forest? These seem perfect ideas for a warm summer day, until you reach down your leg to scratch your ankle for the fifth time in the last minute. You remember.

So, where can we go in town? Or where is a good stretch of road, preferably a very wide road – a good distance from the birch scrub on either side – as unused as possible? Then we can bring out the chairs, have some lunch, and relax, for a change. On the tarmac, away from all those pesky mosquitos.



A meditative bird

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Fri, July 31, 2020 21:43:19

We were walking on the easily accessed lower reaches of ‘Kungsleden’, a long distance walking path through the mountains.

We had always feared the numbers of people we might encounter on the path, so had preferred less famous, shorter routes nearby. This year though, thinking that due to the virus there would be less tourists than normal, we thought we’d try a small section of it and see what it was like.

The lower section of the path is designed for tourists rather than long distance walkers, so it’s easy underfoot and follows the river to provide the most scenic views. A little further up it becomes a little rougher, but it’s still a very easy stroll, through low birch forest, with glimpses of the bursting-full river nearby.

Rolf decided to take a break at a viewing spot an hour or so into the walk, and I walked on, curious about what was just round the bend, and the next bend, and the next bend. I have to time myself or I forget to turn back – I said I’d turn after twenty minutes.

The path climbed and fell, with exhilarating views of the river below. I arrived at what is marked on the map as a ‘Meditation Place’. Why this should be a better place to stop and reflect than any other I didn’t know. As I approached it, something moved ahead of me on the path. Too large – I thought – for a bird, but not an identifiable animal. Very dark, and very still. It was a large black raven. It walked across the path and up ahead of me to the meditation stone and inscription, and I followed, meekly.

I’m used to seeing ravens in the sky but I’d never been this close to one before. It’s behaviour seemed odd. I wondered if it had found something to eat there, and I was disturbing its lunch. I looked for a dead animal nearby, but saw none. Then I wondered if it was injured and couldn’t fly away. Possibly, but it could certainly walk away, and, strangely, it didn’t. It just jumped around the meditation place, looking at the stone, at me, at the leaf-strewn ground. I walked towards it, and it stood its ground.

It was me not the bird that felt a bit threatened. It’s a big bird, with a large beak, and this raven in particular – well frankly, it seemed a bit mad. Not that I’d know what a sane raven was like.

But I took it as an omen – a good one – that it had appeared here, so I stopped to meditate, as instructed. It was memorable, because of the raven by my side. After the minutes of meditation I decided to walk back. I took a picture of the raven – to show Rolf – and then turned my back on it.

After walking for a while I began looking for Rolf along the river bank. I couldn’t remember exactly where I’d left him and was concentrating on this when something flew across my vision. At some distance, near the river, I saw raven – no doubt, the raven – fly down to the ground exactly where Rolf sat. He was so engaged with the bird that he didn’t notice my approach.

Had it followed me here?

We watched it together, rooting around on the ground, wondering what it all meant. Then we gathered up our things and set off down the path. The raven came too, walking. Some people approached us along the path and then passed us, so we stepped aside – as did the raven. Then it trundled ahead of us down the path, like a dog.

We were charmed by it but also, to be honest, a little alarmed. I’d no idea what it might do – if, for example, we didn’t invite it home for tea. I’d never thought of having a raven as a pet. It’s a large bird – you wouldn’t want to upset a raven. So we followed it down the path, on our best behaviour, wondering what it, and we, would do next.

I imagined the raven regularly leading small groups of tourists along this path. ‘Come along now,’ it might say, ‘don’t lag behind’. It had a bit of a side to side, lumbering sort of walk, like it had walked this way too many times before, tired of instructing travellers about the route. It was beautiful nonetheless – I noticed its feathers were shining an iridescent blue in the sun.

Further along the path we met some more people coming toward us so we stepped aside again, as did the raven. I wanted to ask them if they wanted a raven, if they might like to take it with them, for company, but I didn’t. This particular madness wasn’t easy to share with passing strangers. But this time, when we stepped back on the path the raven didn’t join us.

We breathed a sigh of relief and walked on as fast as we could. How ridiculous, to be running away from a bird. Then after a few minutes we began to miss it.



Tales of the River Bank

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Sun, July 12, 2020 15:59:55

There are two rivers near Kiruna, the Torne and the Kalix. People are less likely to visit the Kalix, meandering far away from roads between the mountains beyond Kiruna and the Baltic. Near Kiruna, though, you can get close to it. Along its banks are occasional buildings and small villages that sprang up in the early 19th century, from early Sami settlements on reindeer migration routes or when settlers came for the rich fishing opportunities there.

The river is wide and shallow in places, with small islands that force the water to flow faster either side. In these narrow channels the water refuses to freeze, even in the depths of winter. Many times this winter we’ve skied along the river’s frozen banks to a fishing hut. The views from there are wide, in one direction to the high mountains, and elsewhere over expanses of snow-covered ice and a few small areas of open flowing water where we could watch migrating birds gather.

Now in summer we’re exploring the river bank in an entirely different way – walking through warm or wet low birch forest down to the bank, stepping along narrow paths, seeing small wildflowers pushing their way through fresh greenery, water rushing at our feet and insects buzzing insistently in our faces.

Secrets

We’re looking for a new view of the river. Each day is a challenge to find out more about it and where it goes on each of its secretive turns through the forest. We suspect that eventually the path we’re on will lead to another part of the river bank, perhaps another fishing spot, where we hope for open space and a breeze to whisk away the troublesome insects.

It feels a secret world of unexplored richness. It’s not true of course, since we’re on some kind of narrow earth path which must be used by people going fishing, and is also evidently used by moose, who like to defecate as they walk. Moose poo is dry and straw-like and disintegrates under your foot into powder. We can’t see far ahead, but have a sense of where the river might be, beyond the wild growth.

Turning a corner we see a reindeer skull lying on the earth in a small clearing. Then we notice there are other bones, vertebrae, and another skull. Reindeer split from their herd become easy prey if they weaken. At first it seems rather unpleasant, but you get used to the idea – it’s the natural way of things. Corpses contribute to nearby wildlife, both animal and vegetable.

But it didn’t prepare us for the next sighting among rough bracken a distance away – a wooden cross. As we approached we saw there were two graves, and one of them had evidence of someone visiting the grave and leaving keepsakes.

At this point it feels very Scandinoir thriller. Had we stumbled on the scene of a crime? A crime of passion perhaps, a lover buried where he fell? Or maybe someone living off-grid, refusing the usual burial rites, buried and remembered by a friend? Rolf reminded me this is illegal in Sweden, and besides, if you had committed a crime you wouldn’t bury the victim in an area famous for fishing.

So we looked a little closer. Ah yes, just one name – Toscana (1980-1999) – and a small sketch of a horse. The grave was roughly horse-size. You couldn’t have dragged a dead horse here – it must have been buried where it fell. And the grave next to it – Isadora (1992 – 2018) – might have been a beloved dog, buried here to keep the horse company.

These are unexpected finds by the river bank.

Déjà-vu

Another day, and another exploration of the river bank. We quickly became tired of the insects and hoped the path would turn to the bank soon, exposing us to wind. It soon did and for a while we were stepping perilously close to the edge, clutching sticking-out roots to steady us along the river bank edge. The river here is wide and roaring, and we could see three or four islands, far out midstream, deliciously unreachable.

The path dipped away from the steep bank and down into an insect-ridden swamp before angling up again into more forest. Then the sun hit our faces as we emerged on a bend in the river, a wide clearing, a place for fishing. Firewood is provided by the community-spirited local fishing club, for anyone to use, and there are roughly made wooden benches to sit on round the fire.

The wind does the trick, freeing us from being bitten. We settle onto a bench and feel at peace, slowly taking in these new views of the river. Reaching a newly-discovered place we feel a sense of achievement, especially at it has been a little troublesome to get to it – as it almost always is.

As we’re sitting there my eye is drawn to a rather characterful birch tree, bent and scarred, clinging to the river bank just in front of me. As I look at it something feels rather familiar about it. The jagged tree and an island just beyond it – yes, familiar, somehow. I imagine the picture with snow and ice, change the dimensions of the river, and myself standing on skis on the ice, and I know we’ve been to this spot before.

On our ski trips we’d stop at this bend in the river to catch our breath and prepare ourselves for the cold wind coming round the corner, on the last stretch to the hut. Adjusting my hat and exchanging a few words with Rolf, I might look up at this gnarled old tree, high above us, half buried in snow, and wonder why I could see the exposed edge of a bench there.

I didn’t at all appreciate that that was where we were now. I thought we’d walked to another part of the river, an inlet along the way. But the more I look the more convinced I am.

It’s an unsettling but wonderful experience to discover a new place and then to learn that the new place is somewhere you’ve been many times before. To realise that a place can be so very different in another season, that really, it is a new place.

‘And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.’

(from T.S. Eliot’s, ‘Little Gidding’)

In the Desert

You can approach the river bank in a number of ways but unmarked rough paths from the road may lead to a house, where you may not be welcome. One route we discovered provides the closest vehicular access to a number of far-flung properties, whose owners must leave their cars some distance from their homes and tramp further through the birch forest, but we were able to park at the access end of this road and walk in another direction towards the river.

On the way there something about the landscape felt strange. It was very open in places, when one would expect to find low birch trees. Usually this means bog land, which also means insects, and very likely a small river somewhere. The wetness breeds a variety of coloured moss and tiny low flowering shrubs, and the air had a strong smell of rich growth.

After the bog the path turned left and ahead of us was something entirely different. High sand ridges, interspersed with long low barren sandy valleys, the occasional birch growing defiantly every few metres. My informed companion was able to explain to me that these dunes were formed by the retiring ice during the end of the ice age, as rivers flowed under the ice shield and pulled sand into piles along the way. Subsequently this enormous supply of sand was used for building, it would have been a sand quarry. Despite this exploitation there was still something impressive about the large sand hills, and the contrast to everything around them.

It was a hot day, we weren’t expecting sand dunes, and we could have been hallucinating. Perhaps we were dreaming of a hot Mediterranean land, hearing the gentle trill of the cooling sea in the distance. Then we saw a group of reindeer, standing very still in the sand valley, antlers turned towards us. You could feel their heat. Reindeer like it cold, very cold – hot sandy beaches aren’t really their thing, you’d think. But they didn’t budge. In fact they settled in, a family group on the sand, sitting comfortably – as if to say, ‘why not?’ As if they were camels, not reindeer. Bizarre.

It was too hot and dry for us – we headed on to the river bank.

After spending a couple of hours by the river we packed up to walk back to the car. They were still there, the reindeer, on the sand. They looked at us quizzically. I imagined they wanted something, but couldn’t think what. We both wondered if we should find something to put water in, to bring to them, thinking they must be thirsty out there on the hot dry sand. Then we remembered they had legs, they could walk to the river.

It still seemed strange to see reindeer in sand, so when a bluebird swooped overhead it just added to the Disney quality of the scene. Then more dipping and rising birds appeared, flying up the sand valley. Not bluebirds of course, but sand martins, swooping in to the sand walls to their nesting holes and back out over the river to catch insects. The reindeer observed them, serenely, in the desert.

The Man in the Boat

We have a favourite spot on the Kalix River, winter and summer. It’s easy to reach, right by where the river is narrowed by islands, so in winter you get to see a bit of rushing water by the ice. There’s an official ‘resting place’ here, a hut provided for shelter, and a place to make a fire.

We like it because every time we come it looks a bit different. This time the river level was high, and the bank full of new green growth. We heard a roar from an engine and on the river saw a narrow local boat with an engine, hovering. We looked out to see what the matter was. Just a man, in a boat, looking at us. We got a feeling this wasn’t quite right but couldn’t say why. The man continued to hover, then drifted towards us to greet us.

It wasn’t was it? Could it be? Someone we met here five years ago, living nearby? He looked different, but then, it was five years – so did we. It could be the same man. We decided it was. A man we’d pulled out of the fire when he’d tumbled in, a little the worse of drink. He was good company nonetheless, and we remembered it as a happy occasion.

Now, here he was again, five years older, heavier, and, it seemed, still a bit drunk. We had a short exchange, and it was soon clear that this was a man who shouldn’t be out in a boat.

Just as we were wondering where this would all end, he tried to steer the boat to the river bank and in the course of this fell back in the boat and couldn’t sit up. The boat was stuck on a bank of stones, but the water flowed deep and fast between him and us on the river bank.

What to do? There was a brief confusing conversation. I imagined the next half an hour and none of the scenarios looked very good. Every time he tried to sit up the boat lurched precariously from side to site, threatening to tip a very drunk, overweight man into the fast currents.

Rolf can’t swim, so it was down to me to decide that someone (me) would have to go out there and stop him drowning himself. I didn’t want to do it – how would I help him, if I ever reached the boat? He was a big, heavy man and might even pull me down with him. I hesitated. Yet nor did I want to see him tip himself in the river so we then had to watch him float away, to certain drowning.

I began to wade out. When I felt the strength of the current round my thighs I realised I needed a branch for safety and Rolf went to look for one. It arrived, but floated downriver before I could catch it. The man was still on his back in the boat, but then he suddenly sat up, as if it was no problem at all. The prospect of the humiliation of being rescued by a woman might have given him the prompt he needed.

I came back to shore and we watched nervously as he tried to bring the boat in. Despite his inebriation, he was skilled with a boat, and so he got it to the river bank. Much relief. We then all sat together to reflect on life.

This went on for some time. He knew I was English, and used the few words of English he had to initiate a conversation about the secret ‘sense’ of women. Unfortunately we never found out what it was, because his conversation was circular, and he counted other human senses endlessly on his fingers, never getting to the point.

He described his intimate knowledge of this difficult stretch of river, and then had a bright idea. he would show us us how he could travel against the tricky current on the other side of the island, and return to this side without tipping over. Please – no! But before we could stop him he was back in the boat.

Immediately it got stuck on a bank of stones. We waited patiently as he tried to prize himself off. It made us feel anxious to watch, but we’d already witnessed that his past experience could shine through his drunken haze, so we waited hopefully. It took a while, but then he was off, and roared up the river like a man at the wheel on a racing track, playing to the crowds – in this case, just us. He did it twice, just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, and then zoomed back down the river and disappeared from sight.

His life always looks in danger when we see him. We hope his luck holds out and we’ll see him in another five years.



When you wait for a bus and then two arrive at the same time

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Mon, July 06, 2020 12:19:07

It’s a quiet sort of life, in a bed and breakfast that’s shut, during a pandemic. We don’t generally meet people, and our days are spent at home, or out in the landscape, alone.

Lots of time to think about things. Lots of time to worry about the drip drip. The roof has been leaking since the snow began to melt at the end of April, and when we stop worrying about our health and the state of the world then we worry about the leak.

A couple of months ago we were waiting for our man, someone who’d said he’d come and look at our leak. He came, although not when we expected – because we know, you always have to wait. He said he’d fixed it, but he hadn’t. In the following weeks neither he, nor any other company, returned our calls. We continued to hear drip drip.

Summer is sacred in Sweden, and from 29th June everyone is on holiday. It’s traditional, not being able to get anything done at this time. Summer closures happen everywhere, including libraries and swimming pools. Just at a time when people have time to use them, the staff take their vacation and close them down. So while up until now it’s been borderline OK to go to the swimming pool, now it’s summer opening times and people can only go there a few hours day, it’s packed out and way too risky to visit. Yes, in Sweden we’re all supposed to be keeping a physical distance – unless we don’t feel like it, for instance if we go to the swimming pool where apparently the usual advice doesn’t apply. I took one look at the crowds in the pool yesterday and came straight home.

But I digress; summer is when things close down and people won’t return your calls. Not much hope of getting our roof fixed then. We had the bucket catching the drips, and had to just hope the next month or so wouldn’t be wet. This morning there was an extra dripping spot on the ceiling, and the stress of it forced Rolf to call the first roof fixers again – the ones who’d failed at it before, and the ones who hadn’t returned his calls since. That’s how desperate he felt. But this time the man answered the phone.

We were so excited at the promise he’d be with us to have a look in half an hour that we forgot that Rolf had booked doctor’s telephone appointment at roughly the same time. He arrived just before the appointment, went up on to the roof, and before we knew it was back in his van and off again. We didn’t know whether he’d gone to collect the right materials to fix a hole, or what.

Then a few minutes later another white van turned up and two workmen appeared – had we sent them an email enquiry about our leak a few days ago?

A hasty phone call to the first roof fixer established that his plan was the same as before, to sell us a new roof ladder, which we weren’t convinced was a solution, so we said we’d be in touch and rushed out to the waiting workmen to invite them on to the roof. Rolf’s phone appointment began around this time, and ten minutes later the workmen knocked on the door to show me images of the suspected cause of the leak, said they’d go and get the materials and come back to fix it. And what’s more, they did.

It seems we’d achieved the impossible. In just one hour, during Sweden’s sacred holiday period, we’d got two lots of workmen to come out and look at our roof, one of them had been on the roof, driven away to pick up materials, and come back and fixed it, and Rolf had had a doctor’s appointment.

So much excitement and interaction in just one hour, after weeks inaction. I’ll need to lie down for a while to recover.



Here comes summer

Here at 68 degrees Posted on Sat, July 04, 2020 13:32:16

Summer in Kiruna is like no other. To start with, it comes later than you can imagine. When everywhere else has already become a bit tired of warm sunny days, Kiruna still has snow. Then when it comes, it bursts at you, the rivers overspilling their banks and the greenery growing as you watch it. Twenty four hours of daylight takes some getting used to, and the days have no boundaries. Anything goes.

The weather is unreliable, in terms of a summer. It can be hot, but it’s always changeable. The temperature dropped from 26 degrees to 3 degrees in one day this week. After a blaze of glory a more common summer drizzle is now feeding the greenery and insects. Birds arrived early in anticipation of the richness of growth that comes from constant daylight and now they get their reward. A Kiruna summer has a certain style, a different edge to further south in Sweden. For one thing, we’re not very big on midsummer. For one thing, at that time summer has barely arrived. The national 19th century revival of Swedish folk traditions at midsummer – maypoles and garlands, dancing and folksy regional costumes, and white wine drunk from fine cut glass – aren’t a big feature here. Instead we have more local traditions – like cruising round town in your classic American or vintage car.

I know it doesn’t sound very local, the American car, but Kiruna youth have made it their own. Over the winter months yards all over town conceal a few old cars under a blanket of snow which in the spring emerge, each one like an exotic butterfly from a chrysalis, their brightly coloured paintwork and chrome polished to gleaming before taking to the road. A car full of people is the ideal, and usually driven late in the day, which means all night here. It’s so much a tradition there’s even a local club for it – ‘The Midnight Sun Cruisers’. Going nowhere in particular, just taking the air, windows down, music playing, engine roaring. Up and down. That’s summer.

The view from a car window isn’t pretty. Kiruna is a bit of an ugly duckling at this time of year. Debris and building waste, well hidden over the winter months, is revealed in all its glory (given the few months every year without snow the incentive to tidy them up isn’t great). The local council makes a bit of an effort, cutting some grass and putting out a few flower pots, but it doesn’t really make up for the general feeling of town, which is basically ‘industrial wasteland with mountain views’. Most people don’t care or even notice. We are a colour-deprived people all winter, in a landscape of white and grey, so when the snow goes we are overjoyed by colour, our eye settling on this to the exclusion of all else.

The sound of summer – the roar of the classic car, music fading in the air that’s chasing its blaring exhaust – is also the louder and more persistent roar of ‘triangle’ cars crawling up the hill. A large red triangle means ‘child at the wheel’. Well, maybe not child, but 14 year old anyway. Unbelievably it’s allowed here, on the grounds that teenagers were always allowed to drive farm vehicles, so if they pimp their parents’ old cars – or even their new cars – to a different engine strength and display the triangle, they’re allowed to drive them anywhere. And they do – constantly, up and down. Again, mainly through the night, like the classic car cruising, going nowhere in particular, for no particular purpose.

That’s really the joy of a summer in Kiruna. No particular place to go.



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