Scandiroads #10 - Midnattsol

God morn, Abisko. At first I had been somewhat confused with the absence of windows in my room, but after a sleep so deep that it took me some time to realize I was no longer in Norway, I understood. The midnightsun was even brighter here than I slowly had gotten used to in Norway, as the mountains here were not close enough nor high enough to block it. That also explained the somewhat dessert-alike feeling I experienced while driving the long road. Stretched, sunny, a yellow glaze on the grass and an orange glow over the mountains; there was no escaping the sun here for months. A rather extreme, yet also beautiful thing, after a long and cold winter. The sun was bringing the life back, yet still, at night, most of us want to sleep, which made me appreciate the first somewhat ‘the walls are closing in on me’ feeling.

If my phone wouldn’t have been such a reliable friend all these years, I’d call the time a liar. First of all I was totally confused that I’d been sleeping from 6PM till 1AM, and second of all: the brightness. The sun hadn’t been setting at the Lofoten islands either, but here it was just this big ball of shine in the air, which seemed intimidatingly powerful now that it kept its eye on us the entire time. Not that it was too hot, imagine it being hot day and night, no thank you. It was a perfect 15-ish degrees and a soft summer breeze made the leaves rustle. A car sometimes passed by, over the only road in the middle of this massive plain. It seemed like this was the world now, this plain filled with cosy gatherings of trees, violent rivers and waterfalls, and far, far away, the funny flat mountains. This was the world for me now, and there was no place where I’d rather be.

I was so excited for another midnightsun-hike, that I couldn’t get my shit together and walked back from the parking lot to my room about 4 times to take rather important items with me such as water and my camera, even my phone. But the phone would be off, my camera served a better purpose there, one that wouldn’t tempt me to share these images with the world immediately, but first, selfishly, enjoy them with me, myself and I. Yesterday I’d spotted an overwhelming amount of tracks that made my hiking-heart beat faster. And partly because of my fear for parking and partly because of my desire for hiking, I took, as we say it in Dutch, the ‘legcar’. The long street was totally abandoned, obviously, which made me feel like a lost little ant. I was going to have to be careful, as exciting as it is to submerge yourselves into the depths of nature, you’re not going to get anywhere if you do not realize, and admit, that you are nothing out there. Nature sweeps you out as if you’ve never existed when you’re getting too cocky. Cocky I was not, extremely excited I was, which could form the same threat. For the ones who’ve been watching the epic series of Midnattsol: obviously I would have been terrified to walk around by myself, but luckily I watched it after visiting the filming locations.

So there we went, me and my backpack, following the road, completely emerging into the silence and stillness of the nature. Nothing seemed to move or make a sound here, except for the roaring waters. Although, when I just started to get comfortable with this deafening silence, it was interrupted rudely by a sound so loud it seemed unnatural in this place. a steam train approached, like a noisy giant, on my left side, forming the pathway between the city of Kiruna and the mines that the city was thriving on. I stared, impressed with the old fashioned train just as much as the old fashioned ways this little city kept its little economy going. But, quickly, like a mole diving back underground, I became one with the silence again and kept following the road, clueless how far these hiking paths actually were. And there I found the first one, and not just any one, it was one very beloved or feared by hikers: Kungsleden, the Kingstrail. This trail is 425 kilometres long and therefore takes you on a wonderful journey through the mountains of Lapland. I admitted wholeheartedly that I was not, yet, ready for a trip like that, even looking at the start of this trail terrified me as if there wouldn’t be a way back. Nope, I safely took the other path ‘the canyon trail’ which sounded just as exciting, and a liiittle less intimidating.

I’d been hearing this thunder that only giants of waterfalls can produce, but so far I hadn’t been able to locate it, until now. On my far left, on top of a steep mountain top, was the source. A waterfall, dropping 125 metres downwards, so far away from me that it seemed like this silver line on a green mountainside. But open your inner eye that spots nature’s wonderful details and see, see how the violence of the water creates an endless amount of steam and ends up in a dangerously powerful river, that slowly found its way downwards, interrupted the road which forced the Swedes to buy an extremely powerful bridge, and now flowed right underneath me. The water was so wild that it existed out of several currents, vortices and waterfalls, impossible to escape if you were doomed to enter. But here it got a little more rough, the landscape around the river wanted to be at least as impressive as the river itself, and it’d done one hell of a job on that. For the first time in my life I saw a canyon, who has to go to America to see that? At least 10 metres of rocks shaped like a weapon, at least 10 shades of discoloured grey, surrounded the silverblue water rushing it’s way to the lake at its end. Despite the silver shade of the river, I could still see its rocky bottom underneath it, hidden behind this glaze of turquoise. Despite the dangerous shapes of the rocks at its side, I still saw birds flying up and down there, plants crawling over the edge where trees balanced for their lives. Nature was the only one invincible being on this planet.

A small path made out of wood as if I followed a little bridge, started curling its way trough the birch forest that luckily allowed a lot of light into it. Because even though the sun may be shining, this doesn’t mean the night isn’t present. You can feel it anywhere, in the cold evening air, the silence of nature resting except for the river who would never know retirement. And to be honest this is quite intimidating, I will openly admit that I felt slightly afraid sometimes to run into a crazy person, a bear, or whatever other creatures may be coming to life at night. But I’d been granted the golden opportunity to experience Swedish Lapland and the midnightsun at once, 2 miracles combined. Obviously, I wasn’t going to let that go. But I could feel all the nerves in my body being alert, which had nothing to do with the deadly canyons on my right. Quietly I followed the bridge with the river on my right and the birches on my left, and made a little jump when a bird left one of its trees. After following the path for a little more, suddenly the river seemed to be slowing down, the sound of thunder seemed to fade. And so it was, as I was nearing the porchway to Tornetrask lake.

That’s where my little bridge-path stopped, and where I could sit on a rock to reunite with the silence and stillness that by now were incredibly comforting. This is where the water went from violent to peaceful but not any less dangerous, being the deepest lake of Sweden. Behind it, a painting appeared, the painting that only turned out to be real when standing on its tops: the mountains. Like waves of green they stretched onwards, covered with shiny tops where the everlasting snow found its home. Like the kings of Abisko, they surrounded the park majestically, making me feel small and humble, and more than anything: grateful to be a part of it.

- It's an amazing life