Lapland: Arrival and Day 1

We began our stay in Swedish Lapland with a stop at a hotel in Jokk Mokk, a small town. We were provided with a buffet style breakfast, which was very good--lots of meats, fruits, breads, and other things. The milk was a bit difficult to figure out though. What I thought was milk, turned out to be some sort of yogurt, so I ended up with half yogurt looking stuff and half milk on my cereal.

We drove another couple hours to Kiruna, a mining town where we would be staying for one night (see hostel above). That afternoon we had a tour of the town, including a look inside the city hall. There isn't much to the town, just a few shops and cafes. The big thing is the mine. But there is also a space center. Supposedly they will be sending tourists into space soon. What's interesting about Kiruna is that there is a plan to start moving the town to a different location in  just a few years. The mines have formed a crack in the earth that is slowly moving toward the city. Some of the buildings like the Kiruna Church (see below) is being moved, but others like the city hall are too expensive to move and a new one will be built. Over the next few decades the city will be completely moved to a new location further away from the mine. However, a representative from the town hall told us that in 100 years they may have to do the exact same thing again. The picture below shows the map of the town divided into sections that will be moved in different years.

After the guided tour our group split off into the activities we had chosen and paid for before we left. Some people chose to do a combination snowmobiling and dog-sledding trip, and others (including me) chose to go on the mine tour. We traveled by bus about 300 m down into the mine. The whole mine is over 1000 m deep. Then, we got out and walked around. We watched a short video, and then went on a guided tour. We basically went in a circle and didn't really see much of the mine itself. They had demo stations set up with the equipment they would use, but we didn't get so see any real action. I hate to admit it but I was nearly falling asleep during the guided tour. For some reason I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Overall, a very interesting experience though. The Kiruna mine is the largest iron ore mine in the world. When we were at our second location, Abisko, we actually saw some of the railroad cars carrying iron ore to Narvik.

That night we had free time to make dinner with our housemates. Lara, Sarah and I were staying with two Danish girls for this leg of the trip. They were very nice and fun to stay with. That night a good majority of our group went out to a local bar to socialize.