Out in the wilds

Yesterday I had to be in Kiruna for a meeting about a new project which is starting up. For anyone who isn't familiar with the town of Kiruna, it lies about 350km north of my home town of Boden. It's main (and pretty much only) claim to fame is that it is the heart of the Swedish mining industry. It has drawn some extra attention of late due to the small fact that the entire town (30+ thousand people) is being moved several kilometers in order for the mining operation to expand. I had been to Kiruna once before, during a holiday to Sweden back in 2004. I'd also passed through the town by train several times on the way to Narvik in Norway. But this was the first time I had really spent any time of substance in the area. The prospect of spending 3+ hours driving each way, in the middle of winter, didn't appeal greatly to me. I like driving, but I do tend to get bored with it rather quickly. So I decided to book the morning train instead, giving me time to have a snooze and do some last minute revising for the meeting. I needed transport to get to the mine site, where the meeting was, so I arranged to rent a car for the day in Kiruna. I was quite chuffed with myself for arranging everything all on my own.

With all that taken care of, I casually threw my eye across the noticeboard on the Swedish rail website. At that point I discovered that they had been cancelling all trains through that region for the past several days due to the sudden cold snap. It had been hanging around in the mid to high -30s for about a week. The worry was that if the trains suddenly stopped out in the middle of nowhere then it would get very cold very quickly. Which was a fair enough concern. It annoyed me a little that they were happy to take my booking for the following day when the weather forecast was exactly as it had been for the previous few days. Without so much as a word of caution when one booked.

After humming and harring, and a good bout of general dithering, I decided to unbook all my clever bookings and hire a car to drive myself the whole way there and back. To be sure that I actually would make it there when I was supposed to. I did think about taking our own car before deciding that our client who has bucket loads of cash could spring for the cost of a rental.

So off I went. It wasn't the most enjoyable road driving conditions, with a lot of snow and ice. But the route is worth a mention. Sweden is not really famed for it's architecture. There are a few nice buildings scattered around the place, the majority of which are former military officers' residences. But, on the whole, many towns look a bit like they have come out of a film about life in the Eastern Bloc. It's more about function than form. Buildings in the north have to function correctly. If they happen to look nice, then that's an unintentional bonus. So don't bother coming up here if your passion is architecture. However, the road from the coast through to Gällivare and Kiruna is spectacular. Picture postcard forest for nearly 3 hours. I came across 3 elk, and 12 reindeer on the road during the drive up. They did move off the way, but none were in any great hurry to do so. It did get a little tiring watching out for wandering wildlife the entire time, especially during the drive home in the dark. But really a small price to pay for a genuine "feel good" road trip. What I find particularly of interest is the change in the environment during the trip, which is climatic. From a fairly temperate dense forest environment as you turn in from the cost, through to the sparcely forested "Russian tundra" type landscape as you venture further up above the Arctic Circle. That's quite an experience in the space of a couple of hours. I find driving through the harsher areas a bt intimidating. You can sense that it's nature, and not you, who is really in charge at that time. If something were to go wrong, it could end up very bad. I guess it's the cold equivalent of a desert.

That was my day. A long 13 hours overall. Try to experience the drive if you can, or at least the train ride through the area. It's a unique opportunity.