Umeå's Finale

Umeå has been good to us. The city and it's surrounding area have provided us with tremendous opportunity to do more than our fair share of amazing things in the few days we've been here (not without significant amounts of help, however. Thanks Krister!). Today we experienced what I consider to be the culmination of what this area has to offer in terms of our study. The day began exactly the way the past few have been; breakfast at seven, consisting of muesli and smörgås. At the time, Eric was with Krister getting two large vans that we would use to get out of town and go meet some reindeer. Yes, you read correctly. Reindeer are some of the coolest animals on earth, for a variety of reasons. To save on time and space, all I'll say is that they can sniff out lichens from under the snow up to 80cm deep, and suggest that anyone interested does some research on their own. The reindeer are owned by Anna-Maria, who is a professional reindeer herder. These two are not actually part of the herd, and are domesticated reindeer that she and her mother keep as pets, essentially. Reindeer number one is named Lihkko, a Sami name that means happiness, and the bigger and older one is named Nos. We talked about reindeer and reindeer herding for a while with Anna-Maria and Lihkko, who is the friendlier of the two, whilst Nos munched on some tasty lichens nearby. Lihkko started to get hungry, so we took him up to join his friend. their ability to get food in the winter is crucial to their survival, so their hooves are very wide, which allows them to serve as snowshoes, but also to be an effective scoop to dig down to where the food is. After a little more conversation, it was time for us to go, because we were starting to get a little hungry.

Krister led our small van train to a beautiful area outside Umeå, on the coast. The sub-arctic sun was finally getting up past sunrise level, and was revealing a wonderful land and seascape that reminded me more than a little bit of the south shore of Lake Superior. The shining Gulf of Bothnia appeared to be frozen all the way across from our vantage point, but later on a ship going through in the distance revealed that there was still work going on in this area of the gulf. The arduous process of building a fire with wet, ice covered, wintry wood eventually yielded results, and gave us some more warmth and some heat to cook with. As much as we were enjoying the mellow afternoon, the sun sets swiftly in these reaches of the world, and we returned to our vans, tired in the satisfying way that comes naturally from a day spent outdoors.

Umeå has provided us with much, and although we are leaving so quickly, we have many more adventures ahead of us on our grand expedition.