ARCTIC NORWAY - Day 2, Snowmobile and Minus 30 degrees celsius

Sleep eluded me again until the small hours. The Aurora danced outside, restless as my thoughts, though I could not say which kept me awake longer. At 4 AM, I surrendered to a half-pill, knowing Frode would come at 10:30 to take me into the mountains. By 9:30, a fleeting moment of wakefulness allowed me to text him, asking for an extra half-hour, and soon I drifted back off to sleep. 

A hammering sound startled me awake. It was Frode, slamming a broom against the windowpanes to wake me up, as the door was locked for the night. Frode had not seen the message. He arrived as planned—earlier, in fact. I stumbled to the door, threw it open, asked him inside and to give me a minute. He sat down in the kitchen, while I scrambled to dress, gulped down hurried sips of coffee, and made do with a few bites of half-ready porridge. 

The layers of clothing went on, piece by piece, prepared by Hilde the other day. Frode stepped out to start the snowmobile and soon I could hear growling of its engine.The air bit at my face at -18°C as I left the house and placed myself behind Frode on the machine. The sky was beautifully lit by the orange pink hues of Arctic January. 

The trail began winding through the towering pines. Their branches sagged under the weight of snow, the hum of the snowmobile was the only sound against the vast quiet of the white world. All trace of the land beneath was swallowed by whiteness.

The ride was a mix of smooth stretches and jolting bumps. As we climbed, the trees disappeared, and the landscape opened into wide, treeless plains. We kept going higher, up into the flat, vast snowy ridges of the mountains. The landscape was unfolding around us - the white, unbroken wilderness stretched to the horizon. We were driving towards where the sun would be below the horizon.

Frode brought the machine to a halt on top of a mountain, in the middle of the vast, unbroken sea of snow and ice bathed in the eerie orange and pink winter glow. Standing there I felt an odd blend of insignificance and awe.

He pulled out a thermos and a pouch of dried reindeer meat—in thin strips, which he prepared himself—simple, rich, and delicious. Then came another pouch that looked like a sad, beige blob of fat slices, which instantly reminded me of mattak, whale blubber, but with none of the flair of whale skin. I resolved to try it anyway. "Everything at least once" was my motto, in regard to food, of course. My fears were unfounded—it was just pastry stripes with apple and cinnamon spread thinly inside.

Frost crept into my fingers and toes, its sting unyielding, yet the raw, crystalline beauty of the world around me I wanted to take in kept my attention more than the pain. I hoped this inconvenience would not turn to disaster and I remembered to move my toes and fingers.

The return journey tested my endurance. The cold grew sharper as the light began to fade, numbing extremities and drawing energy from muscles. But the beauty of the experience was undeniable. Each jolt of the trail, each gust of icy wind, was a reminder of the unyielding environment I was privileged to experience.