This blog feature amusing and heartwarming stories about our late Leonberger dog Bronco, as well as other Leonbergers. It also has a lot of information about the Leonberger breed, the history, care, training, Leonberger organizations, etc. I also wrote a Leonberger book, which I am featuring in the sidebar.
I grew up in northern Sweden (Norrland), which means that I saw a lot of snow. I loved playing in the snow, building snow castles, snow tunnels, throwing snowballs, building snowmen, going sledding and going cross country skiing. I don’t remember being cold. I had warm clothes on, and I often stayed out very late playing in the snow. Now I live in Texas where snow is very rare.
Snow on the trees, Gällivare county, Swedish Lapland, Sweden Shutterstock Asset id: 2035482680 by Mats LindbergCross country skiing in Sweden Shutterstock Asset id: 1888204651 by Henrik A. Jonsson
Later in life, maybe at the age of 12-13 I also started doing downhill skiing / slalom. We had four ski resorts close to my hometown Örnköldsvik. I can add that the snow packed northern forests can be very beautiful. Northern Sweden is also a very dark place in winter, being close to or above the arctic circle. Therefore, I also watched some spectacular night skies and auroras from my snow castles. The Milky Way and even the Andromeda Galaxy were visible. One time as I was sitting in the snow, I saw a very large meteor moving across the sky. It had a tail of fire and was not moving too fast. I believe I could see the piece of rock, but I am not sure. In any case, it put up a show.
Milky way sky on dark background, and a lot of stars. Spectacular night sky in the polar winter. Asset id: 2524020369 by MR.PRAWET THADTHIAMAurora Borealis are often spectacular in the polar regions, especially during the polar night. Asset id: 2499746583 by HappyVibeArt
Unfortunately, according to my brother, this winter my hometown Örnsköldsvik did not have snow for Christmas. According to Science Daily the data from weather stations in northern Sweden indicates that the snow season has decreased by over two months in a 30-year span and according to the National Library of Medicine the cold season in northern Finland (next doors) has gotten warmer with reduced snow cover. This is quite noticeable and the reindeer are suffering as a result.
I should say that Jukkasjärvi is located north of the arctic circle and is typically very cold in winter. However, you sleep in very warm sleeping bags on top of ice blocks covered by reindeer hides. The ice hotel itself does not have any bathroom, but they have an adjacent wood building with bathrooms and showers. They also have rooms for people who don’t want to sleep in a cold ice room. We visited the ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi as a family in 2004 and I took a lot of photos.
The lobby of the ice hotel. Our kids are sitting around a table of ice. A chandelier of ice is hanging above the table. The light is from fiber optics, so the ice won’t melt.Another photo of the lobby at the ice hotel. My son David is barely visible behind one of the ice pillars.One of the beautiful hallways in the Ice Hotel.My oldest son sitting at an ice table in the lobby.Entrance to the ice bar where you could food and drink and sit on ice chairs by ice tables.We started the evening with a visit to the ice restaurant and bar. Everything in the ice restaurant was made of ice, the tables, the chairs, the counter, the glasses, the plates, and the art.Close up of ice glasses on the ice counter in the ice bar.This is a photo of the ice instruments standing on the ice stage.A close up of an ice cello and an ice guitar.This is a portion of an ice organ in the ice bar.My dad Stig and his girlfriend Ulla came with us on the trip.We are going to bed in our room. I think it was my wife Claudia who took the photo.This was the hallway where our room was located.We are going on a dogsled tour. The ice theater is in the background, and you can see part of the ice hotel on the right.The kids had a lot of fun during the dogsled tourOn the left is a kåta, a movable Sami structure (indigenous arctic Scandinavian people).This is the ice theater. It was located next to the ice hotel (not in the picture).
The ice hotel had put out lots of kick sleds, referred to as “spark” for people to use as a mode of transportation on the snow and ice, or just to sit on. As my dad, Stig, was sitting on one of them, our son came up to him and told him “Stig the hotel put out these sleds for children to play with. It is not for adults to sit on.” My dad was so surprised that he just handed him the sled.
Our son David with one of the kick sleds called “spark”.They got the ice blocks for the structure and for the art from nearby Torneå river.
The next day I took photos of some other rooms
Another room with a snowy wall decoration.Some of the rooms were really beautiful.Some of the rooms had beautiful ice art.You had to pay more for a big room. You paid the price of Hilton and got the comfort of camping in winter.More ice art.
My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.
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48 thoughts on “Snow and Ice in Norrland”
It’s unbelievable how the north is being affected by climate change. During my last year in NWT we had 30° in June! This was followed by huge forest fires all over the north as high temperatures caused a drought and extremely dry conditions. Elders had never seen anything like it.
Thank you so much Lynette. Yes it seems to be a lot more visible up north. The shorter snow seasons are obvious to me (compared to my childhood). In northern Sweden we’ve had temperatures above 30 degrees several times lately, and in 2018 we had record heat, record drought, and crazy wildfires. The reindeers are getting sick and crazy.
Wow amazing pictures! I want to go to the ice hotel .
On the climate change note the North Western US has gotten so much hotter from when I was a kid , and so many wild fires too . I miss the nice snow days as well now that’s I’m living in a desert in the southwest
Thank you so much oliveunicorn. The Ice Hotel is indeed a lot of fun, but you can’t be to sensitive to the cold. I guess good clothes are important. In Northern Sweden we see the problem that you’ve noticed in North Western US.
I agree lbrcorner☕︎. The Moose Room is really cool. I wish I had booked that. However, I went with the cheapest option (as you might guess from the photo).
Thank you Carol Anne. Yes it was a lot of fun for the kids, and me, but my wife got cold. She left the room in the middle of the night and went to the wood building next door. It was heated.
There’s an ice hotel near Quebec City, but I’ve never stayed in onel. Your pictures make it look very pretty, especially some of the more expensive rooms. We did stay in a salt hotel near Uuyni, Bolivia. Everything was built from salt and it was also very cold. Maggie
Yes I know about the one in Quebec. I believe they have cooperated. I should say the Swedish one is the original and the biggest ice hotel. The salt hotel sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve been in a salt mine with salt statues in Romania. Thank you Maggie.
That’s what my wife said. She left the room in the middle of the night and stayed at a nearby heated wooden building, also part of the hotel. But the kids had fun. Thank you Di.
What a fantastic post. I really enjoyed it – and those pictures of the ice hotel and your experience are amazing! It’s sad that your hometown didn’t have snow for Christmas this year and that there’s less snow. We can’t deny the effects of global warming.
Thank you so much Esther for your kind words and for doing the prompt. You are right, the effects of global warming are easy to see up north, at least if you are an old guy who’ve seen the change like me.
Lulu: “I want to go play in all that snow! I am half Malamute and a quarter Husky you know!” Charlee: “So you want to go pull a sled … ?” Lulu: “I said ‘play’, not ‘work’.”
Oh I did not know that you are a half Malamute and a quarter Husky, Lulu. Yes I think you would love the cold and the snow. Charlee and Lulu, you don’t have to work, you can play all day long.
That is super cool ― I would love to visit one of these ice hotels someday. We went to an ice castle in Colorado once but compared to this that was like a county fireman’s field days compared to, say, Disneyland.
Yes the Ice Hotel in northern Sweden had 150 rooms available when we visited. It is big. The cheapest rooms were about two hundred dollars and the most expensive close to a thousand, but you also had to get there. We took a train from Örnsköldsvik after flying from Dallas to Stockholm and then another short flight to Örnsköldsvik. If you are not visiting something else, like relatives in Örnsköldsvik like we did, you either fly or take the train from Stockholm.
You are so lucky to have seen these natural wonders in the sky! The Aurora Borealis is on my bucket list. If I saw a good AB show, I would not want to leave the scene. When I was 5 and 6, my dad was stationed at a military base in Argentia Newfoundland. I think I was too young to fully appreciate it then, but we did see blue ice. As an adolescent, I longed to live in a place with snow where I could get a Rocky Mountain (Natural) High. Now that I’m older, I’d prefer the warmer rooms of the beautiful ice hotel. Thankfully we got a good snow last winter, so it’s possible to see some again, but it is getting warmer. Sorry about the reindeer. Thank you for the beautiful photos!
Thank you so much JoAnna. Yes staying in the heated wooden hotel building is a comfortable alternative to am Ice Hotel room and Jukkasjärvi is an especially good spot to see Aurora Borealis. We did not see any when we were there but it wasn’t why we were there and we stayed only one night. However, I’ve seen some incredible ones in northern Sweden. Blazing colors of the entire spectrum looking like the night sky was on fire. It is so far north that it is easy to see. One time an Aurora Borealis set off a panic in my home town. It was an unusually spectacular one and people thought they saw Jesus face in the Aurora Borealis and they thought it was the end of the world.
Yes the food in the Ice Bar was cold. It was just vegetables and other cold stuff. However, there was a wooden heated building next to the Ice Hotel where you went for dinner at a good restaurant. I remember the kids loved the warm cloudberry sauce with vanilla ice cream dessert they gave us after our meal. You are right, global warming is very visible in the artic and arctic flora and fauna like reindeers are hurting and getting sick.
I so very much enjoyed your photos of the ice hotel. Your children will surely have extraordinary memories of staying there. Great experience to have given them!
Beautiful images! 😍 Growing up in the far north must have given you a high tolerance for cold, which would make things more enjoyable at the ice hotel, Thomas. 😎 (I would have bailed! 🥶)
It’s alarming that global warming has changed the climate so much, in a relatively short period of time.
Thank you so much Debbie. As I’ve grown older I’ve noticed my tolerance for cold has diminished a bit, or maybe it is because I’ve lived in Texas for 25+ years. When I did my Swedish army service we slept outside in forty below. You are right, climate has changed hotter and colder but it typically took many thousands or millions of years, now we are changing climate signficantly in less than a hundred years, a record pace.
Hi Thomas. I remember seeing a post on your other blog with the ice hotel. I couldn’t even imagine sleeping in it, lol. Yes, the snow pants are same as what we grew up with as kids. 😊
Thank you so much Debby. At the ice hotel they rented out the overalls to anyone (child or adult) that did not have clothes that were warm enough. The kids did not seem to notice that it was cold. They are very warm. They are great for adults too.
You are right kids are resilient. As a kid I was rolling around in the snow and don’t remember ever being cold. When our son was two years old, and we lived in Sweden, we were going to take him outside when it was minus 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) and when we got out my wife said, too cold, and we took him back inside. He had a major hissing fit and screamed he wanted to go outside. He did not feel cold.
Yes I saw on TV how Canadians are born. They don’t come out of a womb. They come out of a hole in the ice and as soon as they are on the ice they stand up and start playing ice hockey.
Hi Thomas, the pictures of the ice hotel never cease to amaze me. What you say about the changing weather in Sweden and Finland is alarming. In SA, animals are mating at the wrong time of year.
Thank you Robbie. The Ice Hotel is a fun place and you can take good photos. Some people opt out of staying in the Ice Hotel and just stay in the heated building and they take lots of photos instead. There is a time, before checkin, where you can walk around and take photos of the rooms. You are right, the eco systems around the workd are changing rapidly and I am sorry to hear that the animals in South Africa are mating at the wrong time of year.
Leonberger Life 
It’s unbelievable how the north is being affected by climate change. During my last year in NWT we had 30° in June! This was followed by huge forest fires all over the north as high temperatures caused a drought and extremely dry conditions. Elders had never seen anything like it.
A lovely collection of photos, Thomas.
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Thank you so much Lynette. Yes it seems to be a lot more visible up north. The shorter snow seasons are obvious to me (compared to my childhood). In northern Sweden we’ve had temperatures above 30 degrees several times lately, and in 2018 we had record heat, record drought, and crazy wildfires. The reindeers are getting sick and crazy.
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Wow amazing pictures! I want to go to the ice hotel .
On the climate change note the North Western US has gotten so much hotter from when I was a kid , and so many wild fires too . I miss the nice snow days as well now that’s I’m living in a desert in the southwest
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Thank you so much oliveunicorn. The Ice Hotel is indeed a lot of fun, but you can’t be to sensitive to the cold. I guess good clothes are important. In Northern Sweden we see the problem that you’ve noticed in North Western US.
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I really like the room with the moose. It’s all so very creative.
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I agree lbrcorner☕︎. The Moose Room is really cool. I wish I had booked that. However, I went with the cheapest option (as you might guess from the photo).
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I would have done the same. 😊 The Sami structure is similar to the tipi in the region I’m from which is in Alberta. CA.
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That is interesting. I’ve heard Alberta is beautiful. Thank you lbrcorner☕︎.
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Thank you
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I would love to visit the ice hotel! That must’ve been an experience! One to remember, for sure! X
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Thank you Carol Anne. Yes it was a lot of fun for the kids, and me, but my wife got cold. She left the room in the middle of the night and went to the wood building next door. It was heated.
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Beautiful photos of all the ice hotel rooms, and also the sky photos. I enjoyed reading your comments about what you saw and did while there. 🙂
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Thank you so much Barbara. It was a lot of fun for the kids. My wife was a bit cold but she was born in Brazil.
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There’s an ice hotel near Quebec City, but I’ve never stayed in onel. Your pictures make it look very pretty, especially some of the more expensive rooms. We did stay in a salt hotel near Uuyni, Bolivia. Everything was built from salt and it was also very cold. Maggie
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Yes I know about the one in Quebec. I believe they have cooperated. I should say the Swedish one is the original and the biggest ice hotel. The salt hotel sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve been in a salt mine with salt statues in Romania. Thank you Maggie.
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A great tour of the Ice Hotel, Thomas. So fascinating.
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Thank you so much John. The kids had a lot of fun.
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😊
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That looks really cold!
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That’s what my wife said. She left the room in the middle of the night and stayed at a nearby heated wooden building, also part of the hotel. But the kids had fun. Thank you Di.
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What a fantastic post. I really enjoyed it – and those pictures of the ice hotel and your experience are amazing! It’s sad that your hometown didn’t have snow for Christmas this year and that there’s less snow. We can’t deny the effects of global warming.
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Thank you so much Esther for your kind words and for doing the prompt. You are right, the effects of global warming are easy to see up north, at least if you are an old guy who’ve seen the change like me.
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Lulu: “I want to go play in all that snow! I am half Malamute and a quarter Husky you know!”
Charlee: “So you want to go pull a sled … ?”
Lulu: “I said ‘play’, not ‘work’.”
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Oh I did not know that you are a half Malamute and a quarter Husky, Lulu. Yes I think you would love the cold and the snow. Charlee and Lulu, you don’t have to work, you can play all day long.
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That is super cool ― I would love to visit one of these ice hotels someday. We went to an ice castle in Colorado once but compared to this that was like a county fireman’s field days compared to, say, Disneyland.
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Yes the Ice Hotel in northern Sweden had 150 rooms available when we visited. It is big. The cheapest rooms were about two hundred dollars and the most expensive close to a thousand, but you also had to get there. We took a train from Örnsköldsvik after flying from Dallas to Stockholm and then another short flight to Örnsköldsvik. If you are not visiting something else, like relatives in Örnsköldsvik like we did, you either fly or take the train from Stockholm.
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You are so lucky to have seen these natural wonders in the sky! The Aurora Borealis is on my bucket list. If I saw a good AB show, I would not want to leave the scene. When I was 5 and 6, my dad was stationed at a military base in Argentia Newfoundland. I think I was too young to fully appreciate it then, but we did see blue ice. As an adolescent, I longed to live in a place with snow where I could get a Rocky Mountain (Natural) High. Now that I’m older, I’d prefer the warmer rooms of the beautiful ice hotel. Thankfully we got a good snow last winter, so it’s possible to see some again, but it is getting warmer. Sorry about the reindeer. Thank you for the beautiful photos!
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Thank you so much JoAnna. Yes staying in the heated wooden hotel building is a comfortable alternative to am Ice Hotel room and Jukkasjärvi is an especially good spot to see Aurora Borealis. We did not see any when we were there but it wasn’t why we were there and we stayed only one night. However, I’ve seen some incredible ones in northern Sweden. Blazing colors of the entire spectrum looking like the night sky was on fire. It is so far north that it is easy to see. One time an Aurora Borealis set off a panic in my home town. It was an unusually spectacular one and people thought they saw Jesus face in the Aurora Borealis and they thought it was the end of the world.
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What exciting experiences! We live on a spectacular and wonderful planet!
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Yes you are right JoAnna. So much to see and experience here on our planet.
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I’m shivering just looking at these – the food must’ve been cold too? very sad what global warming is doing to us…
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Yes the food in the Ice Bar was cold. It was just vegetables and other cold stuff. However, there was a wooden heated building next to the Ice Hotel where you went for dinner at a good restaurant. I remember the kids loved the warm cloudberry sauce with vanilla ice cream dessert they gave us after our meal. You are right, global warming is very visible in the artic and arctic flora and fauna like reindeers are hurting and getting sick.
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I so very much enjoyed your photos of the ice hotel. Your children will surely have extraordinary memories of staying there. Great experience to have given them!
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Thank you so much Carol. Yes the kids had a lot of fun, staying there, dog sled tour, ice fishing, playing in the snow, using the kick sleds, etc.
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Beautiful images! 😍 Growing up in the far north must have given you a high tolerance for cold, which would make things more enjoyable at the ice hotel, Thomas. 😎 (I would have bailed! 🥶)
It’s alarming that global warming has changed the climate so much, in a relatively short period of time.
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Thank you so much Debbie. As I’ve grown older I’ve noticed my tolerance for cold has diminished a bit, or maybe it is because I’ve lived in Texas for 25+ years. When I did my Swedish army service we slept outside in forty below. You are right, climate has changed hotter and colder but it typically took many thousands or millions of years, now we are changing climate signficantly in less than a hundred years, a record pace.
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Hi Thomas. I remember seeing a post on your other blog with the ice hotel. I couldn’t even imagine sleeping in it, lol. Yes, the snow pants are same as what we grew up with as kids. 😊
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Thank you so much Debby. At the ice hotel they rented out the overalls to anyone (child or adult) that did not have clothes that were warm enough. The kids did not seem to notice that it was cold. They are very warm. They are great for adults too.
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That is so cool. They rent them out. I’m sure many wanted them, lol. Kids, they are resilient, lol. 🙂
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You are right kids are resilient. As a kid I was rolling around in the snow and don’t remember ever being cold. When our son was two years old, and we lived in Sweden, we were going to take him outside when it was minus 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) and when we got out my wife said, too cold, and we took him back inside. He had a major hissing fit and screamed he wanted to go outside. He did not feel cold.
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You see. Kids from Canada and Sweden are built differently! Lolol. 🙂
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Yes I saw on TV how Canadians are born. They don’t come out of a womb. They come out of a hole in the ice and as soon as they are on the ice they stand up and start playing ice hockey.
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Lololol Thomas. You know the secret! 😂🤣😂
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Yes I saw it on YouTube
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Hi Thomas, the pictures of the ice hotel never cease to amaze me. What you say about the changing weather in Sweden and Finland is alarming. In SA, animals are mating at the wrong time of year.
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Thank you Robbie. The Ice Hotel is a fun place and you can take good photos. Some people opt out of staying in the Ice Hotel and just stay in the heated building and they take lots of photos instead. There is a time, before checkin, where you can walk around and take photos of the rooms. You are right, the eco systems around the workd are changing rapidly and I am sorry to hear that the animals in South Africa are mating at the wrong time of year.
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