Can you imagine my delight when I saw the post above. Sally Cronin from Smorgasbord Blog Magazine shared my post about super-fact 69:
Super fact 69 : Polar nights happen in the regions north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle. Together the two polar regions cover an area double as large as the United States, and it includes a population of millions of people. During a polar night the sun does not rise for days, or months, up to six months. The polar nights are special, not just for the daytime darkness, but for the spectacular aurora borealis, the starlit skies, the extremely clear air, and the fact that people often lose track of time during polar nights.
In her post she is also promoting my Leonberger dog book for which Diana Wallace Peach wrote a great review. Thank you so much Sally and Diana. Please visit her post above at the Smorgasbord blog magazine and read it.
Aurora Borealis are often spectacular in the polar regions, especially during the polar night. Asset id: 2499746583 by HappyVibeArt
Someone reminded me that today is the day of writing, so I decided to make a blog post even though I made one yesterday. This post is not about Leonbergers or dogs but about our visit to the ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi in northern Sweden. It was 2005 and the kids were still small. It was the first ice hotel in the world and is the biggest one.
I should say that Jukkasjärvi is located north of the arctic circle and is typically very cold in winter. The ice hotel itself does not have any bathroom, but they have an adjacent wood building with bathrooms, showers, and rooms for anyone who can’t stand the cold for too long. If you are OK with being a bit cold, you sleep in sleeping bags on top of blocks covered by reindeer hides. Below are some selected photos that I took.
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”.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.My oldest son sitting at an ice table in the lobby.They got the ice blocks for the structure and for the art from nearby Torneå river.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.This is a photo of the ice instruments standing on the ice stage.A close up of an ice cello and an ice guitar.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.
The day after I took some photos of the other rooms.
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 tour.
