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.
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.
I am originally from Sweden, but I’ve lived in Texas for more than 20 years and in the US for 30 years. Therefore, I forgot June 6, which is the Swedish National Day. It is still June 6 in California and Hawaii but not in Texas and certainly not in Sweden, so I am a day late. I forgot. A blogger who isn’t even Swedish incidentally reminded me. It is also a special National Day because it is the 500-year anniversary of Sweden’s independence from Denmark.
Swedish Flag
Christian the Tyrant, or as the Danes call him Christian the Good, was a very bad man who chopped people’s heads off. The Danish version of history is that Christian the Good was a very good man who tried to save the Union. He still chopped off heads though. Luckily, we had this guy Gustav Vasa (or Gustav Wasa) who resisted, and he became king of Sweden on June 6, 1523, which is 500 years ago. He was also really good at skiing.
Portrait of Gustav Vasa (from Wikipedia Commons).
Therefore, I have decided to post a couple of photos of the only Swedish Leonberger I’ve ever met personally, I haven’t been back to Sweden a lot. Her name is Amie, and she is from my neck of the woods, the high coast in northern Sweden. We met her at the top of a mountain, called the Skule mountain. Therefore, she is also the only Leonberger mountaineer I’ve ever met. To check out my original Amie post click here.
Amie at the top of the Skule Mountain.Amie was playful but very well behaved.
Amie was very happy and playful despite having climbed a mountain. Below is what Amie and we saw from the mountaintop.
View from the Skule Mountain top (skull mountain).
I am also posting a few more photos from Sweden.
My kids at the ice hotel in northern Sweden (Jukkasjärvi).My wife and kids getting ready for a dogsled tour in northern SwedenThe dog sled. My wife and kids in the back.
One thing that is pretty unique about Sweden is the different concept of private property. You can own the fruits of property, a farmer’s field, a mine, but the land belongs to everyone regardless of who owns it. Well almost everywhere, there are a few exceptions such as military reservations and you have stay at least 200 meters away from dwellings. It’s called “Allemansrätten”, or all-peoples-right translated roughly. This means that you can walk, hike, camp, pick berries and mushrooms, etc., anywhere without having to worry about trespassing. You just can’t walk off with the gold from a goldmine or a farmer’s crop. This is very different from how it works in Texas. However, everyone in Sweden love it and we certainly take advantage of it when we visit. In the picture below we were hiking, and we stopped at this small forest lake and someone had hung a tire from a branch.
My son is jumping off a tire into a forest lake.The guard by Stockholm Castle and my kids
Leonberger Life 