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Rafting the Arctic Rapids
| Article
# : |
13717 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1988 |
1,983 Words |
| Author
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Judy Wade
Judy Wade reports on adventure travel for Shape, Braniff
Destinations, and Caribbean Travel and Life, and is the
touring editor of Cyclist magazine. She packs and unpacks in
Van Nuys, California. |
The ten of us had been instructed to bring comfortable and appropriate clothing on this whitewater adventure in Sweden, and it had been subtly established by the tour company that we were all in good physical shape. Hey, how tough could it be? I cycle fifty miles a week. I'm in good shape.
By the fifth day, lurching over rapids in a rubber raft in the Kaitum River eighty miles above the Arctic Circle, my knee-high rubber boots sloshing with water, my crash helmet mashed over my wool cap, my frigid fingers clasping a paddle in a death grip, I found out how tough it could be. Yet the challenge of simply hanging in there, coupled with the raw beauty of a waterway on which we saw just one other human being in five days, was ample reward for hazards endured.
When this trip was planned some months before on the sunny, benign coast of Southern California, rafting down a roaring river in a fairly unknown slice of Sweden sounded like great fun. We figured a dose of Scandinavia would cure varying degrees of job burnout and city-stressed nerves. That it did, with fringe benefits that we hadn't bargained for.
With typical Scandinavian efficiency, the Scandinavian airline SAS got us to Stockholm, then on to Kiruna for a sunset landing. At 9.30 p.m. pine trees and small lakes formed a shadowy patchwork below. This close to the tree line, the land appeared desolate, as if it had never truly known the warming rays of the sun. It had the eerie beauty of a place where, one could imagine, it must be difficult to scratch out a living.
Land of the Midnight Sun
We had just missed the months when the sun never goes below the horizon. Now, in mid-August, we could expect at least a couple of hours of total darkness each night. At this hour there was plenty of light to see the terraced hillsides surrounding the town, evidence of the LKAB iron-ore mine. We were told that it is the world's largest underground iron-ore mine and Kiruna's economic mainstay.
Our three guides, Thomas, Gert (pronounced "Yet"), and Herman, met us at the tiny airport and piled our belongings into an ancient blue van. We were relieved to discover that they all spoke excellent English. At the Hotel Kiruna we found luxurious eiderdown duvets on our beds and bathrooms down the hall.
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