René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

New challenges bear new solutions. It's no different when the outside temperatures strike -32° C like today. A few experiences after almost a week in the arctic cold of Levi in Lapland (Finland): 

• Clear sky almost always means darn cold temperatures, clouds tend to contain the air and make it feelingly warmer. 
• There is no such thing as "just going out" and putting on clothes. Dressing becomes a procedure which has to be done with diligence. Layer by layer, to the point where it becomes unbearable in the warm hotel room and just right when you step out. Any hole, any gap have to be hermetically closed. The cold will just creep in otherwise. So dressing is more like putting on the gear for diving or feeling like an astronaut. 
• Moving outside is a good idea, the more briskly the better – then it gets pleasantly warm, yet never really hot. The reward for a 16 km cross-country skiing, partly uphill, with a view on the sun in a flat angle looks like this. The snow on the pristine slope gets coloured red, something I have never seen before.



• Trivial things become a problem: Accidentally breathing into the direction of your camera immediately deposits ice on the its lens, the warm inner side of the gloves will get it away, however leave some stains. Yet, better that nothing. 
• Driving on a snow-mobile like today puts even higher challenges for clothing: Imagine sitting on a motorbike while your body is moving with 100 km/h at times through air which is -32 degrees cold. The dressing there brought me seven layers on the upper body, an overall over all other clothes and the necessary balaclava make you look as if you were part of an anti-terror operation.



• Driving the snowmobile is great fun, incredible how fast these vehicles accelerate over snow and ice. The handholds and the throttle are heated, but it takes a while till the effect kicks in and till then the cold air at the hands in spite of the gloves (they were my weak-point in the clothing) made me almost go mad. My right thumb almost three hours afterwards is still recovering. 



• In the hut for warming up at the lake, the owner lit a fire where our group immediately followed an archaic human drive to gather around it. It felt wonderful till it became burning hot if one stayed too long to close to the fire, while just two meters away from the fire everything was started to freeze like my balaclava which was lying on the wooden bench. In the hut we might have brought the temperature "up" to estimated minus 8 degrees.
• Some outside activities require the bare naked hands, like putting on the maggots as bait on the hook for ice-fishing (where by the way you have a plastic "ice spoon" to clear the hole every 15 minutes before it starts to close again from ice.) Knowing that you have to use your naked hands makes you very deliberate in this suddenly very scarce resource of your hands. You think of each and every step you can do with your gloves and you do so, before you actually take your gloves off. Then you have approximately two minutes before the hands become numb and useless, where everything you long for is putting them back into the gloves. (No catch of fish today, it must have been to cold for them as well …)

Although all these points appear just like a accumulation of hardships, this stay in Lapland at arctic winter is still one of the best experiences in my life. Just because it pushes the envelope further in an area which is so far completely new territory. Ultimately, local people have been living here since humanity was traced. If they can survive, I will to. At least I will do everything to learn from them how it works.