Hej hej,

The month of March started on a bus full of eager students packed together like sardines somewhere a couple hundred kilometers south of the arctic circle. We’d had little to no sleep since we drove 22 hours overnight up north. As I mentioned in my last blog, I joined the trip to Hemavan in northern Sweden, which was organized by the Erasmus Student Network in Lund. (Side note: I just want to note at the beginning of this blog that I previously used the term ‘Lapland’ to describe the area we visited, but have since learned that this is a colonial and derogatory term for ‘Sápmi’, which is the land of the indigenous Sámi people this area and to this day remains colonized by the Nordic states. My friend sent me a fascinating essay on this topic written by a Sámi woman, which I can recommend reading if you haven’t yet: https://petralaiti.com/2025/01/14/why-are-we-still-calling-it-lapland-an-essay-about-calling-things-by-their-real-names/. But the point of this note is that this blog will no longer refer to it as ‘Lapland’.)

Anyway.

While the first March sun began to rise we took in the beauty of the snow-covered wilderness we found ourselves in. Upon arrival in the afternoon we met our wilderness guide and got ready for the first activity, which was a cross-country skiing workshop (running on three hours of sleep, now THAT is an extreme sport). There were a lot of silly falls during this workshop but it was also a lot of fun to get into the rhythm of the strides. I feel like I was able to get the hang of it, but man was it a workout, a bit like skiing and ice skating mixed while also moving yourself up and downhill. And apparently, it’s one of the most typically Swedish sports in existence. The first day ended with a welcome bonfire with hot tea despite the fact that it was also pouring actual buckets of snow at that exact moment.

The second day was spent in Møsjoen, Norway. This town lies in the fjords of northern Norway and is an unreal kind of gorgeous (I saw it with my own two eyes and I’m pretty sure Norway is not real). On the drive west our wilderness guide pointed out how the forests changed from mostly bare birch trees to full evergreen spruce trees. The mountains were as magnificent as ever and it was very special to be able to just stare at them for a couple hours as we drove. We made a stop at an icy rocky beach because our guide had (for some reason) convinced us that winter bathing was (and I quote:) ‘really nice’ (he’s just really Finnish, I guess). We got into our bathing suits and walked into the near-frozen water, only to discover that this was… not in fact ‘really nice’. It was everything but ‘really nice’. The excruciating pain from the cold and the sharp rocks was soon masked by a near instant numbness in any limb that was in the water. I couldn’t make it farther than knee deep. Some students went all the way though, and our guide told us that an Australian student once caught a light case of hypothermia from staying in the water too long (luckily he was fine in the end). We then continued to the Møsjoen zipline, which is the longest zipline in northern Europe (700m, about 40 seconds long). We climbed up large stone steps (’Helgelandstrappa’) that had been built by Sherpas some time ago and is apparently the longest stone staircase in the world. We only climbed a small part of it though, and they were covered in a thick layer of snow, making the ascent more of an extreme mountain climbing adventure than we’d signed up for. Luckily, both the view and the zipline were absolutely stunning and absolutely exhilarating. The day ended with a nighttime snowshoe hike in the untouched woodlands, where we strapped large contraptions to our feet to stop us sinking into the waist-deep snow. Not allowed to use any flashlights, we made our way through the woods after our wilderness guides (the fact that snow is white helped a lot). Our guides had us stop at a few moments to take in the cleanliness of the air, the silence of the forest through a practice called ‘forest bathing’ (which is basically lying down and mediating on the silence of the forest), they had us taste lichen from the trees and told us stories about the myths that viking and indigenous cultures have about the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights (though we didn’t see any that night).

The next day we woke at the crack of dawn to attend an arctic survival course, where we learned to create an emergency snowstorm shelter called a ‘snow grave’, and how to build a fire with birch wood and a fire steel. We then took a downhill skill class where we all took a few embarrassing falls, but in the end I was proud that I was able to pick up the technique. Guess you could say I absolutely shredded it on the kiddie slope. But I fear I do have some lasting scars from ill-fitting ski boots (that is a different kind of pain). The evening was spent in the high mountains where we were brought by a giant piste machine, we sat in a quaint little restaurant that served us waffles with reindeer meat and local berries. After a long day we got some good sleep to wake up early to leave for the Cold Nose Huskies kennel, which is also the home of the owners who regularly compete in (inter)national dog sledding competitions. After meeting the dogs we were taken on a dog sled safari in the sun through the woodland of southern Sápmi and over its frozen lakes. On our final night in Hemavan we visited the sauna before running back to our dorm through the snow in only a towel and flip-flops. After a refreshing shower we stayed up in hopes of seeing the northern lights and set back out into the snowy night just after midnight. We walked about an hour north and unfortunately didn’t see much because of the clouds, but caught some green flecks through our phone cameras. We then had to walk that same hour back at 2am through a mild blizzard.

It’s safe to say there was little sleeping that night, because check-out was early the next morning. We began our treacherous bus journey back to Lund, but made a stop along the way at a Sámi winter facility. This is a small area of land with houses and a roomy reindeer enclosure where these indigenous people of southern Sámi kept their reindeer in the wintertime. We were welcomed by a woman who told us about the area and let us meet and feed the reindeer, before being called into a very large teepee lined with reindeer skin and a warm campfire in the middle. It was massive, it fit about 60 people. We were served hot blueberry juice from the fire while the Sámi woman told us about their lifestyle, culture and history. She told us about how they earn their livelihood through herding reindeer, about how the Sámi people see the year as divided into eight seasons instead of four, and how late winter is her favorite one. She also told us about the impact of being colonized by the Nordic states and the systemic racism and hate crimes they have experienced throughout history (which they still experience to this day). This part of the trip was especially special to me and sparked my interest in the history of this people and the role that Scandinavian colonialism plays in it.

Shortly after returning from the trip, my gender studies course focused on colonialism in Scandinavia where I got to read more into the topic of oppression from the Swedish state. Learning about social change in Swedish history is absolutely fascinating, since the country is advertised to the outside world to be so egalitarian, moral and just. However, its history unfortunately shows us that this is not quite the case. I rounded off this gender studies course with working on a week-long essay exam and about three hundred million oat milk matcha lattes. Last week I began a new gender studies course titled ‘Gender equality according to the Scandinavian model - Gender, class, ethnicity and the welfare state’, which is already fascinating, so I’m very curious about the rest of the course. I also finished my Swedish oral, written and reading exams at A1 level and will begin the A2 level course tonight, which I will be taking until the end of the school year. Jaha!

The rest of March was spent rehearsing for Spex, Kalmar Nations’s musical for which I’ve been casted (save the dates, our shows are the weekend of 15-18 May!), celebrating st. Patrick’s day and friends’ birthdays, at Kalmar Nation’s fairytale themed workers sittning where we ended up at Max Burger (Scandinavian fast-food joint) at 4am in full costume, witnessing the Malmö Redhawks’ last hockey game of the season (they lost really bad, poor things), and hoping that the weather is not merely tricking us into thinking it’s spring. I think all of us exchange students here are feeling a little bittersweet at the moment because we’re now at our halfway mark. I’ve been doing a bunch of journalling about what this experience has meant for me so far, and it comes down to how this exchange is allowing me to experience a childlike lightness of being for the first time as an adult, it’s teaching me to say yes, it’s opened up my mind to envision my future in different parts of the world, and the people around me are teaching me to take up space as exactly who I am. It’s a big mess of exchange kid randomness that can be chaotic to navigate, but hen again, I feel it’s also all about learning to live in the moment and going with the flow of our days. Life right now kind of feels like a rollercoaster between days where three days happen in one, and days where I just need to catch my breath and do nothing. We might already be halfway, I also predict twice as much to happen in the spring months in comparison to the wintertime, and by that logic I guess we’re only a third of the way through the experience? Idk. This is the thought that keeps me from feeling really sentimental at the moment. I’m excited for what else is to come.

Vi pratar snart!

Ana