Part Two – Winter Wonderland with the Locals
You can read Part One – Östersund and Discover Dog Sledding in Jämtland here.
Bob from the Nature Travels team visited our Discover Dog Sledding in Jämtland and Winter Wonderland with the Locals experiences at the end of the winter season in April and found that it’s not just the beautiful spring sunshine that provides the warmth.
I waved a cheery goodbye to Jachym in Strömsund, grabbed a lunch baguette from the Coop, and boarded the bus for the two-hour ride to Norråker. We rolled through a lovely landscape of hills and forest, passing lakes still covered with ice and glistening brightly in the afternoon sun, until the bus pulled up right outside the village store. The store is owned and managed by Ida and Johannes, the hosts for our Winter Wonderland with the Locals experience (in Sweden’s remote countryside, hardly anyone has just one job – it’s quite common to have at least three!), and is the heart of village life.
Johannes met me at the store and we drove the few hundred metres to “Marjas Stuga”, perched very attractively up on the hill with a lovely view out over the lake and to the mountains beyond, where I’d be staying during my visit.
Packed with charm and atmosphere, the cabin is a great base for a stay here. Two other accommodation options are also available – an apartment above the store and two other apartments just opposite, which can also be excellent choices depending on the number and composition of your party, for example for families or a group of friends travelling together.
After being treated to a most excellent dinner of halloumi and wild mushrooms prepared expertly by Johannes, I retired to the cabin for a very peaceful night’s sleep indeed.
Waking refreshed next morning, I had just one full day to spend here, but we were going to make the most of it. Ida and Johannes had planned a morning sled trip with the dogs and an evening cart ride with the horses, punctuated by a bit of general looking around in the afternoon.
Who let the dogs out?
After a leisurely breakfast in my cabin, looking out over the lake to the hills beyond, I made my way down to their house to meet the family huskies – and a very adorable bunch they are, too! There were plenty of wagging tails and lolling tongues in evidence as we prepared the sled and readied the harnesses. Dogs know, perhaps better than any animal, and certainly a great deal better than us, how to live in the moment and have a really good time, and there is no sight more guaranteed to make you smile than an excited husky when they know there’s a run coming.
Ida has 10 dogs in total. “How many are we taking out today?” I asked. “All of them!” came the reply. Ooh, this was going to be fun.
With the spring melt much in evidence, the snow was a bit sparse down by the house and braking the sled was going to be a challenge for the first few hundred metres until we reached the forest, especially with the dogs so fresh and eager. So Johannes assisted us by tying our sled to the front of his snowmobile and using the snowmobile as a brake – a technique I’ve never seen before, but it worked beautifully. Once up at the start of the forest trail, we were ready to be “unleashed”!
With our 10 HP (Husky Power) “engine”, we really flew along the forest trails and out across the marshlands. It was just lovely to be out enjoying the view and the atmosphere with Ida, a skilled musher and experienced racer, at the helm behind. Good thing too, as the melting trail offered up a few interesting technical challenges along the first parts of the route, including an open stream which Ida skimmed us across expertly on the last narrow bit of snow bridge still remaining.
After a good run, we reached an appropriate spot to turn around, and at this point it was my turn to take the controls. Ida hopped on the snowmobile with Johannes, I took up position, released the brake, and the dogs took off.
I’ve been lucky enough to do quite a lot of dog sledding since starting Nature Travels in 2006, including many extended tours, and it’s always wonderful. But the particular magic of this run was the size of the team – I’ve driven up to 6-dog teams before, but having 10 beautiful huskies stretched out before me as we dashed through the forest was very exciting indeed.
We took time to make a stop for lunch at a small shelter on the way back, where Johannes prepared delicious toasted sandwiches over the fire and we reflected a bit on life, the universe, and everything. Then with Ida due back at the store for the afternoon shift, it was time to head for home.
The afternoon gave me time to take a general look around and, crucially, to visit the store, which I’d only had a brief look around the day before.
Norråkers Handel has to be, quite simply, the best village shop in the world. With the closest alternatives a considerable distance away, the store provides an essential service. But it’s much more than a place to buy your groceries – it’s a focal point for the community. There may only be 100 or so inhabitants in the village (though many more from the wider area also depend on it) but whenever I dropped in during my stay, there was always a buzz of activity. Whether it was the ladies’ knitting circle gathering for their weekly meeting in the small cafe, or locals stopping by to catch up on village news while they stocked up on essentials, there was never a shortage of visitors.
Sunset horse-and-cart magic
It was a glorious sunny evening I made my way down the hill to the stables, where Ida and Maria were brushing the horses. Lisa and Miramis are beautiful NordSvensk (North Swedish) horses, a working breed, and they’d both be accompanying us on our little excursion this evening, Lisa doing the work drawing the cart while Miramis trotted with us alongside just for the fun of it.
I grabbed a brush and got to work grooming Lisa as she stood calmly in the setting sun, seemingly enjoying my amateur efforts. Like the huskies at the kennels, the horses were shedding their winter coats and preparing for spring, so there was a sizable mound of hair by the time we’d finished.
Lisa was harnessed and hitched to the cart and we set off for a sightseeing tour of the village, Ida at the reins and myself and Maria enjoying the ride. A simple enough activity, but utterly magical. The calm, benevolent power of the horses, the gentle bump of the cart, the soft words of encouragement from Ida, the tantalising scents of the forest that had lain captured in the hard earth through the winter but were now being released by the spring thaw, the fading light of the setting sun reflected in the lake – really, it was just lovely. Imagine the same experience in wintertime, with the snow lying deep and the branches heavy with snow. I’ll just have to come back!
It had been a good day. But it wasn’t over yet. A few hours later, I was back in my cabina and relaxing after having treated myself to a pizza dinner from the store, and was halfway through Top Gun Maverick when my phone rang. It was Johannes: “I thought I’d let you know there’s Northern Lights”. Like an idiot (it sounded a sensible question in my head at the time – sometimes it’s good to know which part of the sky to watch) I asked, “Which direction should I look?”. He sounded a bit bemused. “Umm, up in the sky! It’s everywhere!” came the answer.
And so it was, a glorious strip of green stretching right across. I spent a good 20 minutes or so watching the dancing curtains of light and thinking, not for the first time, how very lucky I am to do this job, until the show started to fade and I could go back to watching Tom Cruise save the world, which by comparison wasn’t nearly as exciting.
It had been a very good day indeed.
Next morning it was an early start to catch the 7am bus back towards Östersund, where I’d spend one more night before heading for home. As I walked the short distance to the bus stop outside the store, I felt oddly emotional about leaving. After all, I’d only been here two days – I couldn’t be that attached to the place already, surely?
But in that brief time, I’d had the privilege to see a little of village life, to share memorable experiences with some of its human and animal inhabitants, and to get a taste of what it’s like to be part of the community in this remote, beautiful, wonderful place.
Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but I think I left a piece of mine in Norråker.
Best regards
Bob from the Nature Travels Team
Winter Wonderland with the Locals is a 4-day/3-night experience with itinerary options suitable for adults and families, including the dogsled excursion and a winter variation of the horse-and-cart ride described above, as well as a number of other activities such as ice fishing and tobogganing. It can be chosen as a stand-alone trip or alternatively makes an excellent combination with Discover Dog Sledding in Jämtland for an extended visit to the region.