Part of my arctic adventure includes visiting Sami people, where we hear about their culture and language. The Sami are traditionally nomads who follow the reindeer as they migrate in the search for better pastures. Nowadays, the reindeer are kept closer to home, sometimes fenced in, and the Sami live not in tents but in wooden houses.
I am not sure how sustainable this modern type of farming is compared to the traditional migrations. During the winter, I fear that the reindeer overgraze the slow-growing vegetation. Their feed is even supplemented with lichen that the Sami gather during the summer and autumn. It could be interesting to learn more about this lifestyle someday, perhaps during a summer visit to the area. As it is, we ride in sleighs pulled by reindeer in the winter darkness. It is so dark that I never even see who I am sitting beside.
Besides meeting reindeer and Sami people, another main winter attraction of Tromsø is to try and catch a glimpse of the eerie northern lights (Aurora Borealis).
That is not so easy. It requires clear skies (and we experience lots of clouds and snow) and active solar winds (which is not in the stars for us, unfortunately).
The shimmering green curtains in the sky that I had hoped to see do not appear and, unfortunately, I am caught off guard and do not have my tripod with me when something finally turns up. However, the camera lens is much more sensitive than the human eye (especially when all the settings are adjusted to night photography), so what appears to be a faint and wispy cloud with a slight tinge of green turns out to be quite green once photographed. Back home, I give it a bit more light in Photoshop and voilà – something that looks like an abstract painting created by Mother Nature.
Playing around with night photography for the first time also gives me a shot that looks like an impressionist George Seurat painting.
