A Trip to the Arctic

By Charlotte Hussey, University of Bergen, Norway

A few weeks before Christmas, I took a trip to Tromso – one of the northernmost cities in the world. Situated in the farthest reaches of Norway into the Arctic Circle, it reached -12 degree Celsius. I travelled with the new friends I made during my first semester of my exchange in Norway. It was a once in a lifetime trip – I had never seen anywhere like it before and was the perfect place to visit to get in a Christmassy mood!

There was much to do in Tromso, and we aimed to see as much of it as we could despite our limited time of three days. Each day’s itinerary was packed. Before even reaching Tromso, our flight there is worth a mention – early in the morning, while the sun was rising, we saw beautiful rainbow clouds, also seeing faint Northern Lights, unlike anything we’d seen before. Before we had even touched down the trip was magical.

Our first day in Tromso was our most relaxed. We spent time exploring the city and enjoying the snow – deeper than I’d ever seen. We visited tourist attractions like the Polar Museum, seeing the lives of the Polar explorers, and the Arctic Cathedral. We even went to the Northernmost McDonald’s in the world! It was very different as, considering the time of the year, the sun didn’t rise at all, meaning there was only around four hours of almost-light, i.e. sunrises, sunsets and twilights.

On our second day we went on a whale tour, leaving early in the morning. The boat trip lasted around seven hours. We travelled to a location where whales fed further north of Tromso. We were very lucky to see a humpback whale and several orcas! Even if we hadn’t seen the whales, the trip still would have been worth it, however, considering the incredible scenery we saw on the journey to the whales. The stunning Artic ocean and mountains were unlike anything I’d ever seen before, even if we were totally freezing when standing on the outside of the boat to see them!

Our final day was probably my favourite – we saw and fed reindeer! It was amazing being able to get close to the animals – they were extremely cute! It was fun, but also an interesting experience – we travelled to a Sami camp where we met with Sami people to learn about their culture while eating hot soup and drinking hot chocolate around a fire. On the same day, we took an Artic dip where we jumped into the Artic Ocean in the freezing temperatures – luckily we had a sauna close by to jump into immediately!

Overall, it was an incredible, once in a lifetime experience that I would recommend to anyone, especially anyone studying or planning to study abroad in Norway!