Fifth Trip: Drive South to the Arctic Circle

We headed South to the Arctic Circle. Yes, South. Bodø is located at 67 degrees 16 minutes and 48 seconds latitude North and the Arctic Circle is at 66 degrees 33 minutes 45.7 seconds. Did you know that its position varies? It moves by something like 49 feet per year.

Within about thirty minutes outside the city we were following the fljord. The blue of the water, the sky and the puffy clouds here and there were making this gorgeous scenery that we had to stop and capture.

It was windy but managed to stand for this shot.

Giving that the road was nice, barely any traffic, but quite winding and on the edge of the water, there wasn't many places we could stop to take pictures. The further South we were going, the higher we were climbing, and there the more snow we were seeing.

Look at those blues, beautiful!

It actually got to a point that only the road was clear of snow, everything else around us was white.  It was beautiful, and somewhat bizarre. The further South we went, the whiter it got. It looked like there was a lot of snow, not only what we were seeing on the surface. It looked deep.

After being in the car for 2.5 hours, we did get to the Arctic Circle.  There wasn't many people around, but they sure were replaced by snow!

He isn't a short man, 6' 2"

That wall of snow was on the way from the parking lot to the Center, which is in fact a big souvenir shop, they had cut through the snow to clear the path.  It wasn't pushed snow... it was very impressive!

The monument is behind where He stands, and I'm on top of the snow wall.  In the Summer months, supposedly you can walk up to it, on grass.  There were a few monuments marking the spot.

At the center, they sold postcards AND had a special cancellation stamp, which Stinkypaw had read about and wanted. They even offered to mail the cards for Christmas. They had a special box for that, for cards to be sent out for Christmas. There was also a little cafeteria. Their special of the day was Reindeer, potatoes and coffee. While our food was being prepared Stinkypaw wrote myself a special souvenir card, because after all how often can one say that they've crossed the Arctic Circle and that they had to drive South to do so! ah!

The Center as shown in the postcard

Cancellation from the Arctic Circle

On the way back we actually saw a reindeer along the road, so it was the perfect way to close that visit to the Arctic Circle!