Polar Night in Fell Lapland
The polar night (kaamos) has reached Fell Lapland. First, it wrapped its dark embrace around Hetta, the northernmost fell in the national park. Then, it continued its journey south, leaving Pallastunturit without a sunrise a week ago. Today, the southernmost Yllästunturi in the national park joined in. Kaamos is here.
In everyday language, kaamos is often referred to as the darkest time of the year throughout Finland. Even in the capital region, people talk about kaamos fatigue and the kaamos season. However, the true polar night refers to the period north of the Arctic Circle when the sun—or even its upper edge—doesn’t rise above the horizon at all. Here in Fell Lapland, the exact start of kaamos depends on where in this long region you look for it.
For many, polar night has a negative ring to it—darkness, cold, lack of light. For me, polar night isn’t a negative thing. I’m not afraid of the dark; quite the opposite. I remember as a child, after the school bus dropped me off along a country road, I would walk away from the bright streetlights into the twilight and feel safe, protected by the dark. I thought, "If I can’t see others, they can’t see me." I still think that way. The darkness feels safe, calm, like a shelter.
Polar night is more than just pitch-black darkness. I already knew this, but I’m still surprised by the range of colors, the magical shades of this lightless time. Even the smallest source of light—whether it’s from the moon, stars, northern lights, or the distant glow of the sun just beyond the horizon—multiplies in the cold northern air. It picks up new hues from the snow sparkling on the trees and the frost particles floating in the air. There’s barely two hours of daylight, but each day’s unique and magical color palette more than compensates for the lack of light.
Even the smallest source of light multiplies in the cold northern air, picking up new hues from the snow sparkling on the branches and the frost particles floating in the air.
I visited the Pallastunturit fells over the weekend to witness the polar night. The weather had been foggy and cloudy for the past few weeks. I thought I might not see the fells at all due to the darkness or fog, but I went anyway. My guess was right: from the base of the fells, a white wall of fog rose toward the horizon—visibility was basically zero. Determined, I started skiing into the white wilderness.
I knew the route up, but I can say I doubted myself more than once. The fog was so thick, it felt like the total whiteness was deceiving my vision. A few times, I suddenly sank into snowdrifts shaped by the fell winds, even though I thought the ground ahead was flat.
At the summit, I felt like I was on another planet. The now perfectly calm wind had previously sculpted the summit’s snow drifts into curvy wave patterns, like sand on the ocean floor. The stubborn little shrubs, sticking up here and there, had gathered so much snow that they looked as though they could move. They looked so alive, with their outstretched icicle-covered branches. The silence was tangible. The embrace of the fog was so deep that even when I shouted for fun, the sound didn’t echo across the open space—it stopped like it had hit a wall, fading immediately. All I could hear was my heartbeat pounding in my ears, fueled by the climb and the fell’s magic.
As always, the weather changed fast in the fells. I had barely pulled out my coffee when the cloud cover in the valley below started to shift, revealing the familiar northern landscape, now bathed in the bluish-gray tones of kaamos. I left the coffee in the snow to cool while I scrambled to set up my camera to capture the moment of that blue polar night landscape.
I realized I was alone above the clouds. Down below, the fog stubbornly held its ground between the fells and didn’t budge. Only the summits and I were allowed to admire the clearing sky, out of the fog's reach. The other skiers I had seen below were left at the mercy of the zero visibility. I felt privileged, as if the fells had decided to show their beauty only to me—or at least, that’s how I like to think of it.
On the southern horizon, the cloud cover opened, and from somewhere beyond the horizon, tired but beautifully bright rays of sunlight reflected, drawing a golden line between the fells, as if painted with a wide brushstroke. In the wilderness books I’ve been reading lately, this golden line during kaamos is often mentioned, and according to old folk knowledge, it predicted a clear and cold night. Who knows if that’s true, but for me, the golden line symbolized a uniquely beautiful light phenomenon in the middle of the blue-gray snow desert.
Once I’d calmed down from the overwhelming beauty, I finished my now-cold coffee and quickly ate my frosty sandwiches for strength on the way back. The bright valley landscape and the golden glow of the sun's rays disappeared before I finished my break. Darkness fell fast, the fog visibly rose up the fell’s slopes, and the white wilderness returned to its empty stillness. I tightened my headlamp strap, picked up the backpack I had tossed into the snow, and started descending in the only direction I could deduce in the all-encompassing whiteness—down, toward home.
♥: Sanna