Luleå

It was 10 below zero and I was bundled into a kicksled, propelled north along the sea ice by my obliging brother. Spectral waves of green aurora washed across the black sky above our heads, and the meter-thick ice creaked and groaned beneath us. My sister-in-law was driving another kicksled next to us that cradled her own sister, a professional basketball player who was playing for Luleå that season. Their sled pulled ahead of us, winning the impromptu kicksled race due to an unfair leg-length advantage. The ice road eventually doglegged west and there we paused, stopping the sleds to observe the heavens in the darkest skies we could reach on foot from Luleå. For the ride back, we switched drivers, and my swimmer’s legs versus the basketball player’s went about as well as you’d expect. By the time we made it back and abandoned our public kicksled at the start of the ice road, the sisters had already built up the public bonfire that sat out on the sea ice. We warmed our frozen fingers over the flames. Aurora-chasing quickly becomes addictive, especially since you never know when the silent lights will flare and fill the sky. Almost immediately we started taking turns as aurora spotters, standing on the picnic table or behind the windbreak fences to block the fire’s glow, staring north like a family of meerkats watching for hawks.

I have a confession. I’m a Northerner born and bred, but I’ve always been too chicken to do a polar plunge. What better place for my maiden voyage than northern Sweden, at the edge of the Arctic circle (and most importantly one that was next to a sauna)? My sister-in-law was the only brave one who’d done a plunge before, and she spent our entire walk over to Icebath Lulea talking me and my also-chicken brother down from our anxious ledges. At the edge of the frozen sea we met our spiritual guide, Henrik, a local who immediately seemed to embody Luleå. We were given quilted robes and Crocs with ice-spike crampons, which did almost nothing to stop us from sliding down the icy hill between the changing yurt and the preheated barrel sauna. It was a frigid bluebird day, in the middle of March 2025. Inside the sauna we basked in the sunlight streaming in through the window and the heat from the wood-burning stove. Outside the frozen world dazzled with pure white and blue. The hole in the ice winked at me. I sweated, and not only from the heat.

It was time. Henrik gave us some pointers: Keep your fingers above water because they lose heat the fastest. Submerge up to your neck to get the most cardiac benefits, and for a full minute if possible. Remember to breathe, deep and slow. These all sound like pretty basic pointers when you’re still dry and freshly sauna-toasted (or reading about it from your couch). I volunteered to go first, and threw off my robe but kept the Crocs. Down the ladder I went – steady, steady now, BREATHE, ah f*ck! The cold stabbed at me with a thousand needles. My arms reflexively T-Rexed themselves. The water was rib-deep, and I thought that was deep enough for my first attempt, thanks! And yet…I wasn’t dying, even if my brain was trying to convince me otherwise. The pain was both exquisite and freakishly cleansing. I thought maybe I could do this for awhile. Or at least ten more seconds. Ok, maybe five more? I bailed, and found out I’d only lasted 30 seconds in the drink. Henrik immediately handed me a wooden mug filled with hot lingonberry juice. Standing out on the ice, the frozen air suddenly felt balmy as my hot blood flooded back into my extremities.

So began our morning of leisurely sauna-toasting and ice-bathing, an activity we’d booked for a few hours. Henrik kept us company from the sauna’s anteroom, telling stories and answering every question we could think to pepper him with. His told us his secret to seeing the Northern Lights was to ignore the apps and just look at the sky: if it’s clear, there’s a good chance you’ll see them. We also found out we’d serendipitously visited both during the best time of year to see them and during a peak year of the 11-year solar cycle. We moseyed out to the ice hole again, prepared this time for what was coming, and easily cleared 45 seconds. As Henrik doled out more lingonberry juice, he’d told us he’d once guided some French firefighters and they’d only lasted 10 seconds in the water. ‘Yah’ he said briefly, which was always followed by a little giggle. On our third and final journey into the water, we set a heart-healthy goal of 60 seconds each. I immediately sank down to my shoulders and stayed there past the one-minute mark, old hat by now. As a final cleansing ritual before I climbed up the ladder the last time, I dunked my whole head underwater and let the cold rake my scalp. We finally bid farewell to Henrik and it was a struggle not to ask if he wanted to hang out with us later. I’m not exaggerating when I say we talked about him and his stories for the rest of the weekend.

The world is sleeping on Nordic food, and I’m not talking about IKEA meatballs. My pet theory is that the Nords just learned to cook and enjoy good food as a way of filling the long dark winter hours. In any case, I’m constantly astounded by the quality of even basic things like Swedish pub fare. One of my most delicious lunches in recent memory was the one we had after our ice bathing adventure at the Bishops Arms pub, which has a rotating menu with just a few options per day. I lustily inhaled my falafel salad and washed it down with my favorite Old Pulteney whiskey, my still-wet hair steaming in the bar’s air and my whole body tingling as it came down from its ice bathing high. Sweden’s coffee game is also right up there with the Italians and French, which is not surprising since they’re among the top consumers of coffee per capita (maybe also because of the long dark winters?). The Swedes have even found an answer to British afternoon tea in their daily tradition of fika, whose name allegedly comes from the syllables of ‘coffee’ in reverse order. Coffee after noon is rarely a good idea for me, but the point is moot when you’re trying to stay up late to hang out under the northern lights. When in Rome, eh?

We settled into an easy rhythm that long weekend, filling our daylight hours with winter city activities and our nights meerkatting for the aurora out on the ice. One day we went to Gammelstaden, a buttoned-up historic village mostly used for Midsommar holidays, and then watched our sister(-in-law) dominate the court at her basketball game. That night we gathered on the ice and watched reds merge with the greens. The next morning we headed on foot down the ice road south to Gråsjälören island, joining a crowd of locals ice skating and kicksledding and snowmobiling their way across the ice to distant islands. The final night’s aurora show was by far the best, but by then the aurora-hunters fan club had dwindled to just my brother and I. Lying on our backs to save our sore necks, we stared up into the curtains hanging directly down at us, or were we were staring down at a wave-riddled shore? Disruptive waves swept in every few seconds from the south, curious pulses of radiation that rustled the curtains above us. Loops and whirls filled the entire sky from horizon to horizon, and their colors were vivid even to the naked eye. “Awe-struck” barely begins to describe the experience. I have never felt more cosmically connected…nor insignificant.