We had an adventure scheduled to go to North Cape at the 71st parallel. We started up on the bus in heavy snow blowing sideways. Part way up we had to stop and wait for the snow plow. But eventually they cancelled the last leg due to heavy wind and snow. So we spent the day in Honningsvaag. You can get whale at the local corner pub. The ice bar Artcica just opened for the season. Claiming to be the northernmost bar. They don’t serve alcohol though.

Out two favorite Norwegian passengers. Brother. Always together.

The Arctic hotel is for sale, what an opportunity!

A king crab fisherman came aboard with some of his catch. He showed the eggs of the female and as they fell out on the table he scooped them up and ate them. My oh my. But it made for a delicious dinner of crab legs.

The aurora just came out and we all rushed out on deck. It was gale force winds though. So that didn’t last long. Our polar midnight snowmobile adventure was cancelled due to winds. Makes for a bouncy ride on the boat.

Four crazy passengers plunged into the Berents Sea at minus 4 degrees celsius. Walked to the Vardo Fortress and took a tumble on the ice with both wrists hitting ground. Back to the boat..Reindeer borscht and pavlova for dinner. Our snowmobile experience at midnight has been canceled due t wind in Lappland but they did announce the aurora at dinner.

It was a beautiful sunny day in Kirkenes and the dogs were ready to rumble.  One of the puppies found the giant hunk of meat when no one was watching. The Snow Hotel has 26 rooms and is open for 3  months. It is only 2,000 Kroner to stay. The inhabitants of Kirkenes can go to Russia to buy cheap vodka, cigarettes and gas and the Russians come over to buy diapers by the carload. They fed us reindeer sausage on lefse which they called lumpa with a hot berry drink when we arrived.

We finally hit some snowy weather. Imagine that in the arctic in winter. They are talking about global warming here too though. We had to pick up the passengers from another boat that was having trouble, so it is very busy here now and not enough staff. Food yesterday was in short supply at breakfast but they seem to have accommodated now. We had fresh caught arctic char for dinner last night, the seafood has been very good. We passed the northernmost medieval church yesterday (white building).

We had a great time today dogsledding a half hour out of Tromso. 3oo dogs and 9 very cute puppies. All the dogs are very friendly and love to run. This is the largest self dog kennel in Norway. The woman who owns it has raced in he Iditerod and races in Finnmark. They all lover their dogs. We had a musher from Greenland. Learned a lot about life there.