2nd work placement

I'm back in school after some time off after my latest work placement. I suppose its about time I posted something about it, so i'll quickly tell about the first week.

On the last night of our ski trip we stayed in cabins so we could wash after a week of skiing and living in the forest and be relativly fresh for the long drive back. However, I wasnt going anywhere. Me and Heidi were going straight to our work training placement at Upitrek, which was handily enough in the same area we had been for the last week.

The details were a little sketchy tho, we wernt sure exactly where to go or at what time we were supposed be there? We didnt have to wait long to find out cos the next thing we knew there was a knock at the door. It was only our new boss telling us we were 2 hours late and needed to head straight to the nature centre. Good start. The nature centre was the hub of operations for the Hossa area, and the only shop in about 100km's.

We were put straight to work. Although my customers wernt arriving until the next night, I helped set up for Heidi's group of customers arriving that evening. We both had groups of 15-16 year old school kids from the UK on a multiactivity holiday week, so doing a little bit of everything.
Heidi's team were short on guides so instead of setting up for my group I helped them out for a few hours on they're first day of orienteering, fire making, ice fishing and snow cave building. It was good practise because I would be doing the same thing with my group the following day.

One of the games I organised was the fire making. The kids had to chop wood, make feather sticks, get a fire burning and keep it going to boil up some snow and make a cup of tea. The guys at the nature centre were doing all the catering for these groups and for the first time. They learnt straight away how much tea Brits drink after having to do a 200km round trip to get more tea from the nearest supermarket.

The next day my group of customers had arrived. Twenty, sixteen year old lads from a boys school in royal tumbridge wells. Me, Janne the other guide and Paul who came out with the group ran all the activities throughout the week. Day one was as with the other group, and after that we did days cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, visiting the local reindeer farm and more skiing and snowshoeing.

After giving a quick intro to skiing we went on a short ski route, and it was nice, some of the kids were so bad it actually made me look like a professional skier. In the afternoon we continued on a longer track and tackled a few hills.

We took them snowshoeing down some good hills and across a few lakes to get to our lunch spot on our way to our next accommodation where we had a winter olympics with more fire making sledge pulling our own version of biathlon and a load of other stuff.

The week passed pretty quickly, I was expecting it to be a nightmare, but it was actually a lot of fun.

Ive got no time to write anymore right now I have school work coming out of my ears, I'll carry on with the following week shortly.

Laters

Still alive

I've been off the radar for a while working, yes it was work! in Lapland for a few weeks. Now I'm back and getting ready to go back to school next week. Here's a little of what I've been up to.

With a lovely hangover on the first of December, I left on a lush 12 hour train ride from Turku to Rovaniemi. Followed by 2 bus journey's to get to Äkäslompolo, in total taking 18 hours 45 min's.

I got to Snow Fun Safaris in the afternoon and wasn’t sure if I was going to get put straight to work or not? luckily the boss took one look at me and said that maybe I should go rest a little then come to work in the morning. I got taken to my accommodation, dropped my bags and went out for a few beers before going to sauna and crashing out.

My temporary home and new house mates

 My first day I got an intro to the company and met a few of the guides, then got straight into some snowmobile training and went out for a ride. I spent the first two day's visiting various places preparing them for the up-coming Christmas season, including Father Christmas's cabin!

Messing around on a frozen swamp, Ylläs fell in the background. One night me and a few lads took snowmobiles after work and rode up to the top. It was steep and I got stuck at one point and lost the others. The top was not nice, 30m/s wind and in seconds visibility was down to zero and I had to find my way down. Eventually I met up with the others on the other side of the fell and we went for a beer in Ylläsjärvi before riding back over the fell it to Äkäslompolo.

From day three onwards I was on the snowmobile safaris with the customers. The basic safari was out to the Kota (a hut with a fire place), where we would stop and prepare coffee, juice, sausages and buns for everyone. Then through the forest dodging reindeer back to the starting point, Taking two to two and a half hours depending how fast they wanted to go.

He was just popping down the shop, last year a reindeer walked into the local supermarket and had a little look around.

The safari size varied from only a few machines to a gert 50 snowmobile safari! The kids would usually ride in a big sleigh and if it was a cold day even though they had all the clothes on and were covered in blankets and reindeer skins by the time they got to the Kota they would all be screaming and crying and I'd have to carry them in to the fire place.

Before starting the safaris everyone got a safety briefing about the snowmobiles and were told a few times to go easy on the accelerator cos they go fast! Apparently not everyone took notice cos there were a few crashes and a few more out of control snowmobiles I had to rescue. Mostly from the restart after a break at the Kota.

This lady crashed into the toilet at the Kota from a standing start less than five metres away and hit it so hard she cracked her safety helmet. you can see she still had her thumb on the accelerator after she hit the toilet cos the tracks have dug into the snow. After some first aid I took her back to town with my snowmobile, half of her face had turned black and looked like she had two heads by the time we got there. Me and another guide came back after to tow the machine to the office.

About eighty percent of the time I was doing different snowmobile safaris. For the rest of the time I did a few different activities. A couple of times me and a few others had to look after groups of British holiday makers for the day while they visited Father Christmas and got attacked by an old Saami witch. My job was to organise snowshoeing/sledging, cook sausages and keep coffee on the go. Oh and we had to do this dressed as elves, I did get a few comments like "arnt you a little big to be an elf?" and "are there many west country elves in the Arctic circle then?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was -39 this day, most people stayed inside so we were on our own outside eating the sausages and drinking coffee to stay warm.

Here are pictures of the main man checking his naughty list.

We also did snowmobile trips to a husky farm, reindeer farm and ice fishing. The dogs were friendly, but crazy. Only quiet when they were running.

Before the run

After

We got a few fish ice fishing, but they were tiny. Then we went to check the nets set the night before.

We also took people to visit the Snow village/Ice hotel. Don't think I'll ever spend the night there,It was a bit pricey and a tad cold. Every year its different, this year it was carved by Russian and Chinese artists.

Health and safety at it again. Don't think this will see much action the place is made out of bloody snow!

Chapel

Ice bar

Only a little creepy

I took part in only a few snowshoeing safaris, one was a snowshoeing northern lights seeing safari. We didn't see the lights on the safari, but as soon as the customers had gone the lights came out and they were pretty decent. I saw the lights a few times while I was there, sometimes they were moving pretty quick and others it was just a green line in the sky. The other few times I went snowshoeing we climbed different fells with the customers.

For a short round up that's about it. I had concerns before I went about dealing with customers, what I would talk to them about and how to deal with difficult holiday makers, but it all went really well. I had a great time at Snow Fun Safaris, really nice people and if I get to work there again I will, and the next time I might be getting paid for it. Looking forward to my next training place in eight weeks time.

Laters.