At the world’s end – over the Arctic Ocean in Bugoynes

At the world’s end – over the Arctic Ocean in Bugoynes

I’ve visited Bugoynes during the trip to Lapland. I decided to post it in a separate content, because it is worth to pay more attention on this place and – we were already in Norway! On the very top of the world! It would be a pity if memories from this place were simply „merged” into the whole Lapland trip, especially if we were in a different country. 🙂 Therefore, all of you who first came to this post and want to find out how I got here, I invite you to previous posts – Helsinki and Lapland. Check them if you want to complete the information. Here, we will only take care of Bugoynes.

Day 2 – A trip to the Arctic Ocean to the Bugoynes

I will never forget that feeling when I looked at the map and realized that I’m almost at the world’s end. I was delighted, excited and I couldn’t believe that I was there. I didn’t even dream of such a trip, but here I am – I went there faster than I could imagine. It was definitely the most anticipated moment of our trip. Although every day I was waiting for something with great excitement, but a trip to the Arctic Ocean was the best part of it! It lasted all day and we went there a day after our arrival to Saariselkä.

On the way

Even the way to such a place was quite a big attraction. Endless fields, snow masses, coniferous trees and here and there small, barely perceptible cottages. Although nothing was there, but that was what I liked most about it. This virgin landscape not polluted by humans.

The road was empty. Once in a while trucks were passing us, which supposedly transported only food there. However, to our surprise, our driver was braking quite often and in addition violently. However, we are told that there were Reindeers, who didn’t always want to get out of the way! In fact, I looked out of the window and saw them. They looked surprised by our presence. 🙂

Along the way we pass huge lakes. One more frozen, the other a little less. Ah, how beautiful it must be here in spring when everything blooms. 🙂

I was even more surprised when we stopped in the store! Incredible that someone has a store in such a place and pretty well equipped. Of course, prices are horrible, because it was quite far away from everything and the weather conditions are heavier. The shop, from the outside, resembles a huge tin garage. 😀

When we were again on the way to Bugoynes, suddenly on our right side appeared a guy on a snowmobile. He came to the shop. Well, maybe if we could do such a shopping once in a while, maybe they wouldn’t be so bad then? 😀

Some interesting facts

After a few hours we finally reach our small village – Bugoynes. There are only 200 people living here, and as you can guess, they are mostly elderly people. Young people leave for education, work, etc. Some of them return to the idyllic life in the village. Residents know each other well. I assume that most of you have more than 200 friends on facebook, so it is not hard to find the fact that residents even without social media know each other well.

Interestingly, in the village you can communicate in the old Finnish language, which came here with Finnish immigrants. It reminds a Meänkieli (our language), the language spoken in the northernmost parts of Sweden. However, even in such a place you can easily communicate in English. Despite its small population, the village puts on tourism and invites everyone on holiday – to the sauna and the Arctic Ocean. They even have a very nice website that contains all the necessary information as well as beautiful photos. 🙂

Welcome to Bugoynes

Before we got off the bus, an older, toothless woman came in. I began to wonder if our guide knew Norwegian or Old French Finnish and he would translate to us what the woman had to say. Meanwhile shock! It turned out that this older lady, spoke better English than I! Not only I was surprised by this fact. 😀 She told us a bit about her life, life in the village, etc. The sentence that most stuck in my memory and at the same time made an amazing impression on me was following: „The northern lights are so common to us and we don’t even look at them. This is a constant element of our evening sky.” I was definitely in an amazing place!

Finally we got out of the bus…

As in warm countries we are hit by a wave of heat, so in Bugoynes we experienced something totally opposite. Can’t believe that few minuts later we had to be undressed and ready to get in to the Arctic Ocean. 😀

Of course, we started to take pictures of everything. The beach was wide and sandy, surrounded by mountains. It looked beautiful and had a very interesting look. Such as semicircles, which can also be seen on google maps. On the beach you could find crabs remains and beautiful shells. Too bad that they didn’t show us their king crabs, which Bugoynes is famous for! I saw in photos of friends (who came here in another period) that the locals showed them these huge crabs. They catch them and passionately consume. Too bad there was not even a chance to try them. I love seafood and crabs and I haven’t had the chance to try them yet. Well, we could only admire their remains on the beach. 😀

Sauna and bath in the Arctic Ocean

Without wasting too much time on the pictures, we went to the conquest of the sauna. In the sauna was really hot, but everyone was afraid to go out of it. 😀 Even if the cold temperature was not enough, the road to the ocean was quite long. So already on the way we were cold and then at the end we had to jump into the cold water! We were also tipped to wear socks or some flip flops because the road was partially over the rocks and we had to watch out.

Finally, my turn came. I could no longer stand in this sauna. I was running crazy, for me it took ages … but in the end it worked out! I was in the water! It was so cold that I didn’t even think about what I was doing. Around me screams and squeaks, and I instead of staying on the shore, I moved into the depths of the ocean. I am a swimmer, so the water is not terrible for me. But not so iced! The current was so strong that it was so hard to came back. 😀 I don’t know how that stupid idea came to my mind.

When I finally got to the sauna, I couldn’t warm up for a long time. I guess it took me 20 minutes before I started sweating again. One single bath was enough, but I flew the second time !! This time, I was close to the shore, but when I came back to the sauna again, I needed a lot of time to warm up again. That was enough for me. There were also those who made it three times into the water. Hardcore 😀

If anyone had doubts then I would add that the ocean in this place doesn’t freeze. The warm current flows here and in summer the water temperature reaches up to 20 degrees! During our stay it was about 3-4 degrees and the air temperature was -10 degrees.

Lunch and free time

To be honest, I don’t know how much time we spent in this sauna. However, quite long, because the trip itself to the water and reheat in the sauna took a long time. Anyway, after our sauna, we were starving. Luckily, lunch was ready. But, I was a little disappointed with it, because I was hoping for a solid portion, but meanwhile we had to be satisfied with fish soup with bread. 😀 It was very tasty and you could ask for more, but how full can you be after soup, especially after such extreme bathing? 😀

After lunch we had another hour of free time. We went for a walk around Bugoynes.

Time to come back…

Unfortunately, everything ends quickly. We had to pack to the bus again. Maybe just in time, because 10 minutes later came a terrible snowstorm. I already wrote about it in the previous post that in such places you have to be very careful. Mother nature once again reminded us where we are and she is the one who rules here.

Little bonus

We didn’t plan to stay for a while at the partially frozen waterfall! I don’t know exactly where it was, but it’s definitely on the Finnish side. In general I don’t even know when we exactly crossed the border because it was very poorly marked (if at all it was marked …) 😀

As you can see, after the snowstorms there is no trace!

I hope you enjoyed my content and I encouraged you to visit amazing places on Earth. As you can see, sometimes is not so difficult to get to and impressions as well as memories remain invaluable!