True camping in Karasjok

Karasjok is the Sami "capital", they even have their own parliament here. Traditionally the Sami are nomadic reindeer herders, going wherever the reindeer goes, but technology has changed traditional Sami ways for many of them and today many are living in one place, mainly in either Karasjok or Kautokeino; the two main settlements for the Sami. There isn't much in either place apart from sparse housing.



In Karasjok the weather varies drastically.The hottest temperature recorded in summer is 32 degrees and the coldest -51 in wintertime. Finnmarksvidda (the Finnmark tundra) is also home to a gazillion mosquiteos! We quickly learned to open and close the car doors at lightening speed!

We found a camping area called Karasjok Camping where we got accomodation in two little spartan huts. When we say spartan, we mean spartan. There was nothing in each hut apart from bunkbeds and a table with two chairs. Oh and luckily a heater! It was freezing! 

The toilet was outside and luckily it was summertime so it was still daylight if you would need the toilet in the middle of the night. The shower was further away in the camping area, and there there were also a couple of huts built to resembling a lavo where there was a sauna in one and a DIY BBQ in the other.


We ate at a grill restaurant which really was more of a fast food joint, where they had their local version of junk food; reindeer kebabs, fried reindeer with fries and boiled reindeer. There was a grocery store still open so we went there to buy some breakfast for tomorrow's journey through the tundra to Kautokeino. The bread we found was half frozen, but we reasoned that it would thore out until tomorrow. In the freezer section you could get every single part of the reindeer imaginable, but we stuck with bread and cheese!

Temperature update: 11 degrees.Curtain update: questionable.
Duvet update: also questionable.
Midnight sun update: Yup, still there!
Mosquiteos update: constant buzzing! we hope the mosquito net in front of the window works!