Lapland

As the midnight sun dips to the horizon, Tornetrask’s lake mirrors the blue tundra cloaking the high mountains of Abisko National Park. Famed as a stunning example of Arctic Landscapes, Abisko also gets the vote from botanists and birders as one of the very best natural sites in Lapland.

It seems that the entire northern Swedish flora is jostling for space on Njulla Mountain which rises in front of our hotel. It looks a long way to the top so it’s a fine thing to have a chairlift whisk us to 900m above sea level. White carpets of Windflower and pink domes of Moss Campion greet us with a spectacular show. Ptarmigan and Snow Bunting feed amongst Harrimanella hypnoides and rarer Cassiope tetragona. The beautiful lilac-pink Mountain Heath flowers prolifically amongst Alpine Catchfly and mats of lovely Diapensia lapponica on dry tundra, the nesting habitat for elegant Long-tailed Skuas and overflown by Merlin and Rough-legged Buzzard. Mountain Fritillary and Moorland Clouded Yellow fly as soon as the sun emerges. By snow we can find the beautiful Ranunculus nivalis and on rocks both Saxifraga cespitosa and purple Saxifraga oppositifolia. There’s moss-loving Pinguicula villosa, tiny Snow Gentian, fine yellow Astragalus frigidus, and two rare orchids, the strange Leucorchis straminea and the tiny green Platanthera oligantha. Red-necked Phalaropes spin on boggy pools home to Ruby Whiteface, Azure Hawker and the shimmering Alpine Emerald. Reindeer should be seen as we explore the magnificent glaciated Trollsjön Valley where Pale Arctic Clouded Yellows and Cranberry Blues fly amongst Dwarf Cornel and a fine show of Wild Azalea. Here are wonderful meadows full of Globeflowers whilst up by the scenic tarn there’s lots of delicate Cardamine bellidifolia and the diminutive Chamorchis alpina. Bluethroats are a common sight in the dwarfed birch forests at lake level and in Scot’s Pine forest near Kiruna we’ll see Siberian Tit and Siberian Jay and hopefully Bohemian Waxwings and Pine Grosbeak too. Slavonian Grebes and both Red-throated and Black-throated Divers frequent the many water bodies whilst overhead we might see a White-tailed Eagle or two.

If you enjoy Arctic landscapes and fauna and flora, and prefer to spend as little time as possible travelling, then this tour is for you. It is barely an hour to Abisko from the airport at Kiruna and you’ll spend the entire week thereafter less than an hour’s drive from the hotel.