Kiruna is an experience that you can only have by being there!

Student report by Flora Gustafsson

And even though it’s cold, wet and there’s a worryingly high risk of falling 1 meter into a snowdrift, Kiruna is fortunately much more than just a boring city center. For those who are impatient, I will give you an incomplete list of attractions in Kiruna:

• Kiruna Church • Ice Hotel • Kiruna City Hall • Jukkasjärvi, Sápmi • Kiirunavaara and Luossavaara • Northern Lights • Reindeer and Elk

For those of you who love funny and heartwarming stories about my and my class’ trip to Kiruna, fasten your seatbelts and listen up.

City Hall To be indoctrinated into Kiruna’s culture and history, we were first introduced to Kiruna City Hall. It’s like a town hall, except that the Swedes chose to call it a city hall. It was built in 1963 and was named Sweden’s most beautiful building just the following year, and it’s well deserved. There’s a modern art museum on top and everything. Close by was also the city center, which consisted of two souvenir shops, a mall with five shops, an Anni’s and a buffet place. But you don't go to Kiruna for the city center.

Ice Hotel The world-famous Ice Hotel is the ideal destination for those who like to ice skate: both voluntarily and involuntarily. The hotel consists of 100% ice and snow with beautiful engravings and fantastic sculptures - almost an architectural masterpiece. You just know that the building designers cry in the summer. When we were there, we enjoyed the ice slide and gift shop. There were also a lot of sledges to push yourself around on. Apparently, sledges are the preferred means of transport in winter Kiruna, as is also evident from the Politiken article "Spark dig frem i Nordsveriges ensomme mineby", which more or less sums up the overall experience of being in Kiruna. All in all, the Ice Hotel was a unique and fun place to be. However, it cannot be recommended if you don't like snow and ice, but then you probably shouldn't go to Kiruna at all.

Jukkasjärvi (Sápmi) and reindeer Nearby the Ice Hotel was the beautiful Sami town of Jukkasjärvi. We learned from our Sami guide that the Sami were previously treated very badly by the Swedes, who tried to erase the Sami culture and wash out the Sami genes. Fortunately, this did not work, and today there are still between 20,000 and 40,000 Sami living in Sweden, and they inhabit about 35% of Sweden. We also fed the reindeer, much to the delight of myself and my classmates. The reindeer were smaller than I expected, but our Sami guide still gave us a lot of guidelines for feeding them, because apparently reindeer can easily attack you in their eagerness to get food, which also sounds like something most people can relate to. We also learned that the only reindeer that keep their antlers over the winter are pregnant female reindeer, which means that Santa Claus forces nine pregnant women to work overtime every year. Poor Rudolf.

Close to the reindeer fold there was also a rustic Sami gift shop and a small café, where you could sit around a fire inside and get delicious food. Among other things, you could get a fantastic ragout-like reindeer dish with mashed potatoes, straight from the kitchen with the right combination of sour, sweet, salty, fatty – really good. The kitchen was morbidly close to the reindeer fold, but that's how it can be. All in all, Jukkasjärvi was probably the best destination on the trip.

Luossovaara, Kiirunavaara and the mine We saw two mountains in Kiruna: Kiirunavaara and Luossavaara. Luossavaara was a mountain you could ski on. We discussed a bit in class whether they loaned skis on the mountain, or whether the Kiruna Swedes just assume that skis and snowmobiles are everyday possessions everywhere in the world. At least it looked fun. The other mountain is Kiirunavaara, under which the city's famous mine is located. The mine is the town's livelihood. They are currently expanding the mine, which is basically causing the town to fall into the mine. Well, not literally. It's not dangerous or anything. Unless you choose to jump in there yourself, but I would probably advise against that.

Kiruna Church The church is a symbol that the Sami and the Swedes could actually work together. The church is a combination of Sami and Swedish culture and has become a feature of the town. When we were there, it was just about to be moved down to a building site around the town hall, as it is located close to the mine. It's a big deal over there that it is being moved, because it is of great historical importance. People will also have to move away from the mine, and their houses will be demolished. The municipality is giving those who are going to move three options for relocation:

1. House in and ticket to the Bahamas
2. Residence in one of the new extensions to the city
3. New plot of land + new house

So if you as a resident are tired of sledding and tobogganing in Kiruna, you can instead cruise on the blue waves in the Bahamas. But in reality, the relocations are just a necessary process, and the mine is important for the survival of the city. In addition, they produce iron in a particularly climate-friendly way in the mine, unlike in many other parts of the world! We also noticed their climate joy in the supermarkets, where there were many organic and environmentally friendly initiatives for the goods.

Northern Lights and Moose So, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Northern Lights. What is it like? What do they look like? Yes, I can start by disappointing you by saying that it looks considerably more boring in real life than through the camera lens. Your iPhone 16 Pro Max can just pick up a lot more of the light spectrum than your boring old eyes can. When we were going up into the mountains to see the Northern Lights, we took a bus to a Sami town. On the way, we passed a reindeer herd, where there are sometimes moose. We drove slowly past, because if you hit a moose, it’s not the moose that stops, but you. And you get a moose-shaped hole in your windshield.

Up in the Sami town, it was cloudy when we were there. So the Northern Lights just looked like a strange, elongated cloud. Luckily, one of my friends had a good phone, so we still got some great pictures to take home. Victory! And the pictures… they were beautiful. Long, swirling brushstrokes of green and purple, as if drawn with watercolor on a star-studded night sky. I hope that's a good description. And that was the last thing we actually experienced on our trip to Kiruna.

A less fun, fun travel story We took a 24-hour train from Copenhagen to Kiruna including a night train. Rating: Night trains are very calming, but it's hell for someone who sleeps lightly. There wasn't much space, but on the other hand a lot of time, which gave room for travel games like Around the World and Another World (recommended if you have time). We also contributed to the climate goal. On Birkerød Gymnasium's website it says that we must create the study trips of the future: Sustainable study trips. I am proud to say that my class is one of those leading that initiative.

Kiruna conclusion So yes, Kiruna is much more than just the industrialized mining town. It is a multicultural, historic city that is both a leader in climate and rich in fun experiences and beautiful, impressive buildings. Yes, Kiruna can do much more than just the pictures on Google; Kiruna is an experience that you can only get by being there.