Back to Nature, with the Sticky Fingers Gallery

I picked these shots for this week’s Sticky Fingers gallery because this week’s theme is ‘Nature’ and you don’t get much more natural than this part of northern Finland, in the Arctic Circle. 

That’s me in the top pic, standing at the snowy entrance to the Arctic Amethyst Mine, near Luosto. My guide and I travelled there by snowmobile, through the snow-shrouded pine forest, in -25 degree temperatures. After a cup of steaming hot Lingonberry juice I was allowed to go down into the mine and dig up my very own chunk of amethyst. Behind me you can see pine forests and frozen rivers, stretching for miles in every direction. 

The second pic is the view back across Lampivaara Hill. I loved the way the white snow almost blended perfectly into the pale sky, making it difficult to tell where land finished, and sky began. 

The third pic is from my trip on an icebreaker, through the frozen waters of the Gulf of Bothnia. You could hear the strangest creaking, cracking noise as the old Russian Icebreaker cleaved through ice up to one-metre thick. The landscape was just breathtaking – brilliant white fields of ice, as far as the eye could see. 

This pic was taken at the mid-way point of our cruise, and just after I took this we were actually given the chance to pull on survival suits and swim in the wake of shattered ice. 

It was truly the trip of a lifetime, and easily one of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited.