Johnson International: Kiruna, Day 1

     “It’s green with white trim,” I said from between my fingers, my chin in my palm. I moved my elbow off the gray pressboard countertop in an attempt to look as cheerful as possible. It was probably from IKEA, but it looked institutional enough for an airport. Maybe I would get my missing backpack sooner if I was upbeat. “Where are you staying,” asked Sofia, the only counter agent in the airport’s single-room lobby. “Kirunas rumservice. You can reach me at this number,” I took her pen and did my best to remember. It had been a while since I had needed to call myself. “The next plane is due at klockan sju…er…seven. We will have a taxi bring your ryggsäck.”
     “Great. Tack, hej då.”
     Usually my trips hit bumps mid-way or just towards the end. This was a new form of being screwed. The taxi I had reserved the night before was still nowhere to be found. I was more concerned about the absence of my winter gear, without which, I would turned into a meat-popsicle. A quick phone call assured me that the taxi is coming. The snow had started to come down harder and I could barely see across the deserted parking lot of the Kiruna airport. I noticed that there were dog-pens on the far side, and wig-wam shaped buildings that housed massive, treaded snow-cats for clearing the roads. Off to a bad start. Okay, just stay positive.
      Kiruna is about 145 km north of the latitude that marks the Arctic Circle. It is a city of about twenty thousand, and one of Sweden’s most popular tourist destinations. Aside from the dog pens at the airport, Kiruna didn’t really look like a postcard Arctic village, which I imagined. Capillaries of snow covered roads that intersect in traffic circles and well lit with orange sodium lamps connect various red-painted buildings to the main artery, the E10 highway, which leads north-west to Norway. The city centre is a cluster of former industrial buildings turned into apartments. Curiously enough they retained their smoke-stacks and loading docks—a monument to the industry that explains why people, apart from the insane, still live here: Iron. Kiruna has two nearby mountains. Both terraced by strip-mining like gigantic rice fields. Ringed with service roads and covered with snow, the mountains look like layer-cakes. Also cake-like, atop the nearest and largest of the two mountains, were the towers of the most massive ironworks I have ever seen—more massive still, because they were not at the top but behind and still visible over the crest.
      Without my gear, it would be impossible to use the last few hours of daylight to do any sort of exploring or otherwise outdoor activities. We did the next logical thing. Made tacos and drank beer. Tacos and beer combine to make one of the best cures for depression. If pharmaceutical companies caught on and made a taco/beer concentrate, perhaps in a pill form, I think the world would be a better place. Indeed the world had become a better place, for not had I just finished wiping the salsa from my lips when my prodigal backpack did return. We dressed and set out. Night begins somewhere after 3.30 pm (taco time). We walked toward town center and did some window shoping. The usual Swedish traditions are strong in Kiruna and the clerks were dusting shelves and counting the kronor in the registers in preparation to close around four. So we did the next logical thing and played in the snow.
      We wandered to the stadshuset which was on a ridge just at the outskirt of town in the direction of the larger of the two cakes. After climbing some great snow banks and hurling some snow balls at each other we circled the town hall and were in full view of the Kiirunavaara. Since it was dark, we could see that it was decorated now with glowing lights and bathing the entire sky in orange. Now the land between us and the cake-mountain was visible. I had visions of Tolkien. You know, when the great forest was ripped down to turn the tower of Isengard into the base for Saruman’s white-handed army. It was a jungle of train-tracks, power lines, smokestacks, furnaces and tunnels that was hard at work as the rest of the town was packing it in.
      Beneath the Kiirunavaara is the world’s largest iron mine and the reason for the rift between us. The place there is actually sinking down into the earth. In 2007, a new site for the town was chosen, and over the next ten years everything in the path of the chasm will have to be demolished or moved. The building we were next, due to its special architectural status will actually be moved piece by piece to the town’s new home at the foot of the smaller cake. Even the E10, the vital supply line for Sweden’s nationally owned mining company, LKAB, would have to be moved.
      A face full of stinging white powder and laughter brought me out of my revelry. I too, it seemed would have to battle some orcs. “You #$%ing bastard!” I scooped a handful of snow and gave chase.