The road to Slussfors

We started off on January 11th at 5 am, five friends in two cars. Our first stop was after a few hours drive when decided it was time for breakfast. The pitstop was held at a place called Hirvaskangas. The foods from the buffet went down well and we were back on the road again. Our next stop was several hours later in a town called Kemi. We stopped at the local supermarket to load up on foodstuffs, eat and fill the gas tanks of our cars. For some reason we attracted peoples attention with our four shoppingcarts full of stuff. After a brief drive north we came to Tornio and took a steep turn to the west, crossed the border and continued our drive towards the setting sun:

The drive continued, without any real breaks, hour after hour. Finally we reached our destination, the small village of Slussfors. The drive, including our stops, took us over 15 hours in which we covered a distance of just over 1100 km. Weather was on our side the whole way with -16'C and clear skies when we started, -10 and sunshine at Kemi and +2 with cloudy / drizzle at our destination.

Our local contact, Eric, came to meet us at the local shop when we arrived and led us to our cabin. At the cabin Eric showed us the places and went thru the hunting areas from the maps. The thoroughness of Erics' review of the hunting areas was a positive surprise, he gave us a full picture of the areas and their features. That is, to those of us who understood swedish, I personally had to wait for the translation on many items that were covered. In the days to come this area proved to be the heart of our cabin, we spent hours at the kitchen table, talking, plannind the following days treks, eating, drinking and laughing:

Our head chef cooked us a evening meal of hash. After eating we discussed the hunting areas and decided who goes in which direction in the morning. Got to bed around midnight.