After the surprisingly “warm” summer in Lapland, September marks the beginning of autumn. The temperature is significantly dropping, the daytime is shorter and the trees, especially birches, are changing colour to magnificent gold, red or brown.
My first weeks in the new team
This season is called “ruska” in Finnish, meaning “brown”. It was a perfect time for me to join the team of Wild About Lapland, as the canoe tours are gorgeous with this landscape reflecting in the blue water.
It is warm enough to paddle for a few hours without feeling freezing, but you are still happy to stop at the laavu (Finnish lean-to shelter) and have there a fire, drink warm beverages and eat the Finnish speciality – the grilled sausage.
Exciting start of the Northern Lights season
September’s nights also mean that the Northern Lights show is starting again! I was happy to join the evening tours and have a chance to progress in the difficult exercise of Aurora photography.
Thankfully, we were lucky enough to be able to go for the Aurora Hunting tours quite often and the Northern Lights were most of the time beautiful, so I had a lot of time to practice!
Focus on the stars, aperture 1.4, long exposure time and the right choice of ISO were on the program of those perfect night lessons. After a month of practice, I feel already more confident, even if I still have a lot of room for improvement. But the good thing is that the Northern Lights season is just starting!
See more from our Arctic adventures and follow us on Instagram!
…and hopefully see you soon in Rovaniemi!