Solo Camping on a Frozen Lake in the Arctic

Tonight is gonna be freezing. So I've been in this cottage for a couple of weeks now, really focused on writing my book and I've been training hard with that sled which is why it's so heavy because it's currently filled with so much firewood. This is what I've been lugging around, literally just a whole bunch of firewood. Firewood. So because I've been so cooped up in my little cottage, I feel like I need to get out there for a little bit, even if it's just for one night. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna repack this entire sled and then head out for a tent, sleeping pad, Vilk's sleeping bag, first aid kit. I'm hoping to cook on the fire tonight but I will bring a stove just in case. Now I haven't used this in about 10 months so I just want to make sure that it works. A lot of spare warm things like a baklava. Balaklava? Baklava? I swear one of those is a Turkish pastry. Booties, an extra jumper, long johns, spare thick socks, fire stuff, pots and a spork and a light and some food. My sleeping bag which is somewhere inside there, inside the rooftop tent which is obviously folded right now. So we need to get it out. Oh my god, what's wrong with me? Oh okay. Yeah there's a ton of snow on the roof which means that I can't open it because it's too heavy so I'm gonna have to get rid of the snow. Sleeping bag. You ready? Let's go. There's a little hill. I knew this would happen. I knew this would happen. Skiing with a sled attached to you is a whole other ball game. Skiing downhill with a sled attached to you is a little... what the heck? Okay we're doing this, we're doing this. Okay made it down the hill. Keep going. So in Scandinavia they have this really neat thing for people who love the outdoors. It's something like that. Correct me if I'm wrong, I probably am. Basically what it is, is like this universal right that everybody has to access nature. So you can basically hike through any private land, you can camp on any private land as long as you're like some distance away from the house I guess. Basically it's everyone's right to access the outdoors and be in the outdoors. So it's not like you know in the U.S. where someone could theoretically I guess shoot you if you're kind of trespassing on their land. Here it's everyone's right which is so beautiful. It's so simple because it's true. This world belongs to all of us. We should all be able to enjoy it. It's been a few very calm weeks in the cottage. I spent most of my time either training like this with Vjok or in front of my laptop writing my book. This is easy for you isn't it? A lot easier for you than it is for me. Maybe you should pull the sled. You just have a little light backpack. Yeah I reckon you should pull the sled. What do you think? It turns out that writing a book is something that really takes up all of your focus and all of your attention. You have to be able to let go of distractions and find a space within you that's quiet and calm. You know to be honest I was worried that I wouldn't be able to write it because I feel like with my crazy job and schedule and social media my attention span is totally fried and I'll admit that it can be a struggle on some days but you know it's going and it's good to know that the human brain can bounce back. I'm kind of looking around and realizing that there's a lot of tiny little eyelids around here like just small little itsy bitsy eyelids and you know what it looks so much more fun to be camped out on one of those tiny islands than on just a really big island because on a tiny little island I can feel like the whole island belongs to me like I'm in my own little island kingdom. So I've decided to go to a tiny island and go set up camp there. I'm super excited because I have never camped on a tiny island before. Oh here it is our island. It's so cute. Okay so you got the island now I need to go and pick out a place to camp. So I think I'm gonna leave the sled here. I might leave the skis here too and just have a little walk around see if I can find a good spot. Oh the snow is pretty deep. You don't feel that so much when you're on skis because obviously the skis lift you above the snow and that's the whole idea but it is serious out here. How's this? So before I get to work setting up the tent for tonight I just wanted to say a quick thank you to the sponsor of today's video BottleBottle. These bottles have traveled with me to four different continents over the last couple of years. In fact you can probably see because this one is pretty banged up. I've been using it a lot. It adds a bit of charm you know. I stopped using plastic bottles a little while back even the so-called outdoorsy ones that all of us know. Nowadays I only use stainless steel. I mean it's a much more durable material. It's rugged. You can throw this bottle around and not worry about it. That was so much fun. It also retains heat or cold so much better and that means I can have my hot tea right now after a two-hour trek in the freezing cold. This is the three-in-one design and it's called the three-in-one because one two and three. This basically means that you can share your tea with a friend if you're that inclined. You want some? Yeah? Okay here you go. Is this what they call arctic madness? The BottleBottle have tons of different shapes, designs, colors, and sizes. Just head over to their website and you can use my special discount code to get a little discount. More information is in the description box below. Thank you BottleBottle for sponsoring this video. It was starting to get a little dark so I really needed to get this campsite set up. And every time I start setting up the tent Jörg always observes me very closely because the second the tent is up he is ready to jump inside. Excuse me. We have only one problem tonight. This is a single person tent and there's two of us. I hope we can make this work. I mean I don't mind but I know you love your personal space. It's getting cold here huh? It's getting a little cold. Yeah good boy. All right let's see if we can find some firewood to make a nice cozy fire because it is getting really really cold out here. Very very quickly. No surprises honestly. And here we go look a little fallen tree. Take this. Yeah go place. Drop it. Drop it. Yes come. Yes good boy. Now I have to teach you to help me with the firewood. Okay go place. Go place. Drop it. Drop it. Okay come. Yes good boy. Go place. Go place. Drop it. Drop it. Okay come. Yeah get it. Yeah go place. Look at all the firewood that Jörg has brought over. Amazing. Such a good boy. Dig. Jörg still had some work to do before getting his dinner. He dug us a very nice fireplace. Yes good boy. Here wipe. Here. Yes okay. Good boy. In the end I used some firewood that I'd brought along as a plan B because the sticks we collected weren't quite fit for the job. You know not so long ago I used to be so scared of camping alone. I was afraid of the darkness and strange creatures in the woods and getting lost or hypothermic. The list goes on. But I also really wanted to overcome that fear because I really loved being outside. It took time and a few initial sleepless nights in a tent of course but eventually it got less scary and more yeah I guess I can say this is fun. It got more fun. You know I love the fact that Björk is so alert and if he hears a sound or smell something unusual he will get up and check it out and I love that because obviously it makes me feel a lot safer but at the same time sometimes he'll get up and start barking at nothing or maybe there's like a jackrabbit somewhere here or maybe some animal passing by in the distance and he'll start you know his guarding thing and then I'll be like oh my god I gotta jump up and I'm like oh my god is someone coming but I still love camping with him because if you want to feel safe honestly there's no substitute for a good and alert guard dog. Okay I think it's time to go inside the tent. I have no idea how we're going to manage with one tall human and one very large dog in a single person tent but we'll have to make do. Wait can you get off? Yes. Okay Bobo, that's a good boy. Yes, well done. Okay so we both made it inside which is very good. Now we just need to figure out our arrangements. I think I'm gonna have to get inside my sleeping bag first and then Bjork is just gonna have to lay around me somewhere because there really isn't much space in this tent. Good boy buddy. We are both in. I actually have no way to know exactly how cold it is but I've kind of learned to gauge the cold recently. Basically it's definitely not like minus 15 or minus 20 because then the nostrils, the hairs in my nostrils would would have been freezing up so it's not that cold but it's also so cold that I feel uncomfortable without a hat and without gloves and my toes are cold so it's definitely colder than minus five so I think it's about minus 10. That's what I would estimate. It's quite cold. Good morning. Hey buddy. How did you sleep? Well we slept pretty well. Pretty squashed but we made it through the night. It was really nice and cozy in here. I mean I've got my jacket, I've got my sleeping bag, I've got Bjork to warm me up. Oh my god I think it's snowing out. I don't want to get out of my sleeping bag. It's so cozy in here. You know I didn't grow up in an outdoorsy family and this was actually a really big insecurity of mine for a really long time. I mean my family and I, we traveled but it was always to like hotels you know and on planes or by car. We never went camping, we never went hiking together as a family like nobody ever taught me how to make a fire in my family and so for the longest time I didn't even know that those things were like available to us as like things that you can do like hobbies so my first hike that I ever did and my first actual hike that I ever did was when I was 26 years old and the first time I ever like wild camped was when I was 28 I think so all these things came relatively late like I didn't grow up doing these things. I wasn't in the Scouts you know I didn't do any of the outdoorsy things that a lot of kids do and so I didn't know what gear to get, I didn't know what skills to like improve on, I didn't even know where to start to be completely honest with you and so whenever I went to like a gear store it just used to fill me with such dread because I felt like all the people, all the like shop assistants there like knew everything and they saw right through me they were like this girl knows nothing. I didn't know I couldn't tell you the difference between a hard shell or soft shell or this type of sweater or that type of sweater or like merino or polo like I just didn't know and then I just kind of started learning as intimidating as it was. I started watching videos on YouTube, I started signing up for trips and excursions and things like that, I started doing hiking on my own and camping on my own and eventually eventually I got better and you know for the longest time this feeling of being like an imposter or even an intruder yes an intruder into the outdoors niche wouldn't leave me alone like I was making content about the outdoors but I wasn't an expert. I'm still not an expert, probably never will be an expert but I was learning and I was so passionate about it because I love being outside, I love nature and I just wanted to spend all my time outside even in weather like this maybe especially weather like this. Anyway the point is I was just thinking about this the other day and it really struck me that like your family doesn't have to have a tradition of anything for you to be able to build that legacy for yourself like even if you come from the least outdoorsy family out there even if you come from the least artistic family out there you can still be an adventurer, you can still be an artist, you can still be all those things. I know it's going to be harder and you're probably going to have a steeper learning curve but you can do it and in a way doing it all by yourself is even better like it feels even more rewarding you know so yeah don't let your own family define where you end up going because you get to blaze your own trails. This is like half frozen it's not very good but it is calories I should keep eating Let's look at the cameras oh no no no good good