I have been to northern Norway and Iceland a few times.
It all started when I was running my previous SaaS at the peak of its growth. I needed a break, and wanted to go far away, while still being close enough if sh*t hit the fan. My co-founder had recently talked to some friends who had been to Tromsø, Norway. The place looked perfect, so I booked a 5-day solo trip there.
Places that are so distant, with such harsh conditions and few people living there always give me a feeling I do not experience anywhere else in the world. I feel small, irrelevant, in the face of brutal, powerful nature.
And believe me, it is a feeling that is overwhelming. But never have I perceived it as something negative. The opposite was true. Feeling small made me feel calm, embracing that that was the right spot for me as part of God's creation. Suddenly, all those dark clouds that followed me everywhere I went back home were... Gone.
If you ever have the opportunity to go to one of these places - go. It might change you in profound ways.
You just described wonderfully why I'm drawn to remote places. It started with a trip to the interior of Iceland, then Tromsø, and more recently Svalbard and the Faroes.
Completely agree. I’ve been on many hikes and in particular there was one time where I was walking up a mountain, at winter, with skis on, that I felt like wow if everyone got to experience this particular feeling of just you and the mountains and not a single soul around, there would be less conflict in the world. If we all got to go on these long solitary trips in the mountains alone. All kinds of grievances and conflicts and whatever you might feel about people that you dislike, it all suddenly feels so insignificant and pointless to even expend any energy on.
And when you want to experiance true issolation in the face of nature, Alaska and Westerm Canada are waiting. Try a drive north through BC in winter. Fish on an Alaskan river only accessible by floatplane. Wake up to watch the northern lights only to realize you are looking south. Or pan for gold only to look up and see a grizzly cub walking cassually past.
I happen to be one of the Danes who partially grew up in Greenland that he talks about in the article. I even recognize the places from the article.
Some of my cordial childhood memories are from there and it is a place I will forever love. One of the most visceral memories I have is looking across the ice fjord listening to the thunderous breaking of the ice bergs - you can hear the sounds on videos, but combined with the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there.
I can see that the author was initially worried that Greenland would be devoid of anything to do, which is of course not true, as is written in the article. Especially the people are one of a kind in what I can only describe as directness or pragmatism.
One time a local from the place I lived was driving his car as it broke down and - rather than having it regularly towed to the mechanic - actually decided to tow it with a group of sled dogs. We just watched him sticking his head out the window shouting commands to the dogs while driving by. The dogs there can distinguish left and right, so it was surprisingly trivial to get the car to the mechanic. The Greenlanders see nothing extraordinary about this.
In other words, it is really valuable to have local connections if you want a great vacation in Greenland. I can also recommend the small, mini village settlements that are spread across the coast of the grand county. Some of them have hotels also.
> the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there.
I have a video of the coolest moment of my life and it looks like maybe the magnitude of a firefly on film. An asteroid impact was predicted and I heard of it in time, so I went to observe it. No sound (or body feel) in my case, but knowing how crazy big and distant the fireball that you're observing is, lighting up the sky from the far side of France...
People whom I showed didn't really have a big reaction. I didn't really understand that, but by now I have enough distance to the event to look back at the video more objectively and realize that, indeed, it's cool but it's just another video. This, too, seems like it can only be experienced in real life
Eleven have been predicted ever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Lis...), none yet in 2025. If you see the notice and you're within, say, 750 km, share the news with a friend and go see it! Of course, it objectively really is just what it is: bigger version of a shooting star. Idk if everyone would have my reaction, but I did ^^
Thank you for sharing iceberg cracking. I love 'cold vacations' anyway (two months in Finland were some of the best months), so this is a new entry on my bucket list :)
It's funny to me that in portraying Indiana as a "blank state" he's highlighting one of the most beautiful parts of the state (the route through the Dunes along the Michigan lakefront; if you've seen "Road To Perdition", you know what that area looks like). It's not important to the article, a complete tangent, but I can't not call that out.
"The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite."
> The second I stepped outside I was set upon by a flood of mosquitos like I have never experienced before. I have been to the jungles of Vietnam, the swamps of Florida and the Canadian countryside. This was beyond anything I've ever experienced.
> There are bugs in my mouth, ears, eyes and nose almost immediately. The photo below is not me being dramatic, it is actually what is required to keep them off of me.
> In fact what you need to purchase in order to walk around this area at all are basically bug nets for your face. They're effectively plastic mesh bags that you put on.
This is pretty standard for Scotland in the summer too.
The midges are horrific. It's amazing how something so tiny can make your life so miserable. I don't know how people in the olden days survived. I wonder what kind of social and political effects the midges had. I can imagine Scots with all their gifts of the mind and body fleeing and surrendering to the English just to get away from them.
In the 70's we visited relatives in northern Minnesota and took a .22 rifle to a dump, I think to shoot rats. So many mosquitos would immediately land on us and the rifle that you couldn't see the sight on the end of the barrel. We got out of there quick.
This was some great travel writing. You don't hear good metaphors thrown around these days so much; LLMs suck at metaphors. Some choice bits:
>>like being stuck behind a school bus in your own driveway.
>>like some sort of prehistoric parking lot
>>like nature's sculpture garden
>>like being grounded by an airline
>>like a very expensive, very slow merry-go-round
>>like being trapped in a meteorological mood swing
These are each couched really nicely as references to everyday life, not over the top Hunter S Thompson style parallels, but at the same time very visual and conjuring experiences everyone can relate to. Good writing.
I'm really disturbed by the throwing of frozen sled dogs off a cliff. Frozen wasteland or not, they should do something to enforce laws against cruelty to animals.
> Frozen wasteland or not, they should do something to enforce laws against cruelty to animals.
There are animal welfare laws, as well as a special unit responsible for specifically sleddogs. People are told to call snitch lines if they see animal cruelty
What is animal cruelty? The sleddogs talked about in the post were dead, you don't know how they died. In the wild or on trips sled drivers will often kill sleddogs themselves if they notice one slowing the pack down. It's a different world
Or is it just the part about throwing them off a cliff you don't like?
«This would end up being a theme, where buildings representing Denmark were made out of lots of wood, almost to ensure that you understood they weren't from here.»
Wooden buildings is much more of a Swedish or Norwegian thing than Danish. Wood is just a good material for building in the arctic.
Why is it a good material? I would think steel or reinforced concrete would be better, with cheap corrugated metal paneling. And either way you need reinforced concrete foundations right?
I flew over Greenland coming back from Europe recently. From the air, the fjords and glacial snowscapes there and in northern Canada are profoundly beautiful and completely devoid of signs of humans in a way you don’t see even in some of the remotest parts of the US.
Definitely worth opening the shade for if you have the opportunity
> There is nothing distinct about Indiana, it's just a place full of people who got too tired on their way to somewhere better and decided "this is good enough".
This is how Norte Dame was (allegedly) founded. Priests set out from the East Coast, planning to found the greatest Catholic University in the world in California. They get to Indiana and encounter a terrible snowstorm. They hunker down and decide they’ll get moving again when the weather improved. It never did.
Having grown up in northern Indiana and having spent my honeymoon ski touring in Greenland - I must say I don’t find the two to be very comparable. The skiing was significantly better in Greenland and the people much friendlier to boot.
>fun-fact: CIA is currently mucking around in Greenland trying to get rid of people against annexation
That's a very misleading phrasing for what's essentially an influence operation. Your wording of "get rid of people ..." implies there's some assassinations/violence going on, but there's nothing to suggest that's happening. If Republicans/Democrats or even Russia was running an influence operation in the US, nobody would characterize that as "getting rid" of opponents or whatever.
I don't think that's an accurate characterization of either of those articles. It sounds like they're trying to find groups who want to be independent, probably with the goal of artificially propping them up. It's still gross, but not as gross as hunting dissidents.
Oh god, this CIA meddling in never ends well for anyone. I mean afterwards Americans will make a Hollywood movie claiming that situation was complicated and their intentions were good, but it will end up with some sort of hell.
In spite of wanna-be-kings like Putin and Trump, the obvious historical trend is for larger empires and countries to break up into smaller independent ones.
If you hang out with sled dogs, you will discover they are the happiest dogs. They go nuts when they get to run or eat, and just chill in their dog houses otherwise.
Did anyone ever find out where those people were driving with such urgency, if indeed the town is like 6km start to finish? Felt a bit unresolved in the post
Is it just daily life, going 2km from work to home in a wind-protected vehicle (since the car won't be warm yet when your destination is on average like 4 minutes away; it can't be the heat aspect) as opposed to walking or, idk, ice skating or whatever it is you can do there (I presume not cycling or scootering due to slipperiness)?
It's tiny and inhospitable, but it's beautiful like the inhospitable beauty of the high desert--but with snow. The pop of color of the houses against the the bedrock they're built on, the orange spray of lichen on the granite, the site of brightly colored red sails on tourist boats radiant as the sun punches through the fog, the incredible glaciers and density of snow and ice as it exits the mouth of the fjord, the site of an iceberg tipping over as it melts...
It's not somewhere you go if you want to enjoy architectural masterpieces, but the harsh beauty of a place like that can't be understated.
Well, US has the base near Guantanamo; I haven't been to that side but I have been to Guantanamo proper... trust me, that place is hot and has mosquitoes and two decades ago the naval base was almost as infamous as North Korea. And then there's the newly opened "alligator Alcatraz"... I think Mr. President have gotten some ideas for Greenland :-)
[+] [-] iagooar|5 months ago|reply
It all started when I was running my previous SaaS at the peak of its growth. I needed a break, and wanted to go far away, while still being close enough if sh*t hit the fan. My co-founder had recently talked to some friends who had been to Tromsø, Norway. The place looked perfect, so I booked a 5-day solo trip there.
Places that are so distant, with such harsh conditions and few people living there always give me a feeling I do not experience anywhere else in the world. I feel small, irrelevant, in the face of brutal, powerful nature.
And believe me, it is a feeling that is overwhelming. But never have I perceived it as something negative. The opposite was true. Feeling small made me feel calm, embracing that that was the right spot for me as part of God's creation. Suddenly, all those dark clouds that followed me everywhere I went back home were... Gone.
If you ever have the opportunity to go to one of these places - go. It might change you in profound ways.
[+] [-] grilledchickenw|5 months ago|reply
I tried to capture the beautiful sense of isolation in Svalbard here, maybe it inspires others to make a trip to somewhere remote. https://photoblog.nk412.com/Svalbard2024/n-ssC8fP/Svalminiph...
[+] [-] QuantumNomad_|5 months ago|reply
Completely agree. I’ve been on many hikes and in particular there was one time where I was walking up a mountain, at winter, with skis on, that I felt like wow if everyone got to experience this particular feeling of just you and the mountains and not a single soul around, there would be less conflict in the world. If we all got to go on these long solitary trips in the mountains alone. All kinds of grievances and conflicts and whatever you might feel about people that you dislike, it all suddenly feels so insignificant and pointless to even expend any energy on.
[+] [-] sandworm101|5 months ago|reply
Norway: 15 people per sq km.
Alberta: 6.7
British columbia: 5.5
Alaska: 0.5
Yukon territory: 0.1
Northwest Territories: 0.03
[+] [-] tomcam|5 months ago|reply
I married a Chinese woman so I know that same feeling!
I kid.
Mostly.
[+] [-] marcosscriven|5 months ago|reply
But the landscape was breathtaking, and the locals friendly in a low key way.
I’d love to go back.
[+] [-] bruce511|5 months ago|reply
There doesn't look like much to do there, which I guess is kinda the point. I'm looking forward to it.
[+] [-] 0ckpuppet|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] al_borland|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnLocke4|5 months ago|reply
Some of my cordial childhood memories are from there and it is a place I will forever love. One of the most visceral memories I have is looking across the ice fjord listening to the thunderous breaking of the ice bergs - you can hear the sounds on videos, but combined with the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there.
I can see that the author was initially worried that Greenland would be devoid of anything to do, which is of course not true, as is written in the article. Especially the people are one of a kind in what I can only describe as directness or pragmatism.
One time a local from the place I lived was driving his car as it broke down and - rather than having it regularly towed to the mechanic - actually decided to tow it with a group of sled dogs. We just watched him sticking his head out the window shouting commands to the dogs while driving by. The dogs there can distinguish left and right, so it was surprisingly trivial to get the car to the mechanic. The Greenlanders see nothing extraordinary about this.
In other words, it is really valuable to have local connections if you want a great vacation in Greenland. I can also recommend the small, mini village settlements that are spread across the coast of the grand county. Some of them have hotels also.
I became nostalgic so I wrote a little blog post with some pictures for you people: https://lucasblog.dk/post/Greenland
[+] [-] lucb1e|5 months ago|reply
I have a video of the coolest moment of my life and it looks like maybe the magnitude of a firefly on film. An asteroid impact was predicted and I heard of it in time, so I went to observe it. No sound (or body feel) in my case, but knowing how crazy big and distant the fireball that you're observing is, lighting up the sky from the far side of France...
People whom I showed didn't really have a big reaction. I didn't really understand that, but by now I have enough distance to the event to look back at the video more objectively and realize that, indeed, it's cool but it's just another video. This, too, seems like it can only be experienced in real life
Eleven have been predicted ever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Lis...), none yet in 2025. If you see the notice and you're within, say, 750 km, share the news with a friend and go see it! Of course, it objectively really is just what it is: bigger version of a shooting star. Idk if everyone would have my reaction, but I did ^^
Thank you for sharing iceberg cracking. I love 'cold vacations' anyway (two months in Finland were some of the best months), so this is a new entry on my bucket list :)
[+] [-] mkl|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] skybrian|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] vintagedave|5 months ago|reply
And how would you make local connections before visiting?
[+] [-] petre|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] planet36|5 months ago|reply
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville
[+] [-] iagooar|5 months ago|reply
Was it good? It was OK. Would I have it again? Probably not.
Still a nice experience. Also trying cured reindeer, moose and seal slices was pretty unique.
[+] [-] ryangibb|5 months ago|reply
> There are bugs in my mouth, ears, eyes and nose almost immediately. The photo below is not me being dramatic, it is actually what is required to keep them off of me.
> In fact what you need to purchase in order to walk around this area at all are basically bug nets for your face. They're effectively plastic mesh bags that you put on.
This is pretty standard for Scotland in the summer too.
[+] [-] FridayoLeary|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] internet_points|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sema4hacker|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] noduerme|5 months ago|reply
>>like being stuck behind a school bus in your own driveway.
>>like some sort of prehistoric parking lot
>>like nature's sculpture garden
>>like being grounded by an airline
>>like a very expensive, very slow merry-go-round
>>like being trapped in a meteorological mood swing
These are each couched really nicely as references to everyday life, not over the top Hunter S Thompson style parallels, but at the same time very visual and conjuring experiences everyone can relate to. Good writing.
I'm really disturbed by the throwing of frozen sled dogs off a cliff. Frozen wasteland or not, they should do something to enforce laws against cruelty to animals.
[+] [-] LarsKrimi|5 months ago|reply
There are animal welfare laws, as well as a special unit responsible for specifically sleddogs. People are told to call snitch lines if they see animal cruelty
What is animal cruelty? The sleddogs talked about in the post were dead, you don't know how they died. In the wild or on trips sled drivers will often kill sleddogs themselves if they notice one slowing the pack down. It's a different world
Or is it just the part about throwing them off a cliff you don't like?
[+] [-] tokai|5 months ago|reply
Wooden buildings is much more of a Swedish or Norwegian thing than Danish. Wood is just a good material for building in the arctic.
[+] [-] SilverElfin|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Metacelsus|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] topkai22|5 months ago|reply
Definitely worth opening the shade for if you have the opportunity
[+] [-] b3lm0nt|5 months ago|reply
Shuffleboard At McMurdo: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm
[+] [-] paulcole|5 months ago|reply
This is how Norte Dame was (allegedly) founded. Priests set out from the East Coast, planning to found the greatest Catholic University in the world in California. They get to Indiana and encounter a terrible snowstorm. They hunker down and decide they’ll get moving again when the weather improved. It never did.
[+] [-] bikelang|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|5 months ago|reply
this is not going to end well
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...
[+] [-] gruez|5 months ago|reply
That's a very misleading phrasing for what's essentially an influence operation. Your wording of "get rid of people ..." implies there's some assassinations/violence going on, but there's nothing to suggest that's happening. If Republicans/Democrats or even Russia was running an influence operation in the US, nobody would characterize that as "getting rid" of opponents or whatever.
[+] [-] idiotsecant|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lifestyleguru|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] danielscrubs|5 months ago|reply
I think US ownership (not necessarily of land) is inevitable, but it is going to take a couple of decades of these kind of polarising pieces.
[+] [-] sema4hacker|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sleddoggs|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pixelpoet|5 months ago|reply
Edit: Wow, HN didn't like that. Nevermind, screw the dogs I guess, just toss the frozen ones over the cliff.
[+] [-] Slava_Propanei|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mkl|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|5 months ago|reply
Is it just daily life, going 2km from work to home in a wind-protected vehicle (since the car won't be warm yet when your destination is on average like 4 minutes away; it can't be the heat aspect) as opposed to walking or, idk, ice skating or whatever it is you can do there (I presume not cycling or scootering due to slipperiness)?
[+] [-] epolanski|5 months ago|reply
Hah, that's exactly the feeling I got when my favorite travel YouTuber went there.
Other than what in this post you also had boat excursions which were nice.
[+] [-] Espressosaurus|5 months ago|reply
It's not somewhere you go if you want to enjoy architectural masterpieces, but the harsh beauty of a place like that can't be understated.
[+] [-] Simon_O_Rourke|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dsign|5 months ago|reply
/s
[+] [-] marssaxman|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rwmj|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 months ago|reply
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