I’ve spent the last few days in Tromso, Norway and I’ve got to own up to not realising how far north it actually was. This trip marked my first time inside the Arctic Circle!
The reason we were there was to try and chase the Northern Lights. As expected, and similar to last year when we were in Iceland, the night before we arrived was supposedly…
The best display of the Northern Lights in years
I’m beginning to doubt that this actually is the case and edging towards the likelihood it’s something designed to irritate tourists.
On our first day we headed to the tourist information office to book a few trips and find out what else there was to do in Tromso. And, to my amazement, it turned out that the world Reindeer Racing Championships were being held on the high street… the very next day!
That was it, the next afternoons plan had just been made.
Admittedly I’d never heard of reindeer racing before, but it seemed to make perfect sense to convert the high street of a town into a race track for them.
So, the next afternoon we followed the booming commentary and ended up on a high street that had been transformed into an icy race track with a 200 meter, 2 foot high snow lane for the reindeers and their riders to race on.
And… it was busy. At least, it was busy compared to what we had seen so far in Tromso.
I wandered, past a stall selling reindeer burgers, up to where the reindeer were waiting patiently to be raced so that I could get a few un-blurry photographs like the one above.
If you’ve never seen a reindeer run, and there’s no particular reason that you should have, then there’s one thing to say about them…. they’re fast.
Please bear that in mind when you see the blurriness of the next image!
Unfortunately, much as I enjoyed watching the world reindeer racing championships, I can’t speak Norwegian. Which means that although we watched all the races, and I shouted along with the rest of the spectators, I have absolutely no idea who won. But, I wish them a hearty congratulations.
I recorded a very short video of one of the races so if you’d like to check out what a reindeer race actually looks like, then you can see it below.
If you’ve seen reindeer racing before then leave me a comment to tell me, it’d be great to see some Race Advisor readers know about this. If you haven’t, then leave a comment to let me know what you think, maybe we should petition for it to take place here in the future!
