Nellim has a couple of unique accommodation options built specially for aurora watching. The Aurora Bubble is one of them. We stayed in it for just one night. It has a clear dome roof, allowing guests to doze off under the stars. Unfortunately, the northern lights were a no-show for us, but it was still a pretty cool experience overall.
The bubbles are set a little further away from the main cabins but we could walk from our cabin to the bubble in 5 minutes. Thank goodness we got bubble 2! The room was warm and the bed, ridiculously cozy.
The comfy bed and lack of aurora activity made us sleepy real fast. I’ll say this, sky gazing sounds a lot more interesting on paper than it is in reality. The iPad kept us awake for an hour but we could barely keep our eyes open after that. We set the alarm to wake us up every half hour between 11pm to 2am, but the skies remained stubbornly clear of any green streaks.
When we woke up, it was dawn and a misty pink and purple glow covered the woods. I half-expected the white witch of Narnia to appear any moment. Bit by bit, the landscape lightened till it was all white. And look, ice crystals right outside our window. I had only ever seen pointy icicles before, that gleaming smooth round column of ice was like a sculpture.
Snowfall during the night was so heavy it covered our roof and shrouded our view. We only had a little sliver to look out through. The temperature in the room was supposedly optimised to melt any snow on the roof. Guess there was just too much snow.
Other things to note, the room itself was very small. There was barely enough space for a backpack. There was also no water in the bubble. We showered in my family’s cabin before heading over to the bubble. For other guests, they showered in the saunas and left their luggage in the main building. The bubble did have an eco-toilet. An eco-toilet is a dry toilet with no flush, but there will usually be a pail of sawdust nearby. Basically, you do what you have to do, cover up with sawdust after. It wasn’t the greatest experience, but there was no stench and sanitiser gel and wipes were provided. I wouldn’t suggest staying for more than a night though.
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