A Dream Comes True
No doubt you have all seen one of those television programs where some poor unsuspecting person gets someone on the stage under some pretext only to find he is the one who is in for the big shock. Well here is one such story.
Back in June Helen and I were attending a family get together being held in Wiltshire
Our daughter Jenny brought her boy friend along, first time we had met him, really enjoyed his company, albeit briefly as you will read.
The evening was going along nicely a few drinks, thankfully as it turned out. When my daughter handed me a package and wishing me a happy birthday, I pointed out she had already given me my present earlier in the year, my birthday being in January. This is something extra she replied
On opening it, the first thing to come to light was a Polo shirt with the wording “Bernard’s 70 Polar Tour” emblazoned on it, next out was a profile of a Polar bear, consisting of several pages joined together with various dates and itinerary on each page, drive to Heathrow, stay at such and such hotel, fly to Stockholm etc. Me being me and not attaching any significance to the dates etc., and I must confess a tear in my eye as what was to take place dawned on me, I said “when is this going to happen” “tonight” she said. “I can’t I replied” stating various reasons why we couldn’t. To every one of my reasons she or Helen had a reason why we could and would. It turned out that about half the country were in on this surprise, our heating engineer who was partway fitting a boiler, our dance teacher and members of our class, the lady who looks after our dog when we have to go away and can’t take him, and of course the Spares Manager at the Polar factory in Dorotea Sweden. These plans had it seems, been going on since early in the New Year and I did not know anything about it. I had even put four suit cases in the car and never gave it a moment’s thought.
Well that was the end of the party and start of the next six incredible days. We said our goodbyes and drove to Heathrow booking into our hotel ready for our early flight to Stockholm on the Sunday morning, where we were staying for the rest of Sunday and Monday. The time there was spent sightseeing in both new and old parts of the city. We watched the changing of the guard at the royal palace and wandered around soaking up the atmosphere.
We then went to our hotel, having arranged to meet in the evening and have a meal together. The hotel was very comfortable and very casual in its approach to its guests. Dinner was being served when we arrived, well I say being served, there were various Bain maries, with various hot dishes, it was very much help yourself. The menu for lunch and dinner was posted on a blackboard and easel at the entrance to the dining area, with a simple choice; you either eat what was on offer or went without.
In the afternoon Helen and I went for a stroll around the town, a nice selection of shops and a tourist information office where we spent a good hour talking to the two young people running it who gave us a lot of information on what we should try to see in our limited time there.
Back in June Helen and I were attending a family get together being held in Wiltshire
Our daughter Jenny brought her boy friend along, first time we had met him, really enjoyed his company, albeit briefly as you will read.
The evening was going along nicely a few drinks, thankfully as it turned out. When my daughter handed me a package and wishing me a happy birthday, I pointed out she had already given me my present earlier in the year, my birthday being in January. This is something extra she replied
On opening it, the first thing to come to light was a Polo shirt with the wording “Bernard’s 70 Polar Tour” emblazoned on it, next out was a profile of a Polar bear, consisting of several pages joined together with various dates and itinerary on each page, drive to Heathrow, stay at such and such hotel, fly to Stockholm etc. Me being me and not attaching any significance to the dates etc., and I must confess a tear in my eye as what was to take place dawned on me, I said “when is this going to happen” “tonight” she said. “I can’t I replied” stating various reasons why we couldn’t. To every one of my reasons she or Helen had a reason why we could and would. It turned out that about half the country were in on this surprise, our heating engineer who was partway fitting a boiler, our dance teacher and members of our class, the lady who looks after our dog when we have to go away and can’t take him, and of course the Spares Manager at the Polar factory in Dorotea Sweden. These plans had it seems, been going on since early in the New Year and I did not know anything about it. I had even put four suit cases in the car and never gave it a moment’s thought.
Well that was the end of the party and start of the next six incredible days. We said our goodbyes and drove to Heathrow booking into our hotel ready for our early flight to Stockholm on the Sunday morning, where we were staying for the rest of Sunday and Monday. The time there was spent sightseeing in both new and old parts of the city. We watched the changing of the guard at the royal palace and wandered around soaking up the atmosphere.
We then went to our hotel, having arranged to meet in the evening and have a meal together. The hotel was very comfortable and very casual in its approach to its guests. Dinner was being served when we arrived, well I say being served, there were various Bain maries, with various hot dishes, it was very much help yourself. The menu for lunch and dinner was posted on a blackboard and easel at the entrance to the dining area, with a simple choice; you either eat what was on offer or went without.
In the afternoon Helen and I went for a stroll around the town, a nice selection of shops and a tourist information office where we spent a good hour talking to the two young people running it who gave us a lot of information on what we should try to see in our limited time there.
The Old Square Stockholm
Tuesday an early fight to Vilhelmina, this was in itself an experience, a small aircraft carrying about forty passengers, more like a bus service really. Off we went flying over some fantastic country just woodland and a few roads and not much else. The flight was about two hours, we landed at Vilhemina which comprised of a single runway a couple of buildings which comprised of the ticket office, customs hall and departure lounge all not a lot bigger than a typical village hall. Only Helen and I disembarked together with an unaccompanied youngster, we walked from the aircraft into the baggage reclaim and around came our cases on the conveyer all very modern. We were met at this point by our host’s husband, Christer, who had come to collect us and take us on the 50k journey to the town of Dorotea.
The journey was uneventful nice wide roads, the only thing missing were the cars and trucks.
Push me pull me
In the afternoon Helen and I went for a stroll around the town, a nice selection of shops and a tourist information office where we spent a good hour talking to the two young people running it who gave us a lot of information on what we should try to see in our limited time there.
View from our hotel window in Dorotea
Hallingsafallet Waterfall
Ann and Christer, after our evening meal, took us on a short sightseeing tour of the local area. They were very keen on showing us their churches and what magnificent buildings they were. One in particular had a separate chapel which houses life size sculptures of Jesus and his disciples gathered together for the last super. These are absolutely life like and on opening the door to this closed room you immediately think you have interrupted an actual gathering,
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The Last Supper
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Don’t think this ever melts
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Crystal Clear Lake
Well typically in Sweden or this part seems to close down about 2030, so we returned to our hotel, agreeing to meet up for a site seeing tour the next day that would take us to some of the remotest and beautiful places.
Lapland Jail
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Traffic Jam Lapland Style
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On Wednesday we were up early for our day’s trip leaving the hotel at about 8.30, this consisted of about a 4/500KM round trip. I won’t go into a lot of detail about this as you can imagine there was a lot of driving. The roads were devoid of traffic as you will see from attached photographs. The roads we travelled on were a mixture of conventional roads and what I will call cinder roads such as you will see used in motor rallies. These seemed to stretch for miles and ended in some magnificent sights. During this trip we visited a water fall; this was reached after a particularly long drive up one of these dirt roads. When we arrived what do you think, there was a caravan, not a Polar, toilets and a wooden shelter incorporating a bar-b-que, no vandalism. How long such a thing would last in this country I wouldn’t like to take bets on.
Other sites were a Laplanders village which was being prepared for the long weekend to celebrate the summer solstice.
The Laplanders have a lot of power in this part of Sweden and can decide what goes on and what buildings can and can’t be built.
It would seem that if you own a piece of land and providing there are no objections you can build what you like. We had lunch at a timber built restaurant where we were the only customers and then Ann and Christer took us way up into the snow line where the air was as clear and still as a summer’s day. We finished the day by visiting the area owned by Ann and Christer, together with other members of their extended family which consisted of several houses, barns, etc housing snow mobiles and other items, none of which were locked! The vast proportions of dwellings were built from the local larch forest and most have been hand built to suit the owners. If your family needs change then you add on a bit. But then there is no theft or little trouble in the country. They use this as their weekend retreat and go there most weekends the view from their house here is glorious, with the ground falling away to a lake, what more could you want?
Other sites were a Laplanders village which was being prepared for the long weekend to celebrate the summer solstice.
The Laplanders have a lot of power in this part of Sweden and can decide what goes on and what buildings can and can’t be built.
It would seem that if you own a piece of land and providing there are no objections you can build what you like. We had lunch at a timber built restaurant where we were the only customers and then Ann and Christer took us way up into the snow line where the air was as clear and still as a summer’s day. We finished the day by visiting the area owned by Ann and Christer, together with other members of their extended family which consisted of several houses, barns, etc housing snow mobiles and other items, none of which were locked! The vast proportions of dwellings were built from the local larch forest and most have been hand built to suit the owners. If your family needs change then you add on a bit. But then there is no theft or little trouble in the country. They use this as their weekend retreat and go there most weekends the view from their house here is glorious, with the ground falling away to a lake, what more could you want?
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Thursday, this was it, we were met from the hotel by Ann’s assistant, Jens, three visits had been arranged for us, one to a caravan awning manufacturer, one to a factory manufacturing demountable campers, incidentally owned by Ann’s brothers, and finally POLAR.
The first two sites were very interesting and the owners of both could not have been more friendly, showing us around and explaining what and how they produced their products. Both of these companies are very family orientated and hands on.
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Then off to the Polar factory where we were taken through the production process. All the sides, ends and roofs are made in one building. All of the wiring is inlaid. Steel plates are glued in position, to provide additional strength when furniture is fitted, as they screw into the plates rather than just the plywood. Once sides and roofs are made, the final process is to cut out all the openings windows, doors, etc. This work is carried out on computer controlled machines; we were told that if you required a new roof or side providing you gave the serial No. of the caravan they could make a replacement with all the necessary holes in place that would match the original. Then off to see the caravans being assembled, these are obviously built from the chassis up as the assembly progresses. Gas and water pipes go in first, all to a drawing, so everything is in the right place. The sides goes up, the front and back go on, furniture goes in some through the roof opening and last the roof goes on, pretty impressive. The spares department was the last place to be visited which we did after lunch. This whole area is run by seven people, with spare parts going back to seventies as you will see from the pictures taken of the spares catalogues. In essence if you want it they have got it. It’s an Aladdin’s cave, give me a trolley and I could have had a field day. A short visit to the on-site museum concluded our visit to Polar and Dorotea. A taxi ride took us back to Vilhelmina for a flight to Stockholm and then Heathrow.
Polar caravan in it’s natural habitat
It was over all too soon, but what a super gift it was. The organizing that went into it by everyone and not a hint did I pick up on was brilliant. I am sitting here now typing this with a tear in my eye as I think back over this trip FANTASTIC.
I hope I have not bored the pants off you all and hope the selection of photos gives you a taste for what we saw and did.
Bernard and Helen
I hope I have not bored the pants off you all and hope the selection of photos gives you a taste for what we saw and did.
Bernard and Helen
