White Nights, Northern Lights Winter Is a Cool Time to See Russian North

M4 Travel Boston Sunday Globe JANUARY 28, 2018 White nights, northern lights Winter is a cool time to see Russian North By Darra Goldstein ries are tucked into open-faced pies, GLOBE CORRESPONDENT steeped in vodka, whipped into milk- Ever since the Russian winter de- shakes, and boiled with sugar or honey feated Napoleon, the cold season tends into jam. Foraging for berries, and for to scare visitors off. But for me, both equally abundant mushrooms, re- summer and winter have their charms, mains a national pastime, and ecot- especially in the extremes of the Rus- ourism in nearby places like Golubino Clockwise: Oksana Arzhanova enjoys the season’s sian North, where the white nights — next to the extraordinary Pinega first cloudberry in the tundra of the Kola Peninsula. give way to the wintertime luster of Caves — is rapidly taking hold. Mackerel smoked with alderwood at a market in snow and northern lights. From Arkhangelsk it’s an easy 45- Murmansk. Traditional wooden houses have ornately What better place to begin the ad- minute flight to the Solovetsky Islands, decorated window frames and symbolic carvings. venture than Arkhangelsk, the White or Solovki, as they’re colloquially Sea city where Russia first opened up called. Here nature is pristine, and the Arctic Circle, and home to the largest to the West? In 1553 Richard Chancel- isolation profound. Huge granite boul- nuclear icebreaker fleet in the world. lor set sail from England, hoping to ders rise starkly out of the sea, trees The world’s northernmost trolley sys- find a northeast passage to China. He are stooped from the wind, and myste- tem runs through the city, powered by anchored at a small salt-works near rious stone labyrinths dot the shores. rattling Soviet-era buses equipped the mouth of the Dvina River. Within The majestic 15th-century Solovetsky with faster Wi-Fi than we have in two years the English had incorporat- Monastery, now a World Heritage site, much of New England. Murmansk is ed a trading company that bestowed became Russia’s second wealthiest reli- also an epicenter of New Russian cui- on the Russians an enduring love of gious community thanks to its lucra- sine, boasting two of the country’s lemons, pepper, and especially the gin- tive salt-works. Today, young artisans most talented chefs. Sergei Balakshin ger, cloves, and cardamom that flavor are reviving the art of salt production, at Tundra and Svetlana Kozeiko at the ornamental gingerbread Arkhan- and sometimes flavoring the mineral- Tsarskaya Okhota transform local pro- gelsk is still famous for. The city soon rich White Sea salt with seaweed, tan- duce into spectacular dishes like scal- became a vibrant merchant town, sy, or reindeer lichen. Solovki is most lops presented in their shells on a bed though its heyday lasted only half a famous for its fat herrings, which were of seaweed, or shaved frozen reindeer century. After Peter the Great estab- sent to the czar’s tables. You can enjoy with lingonberry sauce. lished St. Petersburg in 1703, Arkhan- them either fried or poached, with From Murmansk, it’s worth driving gelsk fell into decline, its port no cloudberry-infused vodka to wash a couple of hours to Teriberka, on the match for the ice-free Baltic. Today, it’s them down, at the modest Kaiut-Kom- Barents Sea. This derelict fishing vil- a charming city, with a beautiful wa- paniya Café run by Svetlana Mashko- lage was the setting for Andrey terfront promenade and a profusion of va, who makes sure the island is provi- Zvyagintsev’s Golden Globe-winning old wooden houses, the crumbling sioned year-round — no small feat giv- film “Leviathan,” its natural beauty of- structures even more picturesque than en that the sea freezes for a long eight fering a counterpoint to the film’s de- those that have been restored. Just months. piction of brutal corruption in post-So- outside the city limits is Malye Korely, The islands’ beauty and isolation, viet life. Three years ago a group of one of Europe’s largest open-air muse- coupled with the monastery’s holiness, young entrepreneurs responded by ums, where you can explore the intri- have made it a mythical place. Yet So- launching an annual festival called cacies of wooden architecture from lovki is also a place of deep sorrow. “Teriberka: New Life” that focuses on small villages throughout the Russian Ivan the Terrible exiled misbehaving ecotourism and food, especially the North. The city’s Northern Maritime priests to these islands, and Peter the sweet sea urchins and enormous mus- Museum is also fascinating, with its Great imprisoned criminals in its sels harvested from the Barents Sea. excellent installations from Arctic ex- damp dungeons. After the Russian The village is now experiencing a re- peditions and artifacts from the fa- Revolution, the Bolsheviks used the vival, with an eco-hotel in the works. mous convoys that carried crucial sup- once-sacred site to perfect the system Speaking of festivals, if you’re in- plies to Russia during World War II. of labor camps that grew into the Gu- trepid enough to visit Murmansk in Despite the region’s harsh climate, lag. The great scholar Dmitri Likh- winter, consider hopping on a bus to its flora is astonishingly diverse. The achev, imprisoned there in the 1920s, attend the Barents Spectacle, held ev- English naturalist John Tradescant, considered Solovki an otherworldly ery February in Kirkenes, Norway, just whose collection forms the basis of Ox- place, one that lies between heaven four hours away. Intended to bridge PHOTOS BY DARRA GOLDSTEIN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE ford University’s Ashmolean Museum, and earth, with its endless summer ho- national divides, the festival celebrates rapturously described the plants he rizons yielding to winter’s oppressive the arts, culture, and food of this ex- encountered on his 1618 journey to fog, relieved only by the majesty of the but beyond the monastery walls, its ex- during World War I (the Gulf Stream treme region, where summer days nev- Arkhangelsk. His journals tell of mag- northern lights. Today, the monastery ile a symbol of ongoing political strug- keeps its water from freezing), the city er end and winter skies are naturally nificent cloudberries, lingonberries, once again houses monks and wel- gles with the Russian Orthodox is new by any standard. Murmansk adorned with swirls of lavender and cranberries, blueberries, bilberries, comes thousands of austerely dressed Church. has more than one reason to be in the green. bird cherries, and red, white and black pilgrims. My own pilgrimage was to With or without a stop in Solovki, Guinness Book of World Records: it’s currants, their luscious flavor a gift of the memorial museum to the victims Murmansk is not to be missed. Found- the last city established under the Rus- Darra Goldstein can be reached at the long white nights. Today these ber- of the Gulag, which stands not inside ed in 1916 to receive Allied supplies sian Empire, the largest city above the [email protected]. Amid the alpine ridges of the Canadian Rockies By Brian Irwin the thud of our pulses throbbing in our temples. GLOBE CORRESPONDENT There was a certain degree of trepidation, as here’s an adage in mountain climb- these valleys are home to a healthy population of ing. There are old climbers and bold grizzly bears. However, we confidently holstered climbers, but there are no old, bold a giant can of bear spray, a mace-like product climbers. I have to confess that some that’s been shown to be a lifesaver in the event of of my favorite climbs stopped short a bear charge. Tof the true summit, sometimes because of condi- We rounded Lake Louise and headed uphill tions, the weather, or illness. I certainly relish into a valley with a stunning hanging lake, Lake standing on the very apex of a peak, but what I Agnes. Like Lake Louise, Agnes beamed with an relish more is the act of climbing, camaraderie, electric blue hue, a result of suspended glacial silt and perhaps most of all, coming home alive. On a in the water that yields a Caribbean-like color of recent trip to the Canadian Rockies, that’s exactly water. At the foot of Lake Agnes we stopped to what I experienced. peer into the idyllic Lake Agnes Tea House, a For six months, my long-time climbing part- backcountry chalet that has served soup and ner and I planned a trip to the Bugaboo Provin- sandwiches and tea to hikers and climbers since cial Park in British Columbia. It’s a land of wind- 1905. The tea house was not yet open in the early ing glaciers and nunataks (granite spires that morning light, so we headed uphill toward Ni- thrust skyward from the glacial ice), we’d hoped block’s giant scree cone. An hour of navigation on to climb the storied, quality granite. For weeks, slippery talus later and we cast off on our first we packed ice axes and ropes, freeze-dried shep- pitch (a ropelength) of technical rock climbing. PHOTOS BY BRIAN IRWIN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE herd’s pie, and fuzzy gloves. We arrived in Can- The stone was loose and four pitches later we more, Alberta, only to find out that ever-spread- were delivered to the col between Niblock and ing wildfires led to the closure of the park. So, we Conrad Yager (above) negotiates the slots Mount Whyte, the adjacent summit. There at the scrambled to reorient and find other places to on the Boundary Glacier, high on Mount col, we assessed the rock stability and made the climb.

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