The Night Train to Rovaniemi Taught Me to Stop Checking the Time

I teach geography, which means I spend a lot of time pointing at maps of places I have not been. Last December, during the school holiday, I decided to finally take the overnight train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, all the way up to the Arctic Circle. I had done it once as a child and remembered almost nothing except a bunk bed and the smell of my father's coffee.

I booked a two-berth cabin for myself alone, which felt like an extravagance, and boarded at a little after seven in the evening with a paper bag of rye sandwiches and a thermos.

The cabin

The cabin is about the size of a large wardrobe. There is a bed folded against the wall, a tiny sink under a lid, a window, and a small shelf. Everything is clever and compact, the way Finnish design usually is. I sat by the window as the train pulled out and watched the city lights thin out until there was nothing but dark forest and the occasional lit window of a farmhouse.

The first thing I noticed was how quickly I wanted to check my phone. Where are we. How late are we. What time is it. Then I realised there was no point. The train would arrive in the morning whether I looked or not.

The stops in the dark

At Tampere, my home town, I looked out at the platform where I have stood a thousand times and felt like a stranger passing through. After that the names became less familiar. Oulu around two in the morning, though I only know because I woke up when the train stopped and heard voices on the platform, muffled through the snow.

There is something lovely about stations at night. A few people get on with their bags, a few get off, a man in a reflective vest walks along the train tapping something with a hammer. Then the doors close and you slide back into the forest.

Breakfast above the Circle

I woke around six. It was still completely dark, of course. In December the sun barely rises up there, and some days it does not rise at all. I went to the restaurant car and had coffee and a cinnamon bun while the snow outside glowed blue under the train's lights.

About an hour before Rovaniemi, the train slowed suddenly and stopped. Nobody explained anything. After a few minutes I saw why: three reindeer were standing on the tracks, looking at the locomotive with total indifference. The driver gave a gentle horn. They took their time. Everyone in the restaurant car laughed.

What I took from it

I spent two days in Rovaniemi walking along the frozen river and visiting the science museum, which is excellent. But the train is what I remember. Twelve hours of not being able to make anything go faster.

At home I am always late, always hurrying a class through a chapter or myself through a weekend. On the train I learned, or remembered, that some distances simply take the time they take. I have started leaving my phone in a drawer on Sunday mornings. It is not the same as a night train, but it helps.

My advice, if you go: book the cabin, bring your own food, and do not set an alarm. The reindeer will wake you if necessary.