Nate and Kara spend the night in an ice cabin at Apukka Resort in Finnish Lapland, where temperatures drop to -5 to 0°C. They document the sleeping setup with reindeer skins and fleece liners, snowmobiling, outdoor cooking, and their challenge to stay until sunrise at 6:07.
Chapters
Cannonball. That actually works better than I thought it was going to.
Have you ever been in snow like this?
No. This is the greatest.
I'm sweating.
Ready to rock.
Let's go.
Wow.
This is insane.
How are you gonna drink your hot chocolate like that?
Please, just dump it on my face.
Pillowcase for your body. Except I've hidden the key to the room.
No, you didn't.
Good morning from our Arctic treehouse in Finnish Lapland. I never thought I'd say those words, but here we are. And unfortunately, we're checking out today.
But we have an awesome day of adventures planned. We are starting with snowmobiling, which is something that neither one of us have ever done before. And then tonight, we are staying somewhere that is possibly more unique than this treehouse that we stayed in last night.
I'm definitely going to be cold for the next 24 hours.
Took a lot of convincing to get Cara to do this, but it's going to be so much fun.
Oh.
Oh, this is intense. Never worn anything like this.
I think I'm going to be warm. How do I look? Oh, I'm so hot. I can't wait to go outside. Never thought I would say that.
We've just arrived. Arrived at the Apuka Resort, changed into the warmest clothes of our lives, and we're about to jump straight on some snowmobiles. I feel like I'm going to space.
This thing even has hand heaters. Not that I need them right now because I'm sweating still. You better hold on, Nate. You nervous? There we go. This is awesome.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous right now. You're doing great though.
Sam.
I love it.
Watch your arm. I'm coming in.
Oh, it's so soft, isn't it? I love this. It's like a natural memory foam mattress.
How you feel like this is the best. Wow, it just keeps. Look at this.
Made it.
How you doing?
Single handedly building a fire over here. Totally kidding. You all get credit. Just took over. We've actually still yet to find the bottom. It's hard work building a fire in the Arctic.
There we go.
We've got the fire going. We've got our hot chocolate made, we've dug seats into the snow that we've covered in reindeer skin, and now we're about to roast some sausages. This has turned into way more of an experience than I thought it was going to.
We have little chocolates and we're just having a grand old time in our little snow hole. I always burn my marshmallows.
That's gross.
Tastes like a campfire.
All right, Nathan, that was enough of my driving. It's his turn.
Time to drive for real. I'm just kidding. You did a great job driving.
I'm a terrible driver.
Top 5 funnest things I've ever done in my life. This is incredible.
Yeah. If you're being as a center here.
In the bumps, it feels worse. Yeah.
That was nuts.
Wow.
That was fun.
I'm exhausted.
I'm not even calling my body temperature stuff. It's so much work.
I'm sweating so much. Wow.
That was good.
I was not expecting that at all. I was holding us back. I thought I was going fast.
Oh. I feel like every time we go on some kind of group ride, whether it be like, horseback riding or on ATVs, I'm always, like, bored sitting in the group. That time, I was doing everything I could just to keep up. That was so much fun. I couldn't think about anything else in the world except just focusing on driving. Oh, I feel like I need a nap now.
You're telling me.
Kara gets a ton of credit because it's way harder being the passenger than it is being the one driving.
So this resort that we're staying at has several different types of accommodations. They have, like, the standard hotel that you see back here behind me, and then over here, they have these glass roof huts where you can see the northern lights. But we're about to go check in to where we're staying tonight.
So there you go.
Please go ahead.
This is crazy. Nice and cozy. Oh, my gosh.
So, yeah, tonight we thought it would be fun to challenge ourselves to spend an entire night in a cabin made completely, completely of ice.
I don't know how Nate talked me into doing this. It's very unique. All the ice comes from the lake across the street. They bring it over, it's already frozen. People chisel it down, and then big, strong people stack it on top of each other.
And there you go. A tiny cabin made completely vice. I've seen, like, snow hotels and stuff like that, but I'd never seen this before, so I really wanted to do it.
There's even a little heater in there, but it doesn't actually.
He told us it keeps the temperature between negative 5 and 0.
Perfect.
Okay, we'll be back. Close the door. Don't wanna let the heat out. So before we got here, I was really curious about the logistics of staying in something that's completely made of ice. Like, where do you put your stuff. Where do you go to the bathroom?
How do you charge everything? And it turns out they give you a regular hotel room. So this is where all of our stuff is. And then when we're ready to go to sleep, then we'll go down to the ice cabin. And if you can't make it through the night, you can always come here.
We will make it through the night. It's bad because it's so tempting, though, because it's like 50 steps from the ice cabin.
It's so warm to this warmer. Nate likes challenging himself a lot more than I do. But you made me a better person. We're a good team.
So we're gonna go.
I'm scared.
We're gonna go grab some dinner, and we're probably gonna wait till around 10pm before we actually enter the ice cabin. And then from there, no leaving. Deal.
We just got our food. We tried to order one basket of chicken and two baskets of fries because we don't share fries. Well, it turns out the chicken comes with fries. So now we have three baskets of fries.
I deserve this. Okay. I held on for dear life in the back of a snowmobile, and I'm sleeping in an ice cabin tonight.
It's time.
Here we go.
Are you ready?
Let's do it.
There's no turning back now.
I'll stay home. Let's keep all this heat in. Okay. Shortest room tour ever. This is the bed, and this is the kitchen. The kitchen is actually really nice. They left us a hot thermos of water with coffee and tea and hot chocolate. So maybe we'll have some hot chocolate before bed. But I'm a little nervous. I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and go out in the cold by myself. Are there grizzly bears in lapl?
Whoever put this widow on is very strong.
I'm still cold.
How are you gonna drink your hot chocolate like that?
I don't know. Will you just feed it to me? Just pour it in my mouth.
Warm my insides, Please. Just dump it on my face.
I'm laughing. I'm spilled on.
I'm so scared.
Okay.
Thank you.
Can you see out of your hat?
No. How cool is this mug?
So for sleeping, Been trying to keep it as warm as possible. They give you a sleeping bag, and then they give you this, like, fleece sleeping bag liner. And then the bed, there's like, a little cushion, and then it's covered in. Oh, we're losing reindeer first. No, it's covered in reindeer. First, theoretically, this should keep us plenty warm. Okay.
Oh yeah, it's jelly. I feel like I had so much body heat built up in that and now it's just gone. So I'm trading it for this thing that I can see through. This was my idea.
That's how you're supposed to get in it.
Oh man. I left my hot chocolate over there.
Oh no, I can still reach it.
All right, this is home for the night. It is currently 10:25pm I looked up on the Internet. The sun rises at 6:07. Okay, so that is the time that we have to stay in this ice house. Okay, so almost eight hours. If we leave before 6:07, tonight's a failure. I am staying here until 6:07. So if you go inside, you're on your own.
Okay.
Except I've hidden the key to the room.
No, you didn't.
Okay, this is much earlier than we normally get in bed. I think I'm going to sleep. Great.
Or have trouble falling asleep.
No, today. Today was so hard. I want to sleep.
So great.
Okay, we're doing it. We're going to sleep. But we're leaving the lamp on because they told us that we have to keep it on in case we have to get up. Then we won't trip and get a concussion on the ice or something. But he said if the light bothers you, just do this.
And then it's dark. Plus your face is warmer. I'm actually quite warm in here already.
Okay, for real. We're going to sleep. We've made a deal with each other. We'll. We'll check in. If we wake up. I have a feeling you'll be hearing from us. I'm gonna sleep with this in my.
Sleeping bag so the battery doesn't die.
It's gonna be very comfortable. Instead of cuddling with you tonight, I'm cuddling with the camera. Good night.
Are you cheating on me with the Sony?
Is he just scared again?
That was so funny.
This is actually my second time waking up. I woke up in 3:15.
But I was too cold to put my hands out of my sleeping bed. So far it hasn't been too bad. A little cold.
But not too bad.
I don't know if Kara's woken up yet.
Okay, back in the sleeping bag.
You're not going to believe this.
It's 7:30. We've just been sleeping like babies in here. Now I have to wake Kara up.
Hello in there. How'd you sleep? Pretty good.
Yeah?
Morning.
Oh, I can't believe it.
I Actually woke up sweating at one point. When I first went to sleep, I put myself in this little pillowcase, like all the way underneath it. And then I closed this all the way.
And when I woke up, I was like.
I was suffocating. I was in like a full body sweat. I never thought that would happen.
Okay, for real, let's go inside where it's warm. Now for the worst part. We have to get out of our sleeping bags.
I don't want to get out.
I can't get you in there. Now I can't get you out. Oh, yours has some ice on it.
Oh, it's cold. So cold.
That's it.
I think it snowed last night. I feel like everything's wider.
I'd say there was like a good few inches of snow last night.
Oh, it's so quiet this morning.
I can't believe we did it.
We did it.
I can't believe we did it.
Thanks for doing it with me.
You're welcome.
That was fun.
Yeah.
You did it. No problem. I can't believe we slept till 7:30.
I can't either.
I thought for sure it's 6:07. We were both running inside.
It's like hard to make a snow angel. There's so much snow.
How does it look?
So for some reason just having these, it makes me want to do this with arms.
Okay, now how do I get out? Oh, it's cold when it goes down the wrist. That was a bad idea. I have a better plan. Okay, I have a better place.
Roll out.
My hand fell.
Cold now.
I was so warm before I took my gloves off when now I need them.
Would you like help out?
Yes.
I love the hot chocolate. Will you like, stand in front of the sun? I can't like open my eyes. Does that look okay? Also, the Dutch people who are with us have never heard of s'. Mores. Apparently they don't have s' mores in the Netherlands. How crazy is that? This better not make me have to pee in the middle of the night. Might be some yellow snow in the morning. I'm not going anywhere.
Oh, it's cold. That's ice.
