Abisko National Park is 77 square kilometres of birch forest, tundra and mountain on the shore of Lake Torneträsk, 195 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. It is one of the most reliable places on Earth to see the northern lights, and the reason is the weather rather than the latitude. Westerly winds off the Norwegian coast dump their cloud on the high peaks just across the border, so the sky over Abisko stays clear far more often than anywhere around it. Locals call the result the blue hole. On the skyline stands Lapporten, a broad flat-bottomed U cut by glaciers — the park's emblem and, for the Sami, a gateway into the high country. The Kungsleden, Sweden's 440-kilometre King's Trail, starts here. Sami families still move reindeer across this land, as they have for centuries.
In winter the park goes silent under deep snow. Aurora watchers gather out on the frozen lake, or ride a chairlift up Mount Nuolja to the Aurora Sky Station, a dark lookout at about 900 metres with nothing below it but the valley. Green and violet curtains build slowly, hold, then slide across the whole sky in a few seconds. The season runs roughly September to March, and the cold on the deck can reach minus 30. Come midsummer and the sun never really sets — it circles the sky through the night, lighting the birch woods and the turquoise Abiskojåkka as it pours through its canyon into the lake. The Iron Ore Railway between Kiruna and Norway runs right past the door. For all its wildness the park is easy to get to: you can step off the train and be under the aurora within the hour.