Catching a fish is a difficult enough challenge, let alone when you throw in sub-zero temperatures and a frosted lake to contend with. But for these women, spending hours alone out on the snowy tundra, waiting for their next catch, is all part of the appeal…
There are 8,000 lakes surrounding the small town of Arjeplog in northern Sweden. In winter, the ice gets so thick that engineers come from around the world to test drive cars on them. Temperatures can drop to -27C for weeks at a time. This is where, at least once a week between November and April, 36-year-old Emma Hallnor rides her snowmobile down to the lake to go ice fishing.
Though occasionally she might take a friend, she prefers to go alone. She loves the brittle beauty of the frozen landscape, with the Northern Lights swirling overhead on a clear night and the white-tailed sea eagle who stalks her in the spring, waiting for the spare perch she leaves for him on the ice. She loves tracking the movements of the fish around the lake as the season evolves, moving closer to the surface as the water warms, and the satisfaction of cutting a hole with her auger in just the right spot. But most of all she loves the silence and solitude. “Ice fishing is my meditation” she says, “it’s my own time to recoup, to sort my thoughts out. I can be outside for ten hours by myself.”
Emma Hallnor on her trusty snowmobile.
Klara Westerberg out on the ice.
Hallnor caught the ice fishing bug from her father who is also “crazy” about it, though the funny part is she doesn’t even eat fish. “Maybe it’s because I see and feel them when they come out of the lake that it means I can’t eat them,” she says. Ninety per cent of her catch goes back into the water; the remainder is shared between her mother and the eagle.
Last winter she took her ice fishing novice friend Isabel out with her. “Now she’s addicted, she was writing to me every other weekend saying ‘can we go fishing?’”
Fishing in Sweden is still a male-dominated sport, but the number of women getting into it appears to be gradually trending upwards. Therese Lundin, 33, has fished all her life but found macho elements of the community offputting. “There was sexism and a feeling that women were not always welcome,” she says. It prompted her to found Flickslandan Fishing where she runs guided fishing trips and courses for women. “The last few years I’ve had more requests than ever” she says.
Her favourite time to go ice fishing is in late spring. “Lying on a reindeer skin under the sun while catching char is just magical.”
Sivan Jansson, founder of women’s fishing association Fjällorna believes ice fishing is not only good for the health – getting you outside in the depths of winter – but more accessible than regular fishing because “you don’t need a boat, you can just walk out onto the ice and fish.” She recently took groups of women from Afghanistan and Ukraine out. “They wanted to stay longer. These people have been under so much stress, they needed to come out in nature.”
Hotel worker Klara Westerberg, 27, comes from Dalarna in central Sweden but moved north to the ski resort of Are a few years ago so she could fish its deep mountain lakes. “Ice fishing is not just about catching fish” she says, “it’s about the whole experience – getting up early, boiling coffee, being in nature – but I also love to know I can catch my own food. I know exactly where it comes from.”
Photo: Getty
One of her favourite lakes is Gevsjön, where she and her boyfriend light a fire on the ice to stay warm, snuggle under blankets and cook toast while they catch trout and Arctic char. Hot food, her thermal powerboots and layers of wool are her must-haves for beating the chill.
What advice would she give to women wanting to get into ice fishing? “Safety gear like ice picks are important, but otherwise you really don’t need much knowledge or equipment” she says. Hallnor agrees: “Ice fishing is something you can learn if you’re 12 or 112,” she says. “And if you don’t eat fish? Just catch and release.”