The old-growth forest backed away in every direction as far as the eye could see. Low-slung branches, webbed in black lichen, splintered from thick trunks, undoubtedly providing a perfect hiding place for all manner of creatures. Wolves, lynx, bears."The bears are still hibernating," she said, as she led me along the narrow footpath into the camp where I'd be spending the night. Tall and athletic, Kerry struck the image of an archetypal safari guide.
"He'll be here soon," she added, setting off back down the track towards the great lake the camp overlooks, which, even on this sunny afternoon in late March, was still covered in a layer of ice thick enough to support a steady stream of snowmobile traffic. I had many burning questions to ask about his one-of-a-kind safari camp, but before we'd had time to do little more than shake hands, he'd handed me a pair of long wooden skis, slipped into a pair of his own and slid off down the trail through the forest and out onto the frozen lake. A little unsteadily, I followed.
When the pull of home finally became too strong, there was only one thing for Gejke to do next. With the help of Fredrik Broman, a fellow Swede Gejke had met in Nairobi , the pair would start a safari camp in Sweden, and – despite much scepticism from friends and would-be investors – they knew just the place to do it.
With this knowledge, the idea of a safari park in an Arctic climate begins to make more sense. However, while the region is one of the planet's most naturally resplendent, Gejke claims, in the depths of winter, it is also one of the world's quietest, where no bird songs ring out in the morning and no buzzing insects stir the evening air.Darkness had fallen as I sat beside the fireplace back at camp, listening to Gejke recount tales of his years in East Africa.
"The Northern Lights is the thing that gets people here," said Gejke."That's our version of a lion or a leopard, and people are just as desperate to take photos."