American Reacts Living with the Dark Winters in Sweden | Midnight sun & Polar night 

No neighbours, no small talk, just the ruthlessness of nature and a warm nest. I can't think of anything more appealing.

I moved to Finland from London and the summer is absolutely incredible when it’s light pretty much 24/7. Winter is hard but it’s like hibernating, the winter is dark and quiet but everyone comes to life as the snow melts and the darkness recedes

"Happiness depends on expectation." wise words.

Jonna has won awards for her work. Please watch all of her videos. The homes and barns belong to her. She makes her own colors from the earth to make extraordinary paintings. She records audio sounds of the ice covered lake. And so much more. Please explore her many videos to discover why she has many millions that watch them. Be amazed.

I was born up North in Sweden, and I love the winter (I´m winterborn). Clear air, monochrome landscape and the wonderful light. Aurora Borealis dancing over the sky.

Watching people fall in love with jonna is almost as great as watching her videos for the first time.

Connor the expression on your face is pretty much exactly how I felt, watching it for the first time: relaxed and dreamy. I've replayed this video many times, from time to time, when I just want to escape the noisy pressures of the modern world.

Being a native Finn, I can 100% sign up with everything Jonna says on her video. I love the constantly changing seasons here, allthough the contrast in the light conditions are not that drastic than in the those parts of Sweden where Jonna lives (which is around 500-800km more north than where i live here in Finland) but they still are very distinct from one another. Summers can get sometimes quite hot here too, and the winters are sometimes freezing. Swedish nature is very similar to Finnish one, except they have more actual mountains in the north than Finland has. You should react some Finnish Lappland (or Lappland in general) i am sure you would love it!

This was an insanely beautiful video with amazing landscapes and light. Even in the Netherlands we have quite a substantial difference between the amount of light in summer and winter. Many people from more southern regions are always surprised how long the sun is out in summer. Around the winter equinox we have less than 8 hours (8.45am - 16.30pm) and at the summer equinox it’s over 16 hours (5.20am-22.05pm). Of course, this is nothing compared to northern Scandinavia which I would really love to experience sometime.

Swedes are phototropic. When the spring sun comes, you will see many people just sittning down in the street, closing their eyes, and directing their faces against the sun.

The changing of the seasons is wonderful. It makes you feel alive. First snow can be breathtaking. We can have dazzling copper golden leaves clad in snow, and with snow on the ground under gentle light. Autumn is wonderful, when you pick up rich fragrances. Spring is very nice, when you can detect southern winds and a new kind of air. And summer is absolutely fantastic. I don't think anyone can explain it, but it is an endless season of joy.

Swedes are obsessed by the sun, in the spring, as soon as the sun starts to shine you can see swedes staing and faceing the sun, thats been almoust gone in the winter, its a little bit crazy but thats is how we are. And yeah, without these big contrasts in light and temperature it would be kinda dull. Great reaction as always dude!

I just love that girl!!! Her version of our national anthem, Du Gamla Du Fria" is one of the best versions there is! 100% Jonnastyle!

My friend was born and raised in Sweden. She would talk how her dad in the winter would ice-skate to work over the lake (he worked on the otherside of it where they lived). How they would play on an evening on it, hockey etc. On Christmas day, a "santa" would come and give presents to all the children in the village (men would volunteer to go door to door to do this). In the summer, she would have amazing weather, kids would play outside without fear, big community spirit. Then she moved to Stockton-on-Tees in North East England, and the first time her dad took her into the town centre she saw a woman in a dress weeing whilst sat on a bench. None of us know why she's still here, 18 years on 🤣

Went Swedish arctic circle in January, utterly amazing place, proper postcard stuff.. magical.

You should react to her lullaby the Wolf Song. Oh yes, the wonder that is Jonna, can sing too! A definite must! She is also a talented jewellery designer and artist...

Thanks for your interesting reactions! Yes please show us more about New England! That would be great to see! 🙋‍♀️

She seems to have the perfect life. Obviously it isn't perfect but how lucky she is. ❤️

You asked about the meat that she eats. In a Q&A she said that she eats mostly vegetarian food but also fish and moose. The latter comes from a friend who is a hunter.

I discovered Jonna's channel 2 years ago and learned to love her videos. She doesn't release many videos, but when they come, they're fantastic. I also regularly use her "Song of the Ice" to fall asleep.

Most of Scotland is within the southern latitudes of Sweden.

In the south west of Scotland at the shortest day we have just a minute or two over 7 hours between sunrise and sunset. Go slightly north to Edinburgh and it actually dips just below 7 hours for a few days.

I live about 20 minutes from where Jonna's house is. I felt right at home watching this video ;) She's a skilled photographer. Very good singer too!

There used to be a brand of butter sold in the UK called Midnight Sun , from Finland. It stopped when the UK entered the Common Market on 1st January 1973. It had a red sun with rays spreading out on the wrapper.

I know, I'm late to the party, but nice reaction! Also love the fact that you're smiling throughout the whole video, Jonna's videos do that to me, too!

I believe Swedens most southern point is about between Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I believe also that she lives somewhere along 63 degrees ( latitud). My hometown Halmstad is 56 degrees (latitud). I believe also that New England is at 44 degrees ( latitud)

Sweden is very long, so north and south is basically different climates , in the south it snows a couple days every year, wo have night in summer, day in winter(not much sun, but light) its like alaska in top and somewhere below NY at bottom if comparing

Gooseberries btw (the green ones)

No, you are not far north in USA. Except in Alaska. 🙂 Also notice there is a huge difference between north and south of Sweden. Which one notice when one travels between the north and south parts during summer or winter. The water is not especially cold during the summer. It could be around 20 degree Celcius during summer. About the stars, even close to cities in north Sweden, you can't see stars that well. It all about how much electrical lights are close. (Fun Fact. Celcius is named after the Swedish scientist Anders Celcius) Fair skin IS an adaption to less light during winter. And in Scandinavia we also have adopted to drinking milk from animals. Some Inuits have also adopted to eat more meat, as vegetables is hard for them to get. Vitamin D can be stored in the body or for a long time, so what you produce during summer from the sun light will be enough to pass the winter. It is when you are not out enough during summer when it is a problem, or have dark skin, then you need supplement of D-vitamin.

As a Swede this video hits home but also I love seeing how people react to it.

It is quite bizarre coming out of a nightclub at 4 in the morning and it looks like afternoon during Summer, only one thing to do go back in the club..probably explains why their crime writers are some of their novels are some of the darkest

the smaller birch leaves are delicious, the fully grown are slightly bitter and can also be mildly laxative so not ideal. A "snowball" of fully grown birchleaves crushed (rub between hands) and soaked in a liter (quart) of room temperature water for hour or so, now strain leaves out and use wate to wash your hair, it is a mild shampoo.

15:03 gooseberry (krusbär in Swedish)

Beautiful mate ..and its so refreshing to see a young lad like you wanting to learn and educate yourself at your own leisure..Great content Conner 👌 👏 👍 .keep it up my friend ....awesome lol 😆 🤣

Your alarm that they might not have access to meat. So funny.

Beautiful video, thank you! The raindeer in Sweden are not wild, they are owned by the sami, so you can’t hunt them.

Seasonal variation is wonderful. I didn't get used to the weather in Tanzania when I lived there. "Oh 30-35 degrees this week too ... why do they have weather reports really?" And still, they have really spoiled flora "Aaaaah it's freezing, only 23 degrees today I really need to get rid of these leaves...." (Celsius those are)

this video is just simply great and well done. loved your reaction to it.

I am from that area in Sweden, I love the dark winters, I get energized during that time.

I go to Iceland twice a year in winter (normally November and March). People don't understand how I can go back, year after year. But to me, it goes back to my childhood. As a kid in England, we had tons of snow. I can remember every evening, my dad would finish work, my mum would have made him a sandwich for tea and whilst eating it, he'd take my sister and I out on sledges, running up and down the road. We'd meet up with our cousin, have snowball fights. Honestly some of the best times of my life. We don't get snow like that anymore, and so I go to Iceland for it. One day, I'll go to Sweden. But Iceland is just so easy to traverse I worry that Sweden would be too difficult for me (for reference, I've driven no more than 20miles down the road in England, but have driven the full island of Iceland in winter).

We adapt to the cold.It takes a few weeks every year.One winter I worked outdoors all winter and I didn't need gloves at all that year.Normally I'm not that that good with the cold.But in the summer I suffer alot from anything over 25 degees celsius.So cold is better for me I can always put on more clothes.🇫🇮

Keep in mind that Jonna lives just little above middle of Sweden, and there is a lot of more Sweden further north. Kiruna (a city in the north) is on the same latitude as north of Alaska.

Here in Northern part of Sweden the summer starts in the middle of May if we're lucky, and right now the summer ended like 1 month ago in the middle of August, now we have rain, dark nights and soon snow, the winter is extremely long, from the middle of oktober to April. The summer is maybe 3 month.

"I'm up North too..." North of the US... You forget Canada... Anchorage, Alaska is on the hight of Tampere, just a bit more north than Helsinki the southern most point of Finnland. NYC is on the hight of Rome. So you, when you're at the base of Cape Cod, should on the hight of ~Milan. But due to the Atlantic we have colder winters than the Mediterranean region.

Dane here, my uncle turns 70 this year and have been living way up in sweden since he started at volvo aeroplane motor factory in 1979. He then moved way further north and He Got a wife and kids. An amazing country to visit in the summer with endless nights 😊👌🏻 last the wife left at the kids are all grown up so now he says that doing another swedish winter beeing alone up there is too tough so now he is coming Home.

I don't live as far north in Sweden but we'll get like 4 hours of sunlight or so but you're mostly indoors working/studying or whatever you're doing so I don't see a lot of sun during nov-feb. Then in the summer it's the reverse, I get almost 4 hours of darkness. I do like that we get the 4 seasons in all their glory, although some days are tougher than others.

When I see the houses that you recognise is very typical for Sweden, in red and parts of white. I know that many people from Sweden emigrated to Minnesota and perhaps some to where you live? From the mid-19th century to the early 1920s, approximately 1.5 million Swedes left Sweden and moved to the United States. Is there places with names that could be from Sweden? Or many people with the name as Anderson, Svensson or any other name that ends with sson or son? Thanks for your videos! I am really enjoying them! Cheers from Göteborg/Gothenburg! Edit: here is a short video about the red houses (in English) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-U0J7xHCYXDY.html

12:48 - Winn Hoff is a Dutch madman - do look him up though.

15:29 its called "bärplockare" or berrypicker. 😃

17:32 "Happiness depends on expectation (Chin up!)" ---- Connor McJibbin, probably.

I believe the fauna in new England and all the way up to Canada is very similar to northern Europe, since the continents were connected at some point millions of years ago.

Jonna is a very talented young woman and she live a little south of me, in the next province so to say and my latitude is the same as almost Fairbanks, Alaska. The mountain videos are from her cabin in the northern hills of the Scandic mountains, it´s beautiful both in winter and summer (easier access in summer if you´re not at nerd of go skiing or drive snowmobile). 1) Gooseberry 2) Red currants Meat you can buy in the stores or from local breeders. Here, up north a lot of us are hunting and fishing. My hubby hunts for moose and sometimes he also get a goose or wood-grouse and I fish a lot, mostly pike and perch but there is also trout and graylings in our river. No green screen...all natural filming! Wintertime can be hard to outlive, especially now when I getting older and have issues with my body, joints aching and so on but I still love all of our seasons. Wintertime is for resting and planning for spring and summer, for me big growing seasons getting veggies and berries for harvesting and eating the next winter. Early to late autumn is season for fishing, hunting, picking berries (the "picker" is great) - blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries and maybe some cranberries and of course get some mushrooms. Then i Januari o later on the seed season starts, seeding and pre-grow for chili/peppers, tomatoes and so on until I can plant it in the garden i the middle of June when the last frost has gone by.

Sudden immersion into freezing water can be fatal, Connor, if both body and head are covered simultaneously. Better to immerse gradually.

You are totally mesmerized by the video. It's cool to see ^^ 12:01 Don't you wonder why Europeans have white skin while Africans have black skin ? We did adapt to different climate ! Black people are more resistant to the sun light while white people have a better absorption of it, which is an adaption to live in places with relatively low light level compared to Africa.

Jumping into is water can trigger a few reactions which might not be great for a few reasons. Various muscles including the lungs can start convulsing and you can suffocate before drowning.

Nice reaction! The winter and the cold isn't for me at all. I'm very happy I'm moving from a 300 year old cabin in the woods to a modern apartment with modern heating etc. That's the way to actually enjoy the winter. Waking up 4 in the morning and it's -2°C inside because the fire went out in the fireplace, that's awful. I think I will enjoy the winter more now than before. I wouldn't mind living in a countries with no cold winters though.

I can confirm that I a swede get very unproduktive in the winter. very slow and tired. But like she said you just have to move and use your body. 👍

Well, in Quebec, almost everyone lives in the South, so I imagine it's very similar to Northern New England for most people here. But yeah, in the North, like in the Nunavik region, that'll be very different.

She's using a Swedish invention to pick the berries - it's called "bärplockare" (=berry picker). If you'd want one you can order it from e.g. Amazon. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry-picking_rake

This Swede is doing alright. I love how you had only like the bare minimum of pausing. You must have enjoyed this one. Jonna is extremly talented and just a small note, not all of us live like this. Very extreme living conditions but rewarding.

For meat many people up here in the north of sweden hunt, Birds, Rabbits, Rain deer, Moose, Bear and also fishing is popular. But for me the supermarket is my hunting ground!

Those green fruits that you said looked like a mix between a grape and a watermelon are gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa). They are in the same family as blackcurrants and redcurrants, and they are a very common bush to have in scandinavian gardens as they are very hardy, and can be used to make jams and stuff. The taste is kinda like a less tart redcurrant. The bush is similar to a redcurrant bush, but lower to the ground, with thorny branches. The older types used to have smaller and more ‘’hairy’’ fruits, while the newest varieties have bigger and smoother ones. They are most commonly green, red, purple or yellow in color.

I'd prefer a long dark winter to this long hot summer we've had. Hell for me.

Finally. This video always gets me chocked up.

I think the climate in southern Sweden is probably similar to New England, but probably milder winters because of the gulf stream. Northern Sweden is probably similar to Alaska

I live north of her about and here water easily is 20c even had it at 30c in a shalow (1.5m deep) bay, as sun never really sets it keeps pouring heat on us, last summer we had between 25c and 32c for a week (77-93F) so surface water gets heated (2-3m deep it may be only 15c but...). and just now we have -16c (5F) and 60cm of snow... in 20 days i will have two hours of theoretical sun but any hill, tree... will obscure it so twilight is more accurate description. we lso gave winter swim events and do 8ce holes like this for cooling after sauna...

Haha! You don’t hunt reindeer. It is like hunting cows. Someone owns them.

The "water melon grapes" are gooseberries, the raspberries are mixed with cloudberries. All very yummy.

Yes, you are correct Connor that humans have not yet fully adapted physically to the conditions here in the north. However, I did read about a scientific study which found that here in Finland there are least deaths when the average daily temperature is +14 degrees Celsius whereas in Spain there are least deaths when the average daily temperature is +26 degrees Celsius. Also, fair skin requires less exposure to sunlight for producing vitamin D compared to black skin. It would be interesting to investigate if there is a correlation between eye color and depression during winter. For example, the reindeer change their eye color with the change of seasons: during the winter they are blue and during the summer brown. For me personally, summers with long periods of sun and high air pressure are almost unbearable, whereas I have never felt depressed during the rainy / snowy seasons of gray autumn and dark winter.

Jonna is basically pronounced "John-ah!" with a hard "o" and "a".

I live in Stockholm (much to the south) and still, every winter we get periods of a month or more without sunshine because of low sun and clouds all the time. So when she says "it feels like you see the sun for the first time in your life", I can attest to that. The feeling is hard to describe. It gives you sense of life, which feels familiar, yet very far from where you have been. Must sound stupid, but I am not a poet hey

Yes the stones are balancing haha its pretty cool, she actually has a whole video about that, if you dont want to react to it its defenetly worthy of checking it on your own

I'm mostly German and grew up mostly in South Africa but my granny is part-Sami Norwegian from northern Norway and being there is crazy. Trying to sleep when it felt like afternoon is confusing.

I agree with what most of the comments have said about how nice it is when the seasons change and everything. But honestly, after a month or so of darkness - most just get depressed and more introvert and can't wait until spring when "life begins again". Sweden is like two completely different countries, one in the winter and another in the summer. In the summer everyone is friendly, happy, enjoying life and making the most of the sun light. In the winter, pretty much the opposite. Sometimes I genuinely feel like it was a mistake of humanity to settle this far north. Sure, it's beautiful but like right now... it's starting to get dark and it just makes me sad. But then when/if we get real thick white snow, that brightens thing up a bit. People forget that. The little light that is reflects on all the white. Unfortunately we barely get any snow anymore except far north. Instead we just get this grey wet sludge, combined with the darkness. Except far far up north obviously, but that's not where the average Swede lives. I remember as a kid, -25, -30 was normal and plenty of snow almost every year. And it's not just me romantisizing my childhood - at New Years it used to be that you could secure your fireworks in the snow, it was usually so much snow the stick of the rockets didn't even touch the ground. That was normal. These days we're happy to just have some snow around Christmas. The climate has changed so much.

man, it was so pleasant to see you watching this vid. your eyes and your smile showed, how much you enjoy it. great!

At similar latitudes but in southern hemisphere in december there's a lot of light. You probably meant to say june.

Never seen a RU-vidr look so captivated at another RU-vidrs video before

She’s a great ambassador for our cold and dark country. All lot of what she shows of is unfortunately not true for our major cities, sorry to say that winter is a bit of pain without northern lights, starlight and a rather persistent cloud cover, yes winter is really dark. By then again it rains a lot less in the Stockholm region than in Norway in general, thank god for those Norwegian mountains, that’s at least something! 😂

more jonna pls

Love her content. Even tho i am not watching it all the time. but its so peaceful there.

Hunting reindeer in Sweden is not allowed, since there are no wild reindeer in the country; thus reindeer are regarded as domestic cattle.

Where she is living corresponds to a bit north of Anchorage, about halfway to Fairbanks, from a US latitude point of view.

I think you are right about people living in the high altitudes, (in that we are not adapted for it), for me the hard time is strangely when the light returns in late winter and early spring.

There are no wild reindeers to hunt - they are all property of the sami people!

You are living far south by Jonna's standard. For comparison, Stockholsm (which is not the most Southern part of Sweden, but quite South, and far to the South of Jonna's location) is similarly placed in the north as Anchorage in Alaska. Jonna lives a lot farther to the north than that.

Connor's mentioning the lack of daylight when Rhode Island is on the same latitude as northern Spain! Connor needs a geography lesson, or he could just apply himself and use Google Earth., It isn't difficult.

I think you would like the videos of another Swedish girl who now lives in Svalbard, who has many good videos where she shows the midnight sun and polar night, among other things. But also much else in life in the world's most northern village ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5pR2q3aYpcA.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MSAQxhtJ9RY.html

You should visit Sweden someday 🙂👍🏻🇸🇪

Ngl, that midnight sun would drive me batsh*t crazy, i love the dark nights and usually dread summer 😪

loved the reaction....

I live in the Southwest, coastal area, near Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg. Although I spend a lot of time outdoors, I don’t live a life anywhere near Jonna’s kind of lifestyle (which is beautiful btw but I don’t think I could). The population density in the half southern part of the country is much, much higher compared to the north. And during the darkest period, we at least get 6 hours or so of sunlight 😉. Reversed in the summer. In my part of Sweden, we don’t get much snow either, if any at all. And not those extremely cold temperatures - it’s cold (around 0 C), windy and rainy instead 😂, which I personally find not preferable to beautiful snow but unfortunately, I can’t control weather 🤷‍♀️…

We live on a beautiful planet

15:39 Fishing?

Hunting reindeer in Sweden is not allowed. Reindeer are semi-wild and are property of the Sami people. (Sami people are the indigenous people of Scandinavia). Check out videos about the Sami.

Sweden is much higher than Rhode island, its well in line with parts of Canada.

It is so beautiful, i did my mititary training in those condiions, we had no light and still we had to be ready to defeat them russian tanks:-), i i did thanks to my comrades 1 mile away lighting up the battlefield for me to pick my targets, sorry i lost my glasses now whn im old:-P, oh icebaths it is a thing we do do, it´s not a cold bath it is extreme:-P

Att 18:42 it looks like she is in one of John Bauers paintings

I could handle the long summer days but not the winters without daylight, not for me.

Comparing latitude of North America and Europe. Most of Sweden is at the same latitude as Alaska

Man that's up north. Down here in the real Sweden it's not as crazy as in the savage north (Sweden's Siberia aka. anything north of Stockholm).