Frozen Trees of Lapland: Niccolò Bonfadini’s Sentinels of the Arctic

In the far north of Finland, winter turns whole forests into crowds of white figures. Italian photographer Niccolò Bonfadini spent a winter in Finnish Lapland photographing these snow-and-ice-encased spruces, and called the series Sentinels of the Arctic. The trees look like statues, monsters or watchmen on a hillside, and the phenomenon behind them has its own Finnish name: tykky.

Niccolò Bonfadini and Sentinels of the Arctic

Bonfadini comes from Monza in northern Italy and had been drawn to nature since childhood. He took up photography a few years before this series and began travelling with his camera, collaborating with the Wildvisions Nature Photography group. One of his images was chosen as an Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), the long-running NASA project.

The five-picture series, published in 2012, was shot in temperatures between −40 °C and −15 °C. To be in place for first light, Bonfadini slept in a tent on top of a hill. “That morning I slept in my tent to watch the sun rise from the top of a hill,” he said, describing how “an eerie mist was forming around the trees, enhancing the mysterious atmosphere.”

What is tykky? The science of crown snow-load

Meteorologists call the phenomenon crown snow-load: a mix of snow and hard rime that builds up on tree crowns in very cold, moist climates. Most of the thickness is rime. It forms when supercooled droplets of fog or low cloud freeze on contact with branches, usually on the windward side, in light winds of about 3 to 6 m/s and temperatures between −2 °C and −8 °C.

The process has to repeat many times over the winter without a thaw in between. Wet snow that sticks to cold branches and then freezes can add another layer. A moderate breeze helps by carrying droplets onto the trees; a strong wind strips the coating away again.

The result is heavy. A single spruce in northern Finland can carry three to four tonnes of snow and ice. Laden crowns snap in storms, whole trees bend double, and snow-loaded forests are a known hazard for power lines.

Why medium-height fells collect the most

The thickest loads gather on trees on top of medium-sized fells. The highest fells are bare above the treeline, so there is nothing for the rime to grip. The lowest hills often sit below the cloud base and miss the freezing fog. In between, trees stand right in the cloud and in the strongest winds, which is exactly where the strangest shapes appear.

That also explains the look of Bonfadini’s pictures. Each tree keeps a slightly different silhouette, from rounded domes to narrow figures with a single “arm” of branch sticking out, and low winter sun throws pastel colour and soft shadows across the white so the shapes stand apart from the snowfield.

Where and when to see snow-crowned trees in Finland

Crown snow-load develops from Koli National Park in eastern Finland northwards; Koli is the southernmost place where it forms. In Lapland, the ski and fell resorts of Levi, Ylläs, Pyhä, Luosto and Saariselkä all have snow-crowned forests you can see from the road or the slopes.

• Best months: January and February, when the load is at its deepest. Spring sun and wind usually remove it.
• Getting close: a guided snowshoe tour is the easiest way into the fell forests; Koli has a marked snowshoe trail and rentals.
• Light: short midwinter days bring long, soft dawn and dusk light, which suits photography.

Keep a little distance from heavily loaded trees: snow and ice can fall suddenly from the crowns.

For more winter scenes from the north, see a wider Finnish Lapland collection, or read about the trees beneath the winter covering and how they survive the cold months.

Related reading

• The President Sequoia in a 126-Frame Portrait
• Angel Oak on Johns Island: Age, Scale and Visiting the Tree
• Svalbard Global Seed Vault: What the Arctic Backup Actually Does
• The Arctic Light: Lofoten’s Long Spring Twilight
• Abraham Lake’s Ice Bubbles: Layers beneath the Surface
• Twenty-Three Waterfall Scenes: Winter Ice and a Mineral Lookalike

Sources