"A Hobby Becomes a Business
After five years working for a mining company in a town called Kiruna in Swedish Lapland, Yngve Bergqvist realized what he did not want to do with his life: work for a big company. His colleagues' lack of enthusiasm for the job grated on him. And he found it impersonal and unpleasant having people refer to him by his employee number.
Yngve was an outdoorsman, and as an outlet from his job, he took up river rafting. One day a tourist asked Yngve for a ride on the river. Suddenly, he was in business. He began going to the tourist office on weekend mornings and nearly always found clients. Yngve ultimately resigned from his mining job and gradually expanded the rafting business to 40 summer employees and 30 boats.
But summer in Sweden is short, and rafting on the Tome River in winter is impossible. For starters, the river is frozen solid. Yngve needed to find a winter business to complement his summer earnings. He had heard about Japanese tourists visiting Alaska in winter to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and wanted to learn more."