Estonians use the alpaca wool to stay warm.
The one benefit of the darkness in Estonia is that it provides rare opportunities to see the aurora borealis, or the Northern Lights. The European Union actually uses a gauge, similar to the ones we use to test earthquakes or to measure the size of tornadoes, to assess how visible the Northern Lights will be each night in Northern Europe. They have been quite beautiful this week in the outskirts of Tartu county.
In the winter, the rivers and bogs (similar to marshes) freeze over with the cold, so they turn into natural iceskating locations for locals.
