Month: November 2020

As we flew back to Helsinki from Rovaniemi, my mind was aswirl with images stolen from the bountiful wilderness and memories captured from experiences we had had in the last five days. I was totally blown away by Finland; and I don’t mean by the landscape alone.

Finns may appear to be aloof but that is because they respect personal privacy more than most peoples around the world. Give them a justified cause and the famous Finnish talkoo kicks in, that is, doing communal work like barn-raising or log-rolling or even fundraising for the common-weal.

Couple this with another Finnish characteristic, sisu, which translates to courage or grit (Finnish-spirit), and we have a people who are dogged and determined against any adversity or challenge. This attitude stood them in great stead against the Russians in the Winter War of 1939-40 when 350,000 Finns fought the million-strong Russian army twice and inflicted severe casualties upon them.

The Finnish society is very respectful, egalitarian, and well-organized. They have jokamiehen oikeudet (Everyman’s Rights) which allows everyone to access nature (ex. forests) freely; pick berries or mushrooms, go picnicking or walking without any hindrance. One can even camp overnight in a tent or vehicle on another’s property so long as no damage is caused! Sharing is big: when partying oma pullo mukaan, or BYOB, is the norm.

Finland is a well-functioning democracy, with extensive welfare benefits and low corruption. Its institutions are respected, the education system is world-class, 42% of parliamentarians are now women, and the literacy rate has been over 99 percent for the last 30 years! This is also the handiwork of the Lutheran Church (almost 70 percent of the people are Lutherans) which puts education as a requirement for getting married!

Finland regularly tops the World Social and Human Development Indices. It has experimented with Universal Basic Income (UBI), and has even tested two pilot programs. While the results were mixed, we have to applaud their efforts to uplift the less-privileged.

It is no wonder that Finland is The Happiest Country in the World, thrice in a row, according to UN World Happiness Report.

Rovaniemi is both the capital and gateway to Finnish Lapland. While we had come to see the Northern Lights, we discovered great diversions that we could delve into. The first day we spent enjoying the environs in and around the Santa Claus village, located right within the Arctic Circle (see Finland Part1).

The lappish forests have a magical quality to them. In winter they become a fantasy land. No wonder that a plethora of myths and legends have sprung from that well of beauty, silence, eeriness and colour-scape.

There are plenty of husky farms nearby and dog-sledding is great fun – reminded me of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, though that was set in Alaska! We rafted down a river banked by glorious hidden waterfalls, visited a reindeer farm, and experienced the childlike thrill of tobogganing down a slope.

To view the northern lights we drove up to Lake Unari and checked into a log cabin. It’s a solid structure, built with Finnish lumber – but it had all the trappings of comfort: warm, well-lit, and cosy. Though the northern lights can be seen approximately on 100 in nights year; in September the viewings are a bit luck-dependant. Nonetheless, we fortified ourselves with shots of whisky and a joint – after all we were planning to go into an icy lake and view the spectacle from there! We rented survival suits (a legacy of the Second World War), which are must to get into the freezing waters.

Our luck held and we were treated to a spectacular display that night. The Aurora Borealis is surreal and beyond easy description. To me the green swathes of diaphanous light appeared to be celestial fairies dancing in contortions akin to tornado swirls, only much more gentle and serene.

Northern Lights are called Guovssahasat in the local Sami language. While many legends surround the Aurora, in reality they are charged particles emitted from solar flares that penetrate the earth’s magnetic shield and collide with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. These collisions cause sparks of light, or photons, which string together to form the colourful displays.

Trivia: the term Aurora Borealis (Northern Dawn) was coined by Galileo Galilei!

We flew to Rovaniemi from Helsinki in early September. Going to Lapland and beholding the Northern Lights had been on our bucket-list for years. The warmth of the afternoon sun and the autumnal brilliance of the foliage welcomed us into a fabled setting. But more about all that in Finland Part 2.

The next day, we trekked the couple of kilometres to the Santa Claus village (located just inside the Arctic Circle) and we all cheered like boisterous children when we crossed the 66.5 degree imaginary line! How this village became the official residence of Santa Claus is quite some story.

Santa Claus is a distillation of legends told to children in the northern countries to bring on some cheer in the dark days of winter. Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Sinterklaas, and Joulupukki are all one and the same myth told in various languages. While the legend is ascribed to St. Nicholas, a bishop who lived in modern-day Turkey in the 4^th Century, it was Clement Moore’s (1822) poem, popularly called The Night Before Christmas, which made it a household affair of modern magnitude. Illustrator, Thomas Nast, is credited for drawing the jolly image of Santa.

While many children believed the myth that Santa lived in the North Pole, the lack of grass for the reindeer to feed upon made the story unconvincing. A bit of Scandinavian savoir-faire appended a secret location to the legend: Santa’s workshop was in Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit in 1950 to monitor post-war reconstruction in Rovaniemi had already done a lot for local tourism. The Roosevelt Cottage still stands there as a symbol of American-Finnish friendship, and promotes Santa’s myth globally.

A modern economic resuscitation plan coupled with some marketing brilliance brought Santa’s office into Rovaniemi. The Santa Park and Joulukka Secret Forest were established for children to interact with the secretive elves. The Santa Claus Main Post Office receives thousands of letters every day; and you can even get a reply (with an Arctic Circle postmark) for a fee.

The address:

Santa Claus
Santa Claus’ Main Post Office
Tähtikuja1
96930 Arctic Circle
Finland