Visiting Lapland brings a literal realization to the idea of being on top of the world. Lapland stretches right across northern Scandinavia, and is the home to the Sami people, descendants of the prehistoric inhabitants of Scandinavia. Their language and culture live on even as modern Sami use helicopters and snowmobiles to herd their reindeer. Lapland’s lure for the visitor is its almost virgin nature, from swampy birch and pine forests in the vast lowlands to the spectacular rounded mountains that rise to the north.
When you’re this far north, the seasons affect more than the weather. During the pleasant 2- to 3-month summer, the sun never sets on Lapland, while in winter, it rises for only a few hours a day: clear sky, moonlight, and white snow produce an eerie blue glow, and the green, red, and yellow streaks of the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) illuminate a surreal snowscape.
One of the most accessible gateways to Lapland is Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland. The city, located only 8 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, can be reached by train and plane from Helsinki. As a farewell gesture, retreating Nazi soldiers razed Rovaniemi to the ground in 1944. The city was rebuilt using blueprints conceived in the mind of the famed Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, who shaped the layout of the city to resemble reindeer antlers.
