Reindeer races in Kiruna, Sweden

Why go to Lapland in winter? Over the course of several recent winter visits to northern Scandinavia, I've fallen in love with the beauty of snow and ice. Take a look at some photographs, hear about my research, and find links to northern regions and Sami organizations.

I began traveling to Scandinavia in 1972, and over the decades have been there many times. I was also familiar with the Far North of Norway because I'd worked on the Norwegian coastal steamer, the Hurtigrute, one summer as a dishwasher long ago. But I hadn't been to the interior of northern Scandinavia, and certainly not in winter, when the nights last twenty hours or longer and the cold sinks far below zero. In the early winter of 2001, I made my first visit to the Far North. During that time I caught Arctic Fever and fell in love with a place and a season. I have been back during the winter three times since that visit. I've also done more research in Sweden and Denmark during some warmer months.

Some of my research has centered on the life and work of the Danish painter and ethnologist Emilie Demant Hatt. And some has gone into my travel narrative The Palace of the Snow Queen: Winter Travels in Lapland. In this just-published book, I tell stories of visiting the famous Icehotel while it's under construction, and then returning while it's in full tourist swing, and finally coming back one last time to see it begin to melt in late-winter/spring. I write about traveling by coastal steamer to the North Cape and visiting Santa's Post Office in Finland. I aso write about earlier tourists, like Frank Butler, Olive Murray Chapman, and Norah Gourlie, who all traveled by sled and reindeer (I had to make do with a dogsled caravan when crossing the Finnmark Plateau).

Of growing interest to me as I traveled was the historical and contemporary culture of the Sami [pronounced "Saw-mee" and sometimes written "Saami," as well as "Sámi"], once known as the Lapps. In addition to visiting museums in Tromsø and Karasjok in Norway, Inari in Finland, and Jokkmokk in Sweden, I attended a Sami film festival, saw a performance of Macbeth in Sami (in an open-air theater made of snow), and came to know several Sami people, including journalist Jorma Lehtola and reindeer herder Lillemor Baer.

For continuing coverage about books about the North, travels in Scandinavia, and more discussion of and links to Lapland and Sami topics, click on "Current Events & Travels" at top of this page, or go to my blog at www.barbarasjoholm@blogspot.com

Above the Arctic Circle