Europe’s Last Utopia

Everybody knows that Santa Claus lives somewhere near the North Pole where a carpet of snow covers the mountains and the amazing Northern Lights shine brightly in the Arctic night. It has generally been assumed that he settled there because of all that snow for his reindeer and sleigh, but the real reason he put his roots down on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland, Europe’s last wilderness, must surely be that he simply loved the beauty and solitude of this last Utopia, Santa Claus Land. Sandwiched between Norwegian Lapland and the former USSR, Finnish Lapland lies almost entirely above the Arctic Circle in Northern Finland. The capital is the winter-sport center of Rovaniemi. It’s a modern town in the middle of nowhere. Concorde used to land there and many daily Finnair flights arrive from all over Finland.