Na-nork of the Arctic

On Friday 28 September, I decided to take a tour of lapland and cross the Arctic Circle. Here are some pictures of my tour in Lapland.

So I took a short morning flight from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. The weather there was clear and cold (roughly 32 degrees) -- a beautiful autumn day.

During my tour, I had a nice guide Tatu, who was a university student, and was accompanied by two Aussies -- one from Tully and the other from Cairns -- who were touring Scandanavia. They were trying to get over to northern Norway from Rovaniemi, but were finding the bus and train connections to be troublesome; so, they were considering heading back to Helsinki by plane (after venturing many hours by train up to where we were).

I also got to play with some reindeer and eat another and meet some local, indigenous people.

Nearby Rovaniemi is Napapiiri, which is supposedly where the Arctic Circle* crosses Finland. There they have Santa's "official" post office. I tried to send out postcards with their distinctive stamp to everyone whose address I had. If I forgot you, you have my apologies.

*The travel literature says that the definition of the Arctic Circle is anywhere where the sun does not set for at least one day during the year. It also says that the exact location of the Circle changes a little each day, so there isn't a precise way to know when you've crossed the circle. I don't understand this last part, but the convention seems to be that the Arctic Circle goes through parts of Napipiiri and that, however slightly, I did cross it.