COLD COMFORT
As my Finnair flight from Helsinki glides towards the runway of Kittilä airport, the evening landscape of Finnish Lapland comes into view: deep, thick snow blankets the ground as far as the eye can see and there is a gentle haze as if the air itself is freezing into a wispy, viscous entity. It is a winter wonderland in the truest sense of the words.
Bordering Sweden, Norway, Russia and the Baltic Sea, Lapland is Finland’s northernmost region, a land of 179,000 people and 190,000 reindeer. At more than 100,000 kilometres square, the region takes up 30 per cent of Finland’s land mass yet is home to a mere three per cent of its population; its vast expanses are in turn carpeted by pristine, wildflower dappled nature in summer and endless vistas of luminous white come winter. While
