Santa Claus Village: the Disneyland of Lapland

Humans are funny. Chalk a line on the floor somewhere, call it a border and you can be sure that everybody wants to take a picture.

It doesn’t even matter if the line is painted in the right location, like the Arctic Circle in Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland. The real Arctic Circle, according to my own calculations, lies more than two kilometres more northwards. Why? Because, by definition, the Arctic Circle does not remain in one place, but constantly shifts. The area within the Arctic Circle has at least one day a year with 24 hours of light, and one without light at all.

As the axial tilt of the earth fluctuates, the Arctic Circle is currently moving northward at a staggering speed of 15 metres per year. Which means the line through Santa Claus Village, the Arctic Circle in 1865, is hopelessly outdated and thousands of people, myself included, make a complete fool out of themselves every day. Oh, well.

Is Santa Claus Village worth a visit?

Let’s not beat around the bush: Santa Claus Village is a commercial hell hole that’s not worth your time, a tourist trap meant to steal some money from your pockets.

Naive tourists pay 18 euros to go on a reindeer tour. A 400-metre long tour. Through the village itself. For a nice price, you can also join an aurora hunt. Not satisfied? No money back. What a travesty, knowing that spotting the northern lights in Lapland is mainly a matter of keeping your eyes open.

In Santa Claus Village you can also sit on Joulupukki’s lap. Joulupukki is the Finnish name of Santa. The real one, or so the elves assure us. Now I know with certainty that Santa Claus speaks a few words of Russian, judging by the way he greeted the people behind us. A good afternoon in Dutch or Estonian, however, wasn’t in his repertoire.

Afterwards, you can buy the photo, ultimate proof of your meeting with Joulupukki, and have it printed for a few tens of euros. Well, all those presents must cost a bunch and those reindeer need to eat, so it’s clear that the good man just tries to secure his budget. Right?

Santa Claus also has his office, workshop and post office here. Where you send Christmas cards all year round. Duh! The peculiar thing is that the Christmas cards arrive at Christmas, regardless of the time you post them.

The other way around, cartloads of mail arrive here for Santa Claus. Nowadays, he receives the most card from China, where only one per cent of the population is Christian. It must have something to do with the massive influx of Chinese tourists in Lapland.

Did you know?

• Rovaniemi is not only the home of Santa Claus but also of Lordi. The heavy metal band won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006. Rovaniemi subsequently named a square in the city centre after them.
• For years, Rovaniemi had the northernmost McDonald’s in the world. In 2013, one opened in Murmansk, Russia.
• A football team from Rovaniemi is called FC Santa Claus. Playing in the Finnish third division, they must hear the most original chants from the opponent’s fans.

We visited Lapland after our writing resideny in Sysmä, awarded by Finnish literary organisation Nuoren Voiman Liitto. This article was first published in Dutch on Tom’s blog.