The Hillbilly Viking

Since I have a completely rational fear of vampires like everyone else, I was acutely aware that the three hours of nightly darkness we experienced in Helsinki still left a window of opportunity to become a victim of the undead. Add that to the spooky, Transylvania vibe we got from Estonia, and obviously it was time to make a move for safety’s sake. 

Yesterday, we flew 500 miles north of Helsinki to Rovaniemi. Rovaniemi (Finnish for “Ya, we sure get a lot of fucking snow,”) is the “official” home of Santa Claus. Here, just above the Arctic Circle, the sun will not set for another 30 days, so we can trade the garlic suppositories for a bottle of SPF 50, and we get to meet Santa. Win win. 

Since I have neither children nor a personal savior in Jesus Christ, Christmas isn’t really a big holiday to me. But Santa Claus, now that’s another story. A fat Finn who works only one day a year and travels with eight (nine, in inclement weather), very edible reindeer is unsurprisingly going to be a personal hero worthy of my worship. 

We laid down all of our cards and booked ourselves a cabin at Santa’s Village complete with personal sauna, lingonberry scented soaps, and elf spray (the swarms of biting elves are nasty here in the summer). Even though this is totally, commercial Christmas at its most obscene, it really works here, and it’s actually pretty wonderful. 

We have yet to pet reindeer (that’s tomorrow), but I did get to eat another one on a pizza. We rented a Toyota and drove out to a birch forest to do a bit of hiking. We consumed our own body weight in fire-cooked salmon while sitting in a teepee three feet from said fire, and we even took a personal meeting with the jolly old elf himself. Great guy, by the way. Smelled like my grandpa, another musty, old Finn. 

So far, this has been absolutely the most beautiful and peaceful leg of our adventure and reminds me so much of Baraga, Michigan (a family summer spot from my youth) that it’s eerie. 

Speaking of eerie, come to think of it, Baraga was relatively vampire-free, too.