Thursday, March 03, 2005
Visiting Santa
Hi Everyone,
Time for another update. Last Friday Juha, Roy and I drove 150 kilometers north from Oulu to Rovaniemi for a meeting at the University of Lapland, the northernmost university in the world.
Along the way we stopped in Kemi, a city known for its Ice Castle where people can spend the night in an ice hotel room, have a drink in the ice bar, and even attend church services in the ice chapel. It is open from shortly after Christmas until April, and is made more elaborate and spacious every year.
After a meeting with the Vice President of the university, Juha took us on a tour of the city. The rivers in northern Finland become secondary highways in the winter, and in Rovaniemi, there are specially marked “roads” for snowmobiles, and trails for cross country skiing, hiking and sledding. They even have a municipal golf course set up on the river where golf bags are caddied on sleds and the players use red golf balls! Of course there are ice fishermen on the rivers as well who set up shelters very much like a Native American tepee, and build fires on the shore to keep warm.
We also visited Finland’s national elite sports complex where coaches receive specialized training and literally every sport from ski jumping to volley ball is represented. As we watched from the car, a biathlete skied past, stopped to fire at a target, and took off down the trail. After our tour, Juha headed back to Oulu, and Roy and I set off to visit Santa Claus.
You see, although Santa has his workshop and home at Korvatunturi Fell, a mountain on the Russian/Finnish border that is shaped like an ear so he can hear the wishes of boys and girls all over the world, he has an office conveniently located about 8 kilometers north of Rovaniemi at the Arctic Circle. This office receives over 40,000 visitors and about 350,000 letters every year, and as we can attest, Santa makes his visitors feel right at home.
Shortly after 4 p.m. Roy and I were ushered into Santa’s office where the shelves have huge books with titles like "The Winter Traveller’s Guide," "Sleds And Their Runners," “Chimneys,” “A Short History of Elves,” and “Reindeer Husbandry.” A fire crackled in the stone fireplace, and Santa was seated in a comfortable chair at his desk. He was wearing his everyday clothes – a linen shirt with a hand knitted vest, corduroy knickers tucked into hand knitted striped stockings, and sheepskin slippers with turned up toes. He seems to know the language of all the children he meets. We heard him speak Swedish to 2 little boys who we could tell were promising to be very, very good, French to a little girl, and of course English to us. He shook our hands, then looked puzzled, remarked that we looked familiar, and asked where we were from. When we told him, he said “Of course! I met you last Christmas Eve!”
During our visit he took out a large atlas, explaining that he gets a new one every January, and by the next Christmas he has it filled to overflowing with the names of boys and girls he needs to visit. We looked up the Colorado map, and from the circle we put around Denver we drew a line out to the margin and wrote “Layne and Tess” so he would know where the grandchildren lived. We feel sure that he’ll pay them a special visit on Christmas Eve.
From Santa’s office it was just a short walk to Santa’s Post Office, where the postcards (and even your passport!) can be stamped with his special seal. It was near the end of the day, so as we sat and wrote our postcards, we heard the elves using the big stamp which thump, thump, thumped every letter with his postmark.
And of course no visit to the Arctic Circle would be complete without a picture by the sign proving to one and all that we were there. We had taken the Travel section of the Denver Post with us, since they publish pictures of Denverites who travel hither and yon around the world and have their pictures taken with the Travel section. So we posed at the Arctic Circle sign with the paper. Then we posed by the big globe. Then Roy took a picture of me by one of the giant snowmen near the Arctic Circle sign. Then, since the finest selection of Finnish handicrafts is available at Santa’s place, we spent lots of money. In fact, if you hadn’t known better, you’d have thought we were tourists having a fabulous time at the top of the world! We topped off the evening with reindeer steak topped with lingonberries. Alas, we have no shame.
The weather in Rovaniemi was beautiful – about 18 degrees and bright sunshine. So the next day, after taking pictures of the gigantic municipal ice rink which replaces the city soccer field in the winter, we walked around town, taking pictures of snowpiles, sledding, and the ladders which grace nearly every home in Finland.
You see, even the peaked roofs in Finland occasionally need snow removal. The very tall buildings have a pulley-like contraption that travels along the peak of the roof. The shoveling daredevils, who undoubtedly have the most dangerous job in Finland, hook their belts on a rope attached to the pulley, and then shinny down the roof to clear away the snow. Roy saw one house that had a shovel still on the peak, and bare shingles the general width of a derriere leading down the roof and over the eaves to a giant pile of snow about 12 feet below. I suppose they’ll find the shovel’s owner by May…
We came back to Oulu by train Saturday evening, but not before we found a grocery store whose name might not make it in the U.S.
Time for another update. Last Friday Juha, Roy and I drove 150 kilometers north from Oulu to Rovaniemi for a meeting at the University of Lapland, the northernmost university in the world.
Along the way we stopped in Kemi, a city known for its Ice Castle where people can spend the night in an ice hotel room, have a drink in the ice bar, and even attend church services in the ice chapel. It is open from shortly after Christmas until April, and is made more elaborate and spacious every year.
After a meeting with the Vice President of the university, Juha took us on a tour of the city. The rivers in northern Finland become secondary highways in the winter, and in Rovaniemi, there are specially marked “roads” for snowmobiles, and trails for cross country skiing, hiking and sledding. They even have a municipal golf course set up on the river where golf bags are caddied on sleds and the players use red golf balls! Of course there are ice fishermen on the rivers as well who set up shelters very much like a Native American tepee, and build fires on the shore to keep warm.
We also visited Finland’s national elite sports complex where coaches receive specialized training and literally every sport from ski jumping to volley ball is represented. As we watched from the car, a biathlete skied past, stopped to fire at a target, and took off down the trail. After our tour, Juha headed back to Oulu, and Roy and I set off to visit Santa Claus.
You see, although Santa has his workshop and home at Korvatunturi Fell, a mountain on the Russian/Finnish border that is shaped like an ear so he can hear the wishes of boys and girls all over the world, he has an office conveniently located about 8 kilometers north of Rovaniemi at the Arctic Circle. This office receives over 40,000 visitors and about 350,000 letters every year, and as we can attest, Santa makes his visitors feel right at home.
Shortly after 4 p.m. Roy and I were ushered into Santa’s office where the shelves have huge books with titles like "The Winter Traveller’s Guide," "Sleds And Their Runners," “Chimneys,” “A Short History of Elves,” and “Reindeer Husbandry.” A fire crackled in the stone fireplace, and Santa was seated in a comfortable chair at his desk. He was wearing his everyday clothes – a linen shirt with a hand knitted vest, corduroy knickers tucked into hand knitted striped stockings, and sheepskin slippers with turned up toes. He seems to know the language of all the children he meets. We heard him speak Swedish to 2 little boys who we could tell were promising to be very, very good, French to a little girl, and of course English to us. He shook our hands, then looked puzzled, remarked that we looked familiar, and asked where we were from. When we told him, he said “Of course! I met you last Christmas Eve!”
During our visit he took out a large atlas, explaining that he gets a new one every January, and by the next Christmas he has it filled to overflowing with the names of boys and girls he needs to visit. We looked up the Colorado map, and from the circle we put around Denver we drew a line out to the margin and wrote “Layne and Tess” so he would know where the grandchildren lived. We feel sure that he’ll pay them a special visit on Christmas Eve.
From Santa’s office it was just a short walk to Santa’s Post Office, where the postcards (and even your passport!) can be stamped with his special seal. It was near the end of the day, so as we sat and wrote our postcards, we heard the elves using the big stamp which thump, thump, thumped every letter with his postmark.
And of course no visit to the Arctic Circle would be complete without a picture by the sign proving to one and all that we were there. We had taken the Travel section of the Denver Post with us, since they publish pictures of Denverites who travel hither and yon around the world and have their pictures taken with the Travel section. So we posed at the Arctic Circle sign with the paper. Then we posed by the big globe. Then Roy took a picture of me by one of the giant snowmen near the Arctic Circle sign. Then, since the finest selection of Finnish handicrafts is available at Santa’s place, we spent lots of money. In fact, if you hadn’t known better, you’d have thought we were tourists having a fabulous time at the top of the world! We topped off the evening with reindeer steak topped with lingonberries. Alas, we have no shame.
The weather in Rovaniemi was beautiful – about 18 degrees and bright sunshine. So the next day, after taking pictures of the gigantic municipal ice rink which replaces the city soccer field in the winter, we walked around town, taking pictures of snowpiles, sledding, and the ladders which grace nearly every home in Finland.
You see, even the peaked roofs in Finland occasionally need snow removal. The very tall buildings have a pulley-like contraption that travels along the peak of the roof. The shoveling daredevils, who undoubtedly have the most dangerous job in Finland, hook their belts on a rope attached to the pulley, and then shinny down the roof to clear away the snow. Roy saw one house that had a shovel still on the peak, and bare shingles the general width of a derriere leading down the roof and over the eaves to a giant pile of snow about 12 feet below. I suppose they’ll find the shovel’s owner by May…
We came back to Oulu by train Saturday evening, but not before we found a grocery store whose name might not make it in the U.S.
