FINLAND IN WINTER: Searching for the Northern Lights, Guest Post by Ann Whitford Paul

Northern Lights, Finland, November 2024.

Many thanks to my friend and fellow children’s book writer Ann Whitford Paul for sharing with The Intrepid Tourist her trip to Finland last winter with her grandson. She writes:

This past Thanksgiving my teenage grandson, Tade, and I traveled to Finland in search of the Northern Lights.

Cabins at our hotel.

We spent the first five days at the Apukka Resort in Rovaniemi, and our second five days a three-and-a-half hour drive north at Wilderness Hotel Inari. Both overlooked a frozen lake and had individual cabins with huge windows to observe the Northern Lights.

Typical buffet meal.

Both served food cafeteria style, with enough choices to please the pickiest of eaters. They also had menus to order from.

Both furnished the snowsuits, boots, mittens and socks necessary to stay warm outside in below freezing temperatures. Packing was easy--all we had to bring was several layers to go under the snowsuits. Dress code is casual and because sweating is unheard of in the cold, we needed very little change of clothes. My advice is to pack light.

Outdoor night activity with snacks of sausage, cookies and hot drinks.

Apukka Resort was geared more to families with young children and offered such activities as a mini-hill for sledding and individual sleigh rides pulled by slow reindeer.

A walk on the hotel grounds.

Winter days in the Arctic Circle are short, with the sun rising around nine in the morning and setting around two-thirty in the afternoon. We spent our days walking around the hotel or into a nearby town. Other days I relaxed reading and Tade played computer games.

Owl at the Ranura Wildlife Park.

A highlight was a day trip to RanuraWildlife Park, where we wandered with snow falling and observed wolves, bears, and unique, gorgeous owls.

Souvenir earrings.

One day, the shuttlebus carried us to Rovaniemi (8 euros per person). The town was burned to the ground by the Nazis in WWII so there’s not much to see, but I’m into earrings and found these. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Santa Claus Village https://www.santaclausholidayvillage.fi/ which is exactly the tourist trap you’d expect. I fell in love with stuffed Christmas Gnomes, which I bought, but didn’t need; Tade bought gifts to take home to family, and we took our pictures at the line of the Artic Circle. The wait to see Santa was forty minutes, and thankfully of no interest to my grandson.

Tade in the icy water after his sauna.

Nighttime activities included, of course, a sauna in a private cabin by the frozen lake. Tade was the only one brave enough to dip into the freezing water. I was content to take his picture.

Dogsled dogs.

By far, the highlights of the trip were the nighttime activities in search of the Northern Lights and included a snow train (a coach on runners pulled by a snowmobile), a horse pulled sleigh ride, a dogsled ride, and a snowmobile ride.

Ann and Tade bundled up to see the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights are caused by solar windstorms and are rarely seen as in the sharp, clear pictures depicted on travel brochures. They appear more in a blurry green, gold and/or orange—sometimes flashing, sometimes a shooting display. We were warned before we left that we might not see any Northern Lights but were treated to the sight five times. Bundled up, shivering, toes freezing, and our breath puffing clouds, the sight is a memory to be treasured forever—well worth the long plane ride and the frigid weather.