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. 

FINLAND, 1952: Midnight Sun and Summer Olympics, from the Memoir of Carolyn T. Arnold

Midnight Sun, Finland

My husband's Aunt Carolyn traveled to Finland in 1952 for the Summer Olympics and wrote about the trip in her memoir. Here is her report.

In 1952, three friends and I decided to attend the Olympics in Helsinki. We flew to London. Then, by train we went through France and Germany. Just below the Danish border, we stopped at Flensberg, a small city, to buy new bicycles. The shopkeeper had only one in stock, but if we could stay overnight, he could get us three more.

Flower Market, Helsinki Waterfront

The next day on our new bikes, we crossed into Denmark, a cyclist’s paradise. The land is so flat no pushing up hills was necessary. In Copenhagen, we found that the first flight we could get to Helsinki was ten days before the Opening Day of the Olympics. We took that flight and spent the ten days seeing something of Finland. We bought train tickets as far north as the train went. From there, we rode the bus to the end of its line into Finnish Lapland. We had not realized the extent of the Nazi occupation which had burned over most of northern Finland. Finland was just beginning reconstruction.

The train still burned wood, so smoke and dust were constantly with us. The Finns are normally very clean people, so every hour “train maids” would come through the coach to dust and clean. The next hour the seats and windows were just as smokey.

Far north Finland--End of the Bus Line

We rode all day through miles of green forest, the “green gold” of Finland. At the end of the first day, we stayed at a hostel, which was far better than others we had lived in. The second day we were booked at a new hotel in Rovaniemi, right on the Arctic Circle. When we left the train, no hotel or any other person or building was in sight. We waited a short time, wondering what to do. Then a police “paddy wagon” drove up to the train platform. We thought they had come for us. By pantomime, we learned they had been sent to pick up some drunks, but we persuaded them to take us to the hotel. The police demurred at first, finally deciding to leave the drunks, and we drove up the hill from where we could see the town of Rovaniemi. They deposited us in front of the hotel. I wonder what the hotel people thought of our unusual arrival. We continued the next day by bus. It was also a pre-war model and broke down frequently. We did not mind this as some of my most pleasant memories are of meeting people who gathered around, offering advice about the broken vehicle, sometimes offering us a cup of coffee at their homes.

Reindeer

Our destination was a simple lodge far to the north in Lapland. Even though we arrived at midnight, we climbed up a small mountain behind the lodge, anxious to see the midnight sun, which was hidden from view at the lodge. The permafrost and mosquitoes made the climb uncomfortable, but we took pictures of the sun at 1:00 a.m. and saw a herd of reindeer.

1952 Summer Olympics, Helsinki, Finland

Our return journey brought us to Helsinki in time for the Opening Day of the Olympics. Paavo Nurmi, the famous Finnish runner, had the honor of opening the XV Olympiad. He carried the torch around the track and then ascended the tower to light the flame, which burns constantly until the games end. We looked anxiously for our flag in the colorful parade of athletes. We could see the parade was nearing the end and no U.S.A. in sight. Then, there it was, and such an uproar rose from the crowd. We had forgotten the names were in the Finnish language, and U.S.A. became Uni des Etats.

Boarding TWA for Europe and Olympics, 1952

Perhaps the original intrepid tourist was Carolyn Arnold, my husband’s aunt.  A single school teacher in Des Moines, she began traveling abroad when she was in her forties, beginning with a bicycling trip through Ireland in 1950.  She went on from there to spend a year as a Fulbright Exchange Teacher in Wales, to more trips to Europe and beyond, and eventually became a tour leader, taking all her nieces and nephews (including Art) on her travels.  When she retired from teaching, she wrote of her experiences in a memoir called Up and Down and Around the World with Carrie.  Today, as I read of her travels, I marvel at her spirit of adventure at a time when women did not have the independence they do today. 

All photos by Carolyn T. Arnold.