Lapland pays no heed to modern territorial borders, stretching across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland; it is the northernmost region of Scandinavia.
Lapland casts a powerful spell: there is something solitary and intangible about it that fills it with Arctic magic. The midnight sun, the Sami people, the northern lights and roaming reindeer are all part of it – as is Santa Claus himself, officially “residing” on Finnish soil – along with remarkable latitudes: at North Cape in Norway, the northernmost point in Europe, you have passed Iceland and nearly all of Canada and Alaska.
Settled across the northernmost regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden, as well as north-western Russia, the Sami are the only indigenous people still present within the territory of the European Union. Their population numbers 6,000 in Finland, where the protection of their language and culture, both under threat of extinction, is overseen by the Sami Parliament, an autonomous institution based in Inari.