ROVANIEMI, Finland --- What did we know about this place? Finland is the country always named last in a Scandinavian geography quiz; it’s somewhere above the Baltic Sea, to the right of Norway and Sweden, to the left of Russia.

Our final destination, the Arctic Circle, was even more obscure. We expected igloos, frigid cold, perpetual night in a land of reindeer, wolves and bears, of snow frost and myths. Lapland, an even larger myth, is 40,000 square miles of the Arctic, the least inhabitated place on earth.

CONTINUE . . .

Photo © Ellie Hilferty 2002

All photos © Ellie Hilferty

Page updated June 4, 2006