Day 17:  Ivalo  10C
Off we set on a cold bleak foggy morning to cover 290km in order to cross out of the Arctic Circle where we have been for the last 4 days. The lowest recorded temperature in Lapland is
-47C. However the greatest problem for the 100,000 inhabitants is the long months without sunlight. To help overcome the resultant  depression, the Finnish people each year drink 10 kilos of coffee, 75 litres of beer and 7 litres of vodka and spirits per capita. They consume 29 kilos of sugar. They are very creative artistic people but all literature is very dark hence the term Nordic Noir. Christmas is their main celebration for which herring, white pork and cabbage is their traditional fare.

At the Arctic Circle (66'31'N) we stopped at the Santa Claus Village which is a huge enterprise employing 500 - 600 people. It really does need snow to create the magic. Our tour guide warned us that we might find it a little bit commercialized. It is entirely Christmas bling which I was not enticed into. I could have paid to sit on Santa's knee but we were there during his lunch break so I didn't even venture into his cavern. I had a heart-stopping moment when I boarded the coach and just checked that I had my precious mobile. AH NO! So while all our group sat on the coach, I rushed back and frantically re-traced my steps. Miraculously in the Wayside Chapel (WC) was my phone exactly where I had left it. Thank you St Christopher.

Shortly after leaving there, we arrived in Rovaniemi which was blitzed out of existence during WWII and now the oldest building is the church completed in 1950. There is still radar surveillance right along the highway. The new city has no personality and is extremely functional.

We disembarked from the coach and walked to the riverbank to board long wooden riverboats and travel along the traditional log-floating route of the Kemijoki and Ounasjoki Rivers to the Sami Science Centre and Museum. How interesting was that!!!!

The coach drove back to our hotel where some of the group left but the rest of us went on to the Poro Farmi, a privately owned Sami farm. Peter decided to enjoy some relaxation and an Italian meal. He was really saturated in reindeer and Samis. However I found the cultural continuation made an excellent package. Our Sami host was such an entertainer , and of course I loved being up close and friendly with the reindeer. I knew very little about reindeer farming. After being photographed with Rudolf and feeding a number of them, we were treated to a "typical Sami dinner" of a choice of wines, vegetable soup, reindeer stew, mashed potato, loganberries, pickled cucumber, trifle and vanilla sauce, tea or coffee. While we consumed this we were regaled with an account of how reindeer herders live and reindeer husbandry in the north. I bet you didn't know that a reindeer's favourite treat is mushrooms. YUM.

And so to bed, but no worries of being kept awake by the midnight sun. Haven't seen it for a while now.