Lapland Quotes

“Each February/March the entire country takes a "ski week". The schools shut down, parents take off work, dogs go to the in-laws, and Finland's middle and upper classes go on holiday. But not all at once. They can't have the entire country gandala-ing up to Lapland at one time (AVALANCHES!). So the country takes turns. The best region goes first: Southern Finland. Then the second best: Central Finland. Then the reindeer herders and forest people take a week off from unemployment and go last: Northern Finland.”

“Each February/March the entire country takes a "ski week". The schools shut down, parents take off work, dogs go to the in-laws, and Finland's middle and upper classes go on holiday. But not all at once. They can't have the entire country gandala-ing up to Lapland at one time (AVALANCHES!). So the country takes turns. The best region goes first: Southern Finland. Then the second best: Central Finland. Then the reindeer herders and forest people take a week off from unemployment and go last: Northern Finland.”

“It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats.”

“But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.”

“I want to go to Lapland and see Father Christmas, and now I've got a child, so I've got an excuse. Also, I'd like to go to South America especially as I'm now living in that part of the world, in L.A. now. And I must get down to Mexico.”

“...and on some nights in bed, in that moment before sleep erased the day, I would picture the way the sky in Lapland looked the morning I left, how the train had sped south beneath a sky that was brighter than it had been in weeks. It had pulsed with reds and oranges, as though hiding a beating heart.”