The colours of Lapland
make Lapland a land of contrasts

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Colours of Lapland

The colours of Lapland make Lapland a realm of contrasts. Are you looking for places where you can experience an horizon that is miles and miles in all directions? Lapland has them both when you cross the treeless mountain plateaus or visit the Varanger area. Lapland is the ideal destination. Here your thoughts will wander - sometimes in surprising directions.

The contrasts of Lapland are waiting for you - the opposites in light and darkness and of warmth and cold. Here are the mountains and the islands, the deep, calm forests and the Arctic ocean - which may sometimes roar and be scary.

And sometimes you may even see the people of Lapland in lots of colours.

(Photo: Olav E. Johansen)

The winter twilight

As the year starts, Lapland is in the middle of winter with its own sounds and colours that you won't find many places on earth. Take the time to listen to the creaking sounds of your wife or children walking at minus 25 centigrades. And give yourselves the opportunity to feel the frost biting your cheeks. For a short time you can let the cold lady caress you with her cold kisses. It is really a different experience.

Think about the silence of the falling snow and the purity of its colour. During the twilight period you can experience the famous blue light and the light cascades and colours of the Aurora borealis - the norhern light.

When the sun returns

From the end of January the sun is returning to Lapland. The first days after she comes, she she is barely above the horizon with her reddish light. As time goes you'll see the changes in the character of the light and the brightness of it. The brightness is extraordinary because of the reflecting capacity of the snow. Sunglasses are a must for many of us to avoid snow blindness.

This is the time for winter activities like skiing, motor sports and reindeer and dog sports - just to mention a few.

The colours of spring

What about watching the sun at two o'clock in the morning at the Arctic Circle at Aavasaksa in Finnish Lapland or at the North Cape itself at 71 degrees north? Spring is time for the red of the midnight sun, the white snow and the different colours of the melting snow.

This is the time for all the ice to break up and melt. From April the nights are getting short. The long dark winter darkness and twilight are turned into the season of the nightless nights. The migrating birds are coming back from April. The reindeer calve and the broken ice of the rivers are floating downstream - sometimes with much noise.

Summer colours

The short Lapland summer is really something with the nightless nights or white nights when it is light night and day for a long period. Nature explodes in beautiful colours to get ready for autumn. And humans, both locals and visitors, enjoy nature and what she has to give.

See this colours of Lapland video.





(Photo: Olav E. Johansen)