I have visitied Santa Claus village on the Arctic Circle situated 6 km north from Rovaniemi center several times. During the years there has always been some growth and development, but I have to say, since my last visit the growth has been huge! This has probably something to do with the fact, that the amount of visitors to Lapland is increasing big time. In 2018 there were around 3 milj. overnight stays in Lapland. That was the biggest amount of visitors to Lapland during a year ever.
The day of my visit was a sunny day with temperatures around -6 degrees celsius. Just perfect. A quick look and overview at the map over Santa Claus village and then I planned where to go.
I had to leave out all the “normal” spots, like Santa Claus himself and the Official Post Office of Santa Claus – I have been there so many times before. This time I concentrated on visiting the new spots.
The first place I went to was The Moomin Snowcastle, a short walk from the center of the Santa Claus Village.
On my way there I met a well-known friend of all the children….the Moomin Troll himself.
The Moomin snowcastle is full of ice sculptures of the characters from the Moomin story. Amazing how well-done they are! Ice-building artists from China have really done a good job! And their job continues all the time Because of the snow falling almost every day the last weeks the workers of the snowcastle have to clean the sculptures from snow all days long.
If you do not know who Moomin is, you should know he is very famous in Finland and the interest has spread to Japan and Asia and the Moomins get more and more known around the rest of the world also. Learn more about the Moomins here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins
Except from the sculptures there were several activities for the children and “childish” people. The Big Slide was very popular for all ages.
Another activity was to “make your own northern light”.
It is also possible to visit a husky park near the snowcastle. You can buy a husky ride or just stop by to cuddle with the dogs.
Near the Moomin snowcastle I found the Santa’s Igloos Arctic Circle; a place where customers can rent an igloo for the night. All the igloos have glass windows turned towards the north. In case of northern light activity the customers can lie in the beds and watch the northern light directly through the window.
Actually the area around Santa Claus village is full of accomodation possibility. During the last few years the amount of accomodation possibilities near the Village has increased.
Nova Skyland Hotel & Restaurant is one of the newbuildings. It is possible to have a buffet lunch here and I took the opportunity to get inside the restaurant for the first time to have a buffet lunch.
Other accomodations in the area are the Santa Claus Holiday Village and the Village Suites, the Snowman Wold Glass Resort and at a 2 km’s walk from the Village is the Arctic TreeHouse Hotel.
I had learnt that there was plans to open a Mrs Santa Claus House on the Arctic Circle and I was really curious to see how the building would look like, but that was not ready to open yet (in February 2019). I have to make a new visit to the Arctic Circle during this spring to visit that. I definitively have to see what it has to offer!
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