“The Finnish way of life is just different here,” says Noora Nemi, Sales and Business Development Manager at Design Hotel Levi. “People tend to be very busy in the south, but here we are not so conscious of the weather. We take each day as it comes.
Growing up in southern Finland, Noora moved to Kittilä in Finnish Lapland 15 years ago and is one of the few people to inhabit this vast subarctic wilderness. His village – which is almost as far from Helsinki as London is east of the Mediterranean – is the perfect base for working at Levi, Finland’s largest ski resort, centered on a mountain of the same name.
“The landscape here is pure and authentic,” says Noora. “Most forests don’t have tracks, so you have to dig your own.” Mount Levi rises sharply from the plains of Lapland, where nearby boreal forests cut into the rockier, brushier terrain of the Arctic Circle. Being only 1,740 feet above sea level, skiing in Levi doesn’t take the form of breathtaking alpine descents, but rather gentle descents, followed by jaunts through pine forests – their frosty trunks and shaggy branches freshly fallen snowing. . At these latitudes, going out and exploring this little Narnia, on skis or on foot, is part of the rhythm of daily life. And with the changing seasons, says Noora, there are even more reasons to get out.
“The temperature and the environment here are constantly changing. I live by a beautiful lake called Kirkkojärvi, and in winter when it freezes I walk across it to a special place where the ground is higher and where you can admire the whole landscape.”
Locals say that Lapland has eight seasons instead of four: ‘first snow’, Christmas, ‘freezing winter’, ‘crispy snow’, ‘departure of the ice’, ‘midnight sun’, ‘harvest season’ and autumn – each with its own culture, traditions, legends and activities. In autumn, Levi’s forests are awash in color, while spring brings subglacial meltwater and summer enjoys 24-hour sunshine, with summer parties and festivals held under midnight ‘Sun. The latter is also the perfect season to go for food, a beloved tradition in Finland, where the Everyman’s Rights public access law gives anyone living in or visiting Lapland the freedom to roam the countryside, seek food and fish in the wild areas of the region. For three brief months, from mid-June to mid-September, temperatures soar to 30°C, drawing southern city dwellers to the forests of Levi to harvest everything from fruit to mushrooms and herbs, which are then eaten fresh or taken home and used as cooking Ingredients
“I’m proud of our equal, honest, and down-to-earth culture, and I have many happy childhood memories of picking blueberries, strawberries, and wild cloudberries with my mother. We still do that every summer in Paartoselkä,” says Noora. “There is something so therapeutic about walking in the woods and being at one with nature. If I ever have a stressful day, I go out into nature and it goes away.
