Broken bones and starving reindeer: The bleak future of Christmas in Lapland

Is there a disappointment quite as acute as a child learning that their trip to meet Father Christmas has been cancelled? Earlier this month, Tui was forced to do just this.

Kuusamo in Finnish Lapland is listed on Tui’s website as a “low-key town” where tourists can visit a reindeer farm and meet Father Christmas. However, after a run of warm temperatures and heavy rainfall in the area, the tour operator cancelled trips to Kuusamo due to a lack of snow.

“We understand how devastating this news will be, and we are really sorry to have reached this outcome,” Tui said in a statement. Customers were given refund options or the chance to rebook next year, and Tui said that trips to other parts of Lapland, including Rovaniemi, would go ahead as planned.

Still, some took to social media to voice their dismay. One said: “I feel so sick I could throw up. I get that no one can rely on the weather, but you kinda expect it when you go to a place that is listed as ‘the most magical snowy destination’.”

Usually at this time of year, Lapland (often associated with Finland, but actually a much larger region spanning parts of Sweden and Norway, too) would be blanketed in around 25 to 30cm of snow. However, right now parts of Finnish Lapland have no snow on the ground at all.

This comes after a summer of record temperatures. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the average temperature in northern Finland in June, July and August was between 2C and 3.5C higher than usual. Many observation stations in Lapland logged record temperatures, and the northerly Inari region suffered almost double the average number of wildfires.

A warming wonderland

None of this will come as a surprise to climate scientists. The Arctic is warming around four times faster than the rest of the world. Models, published in the journal Nature Communications, predict that rain will overtake snow as the primary form of precipitation in the Arctic as early as 2060.

John Moore, a research professor at the University of Lapland’s Arctic Centre, says the winter weather shifts in Lapland are already clear to see.

“I first lived in Rovaniemi in 1993,” he says. “That winter we had 11 weeks when the temperature was always colder than -25C. Now we have temperatures going above zero for a day or two which melts most snow and makes it icy and slippery. One day a few weeks ago I heard that 62 people broke a bone slipping, out of 60,000 people in the town.

“We simulated future snow seasons a while ago,” adds Moore, who specialises in glaciology, climate research and geoengineering. “By 2070 we expect 30 per cent of Christmases to have no snow in Rovaniemi. But further north in most of Lapland it will be better.”

It isn’t only humans suffering at the hands of rising temperatures in Lapland. “The ice on the ground makes it very hard or impossible for animals [such as reindeer] to eat the lichen or dig for roots. So it’s really tough conditions. It’s much better to have 30cm of snow and for it to always be colder than zero,” says Moore.

In other corners of the Arctic Circle, some communities are already having to make big decisions in response to the changing climate. Due to erosion and rising sea levels, officials in Shishmaref, an Alaskan village just north of the Bering Strait, are exploring relocation plans for the future. Many other remote coastal communities in Alaska are being forced to do the same. However, doing so could mean losing a way of life that has existed for centuries, involving marine hunting and foraging, as well as the emotional turmoil of having to leave behind burial sites.

The end of ‘Christmas Land’?

The real Saint Nicholas is believed to have been born on the Mediterranean Coast (usually pinpointed as Patara, Turkey) around the 3rd century AD, but modern mythology has it that the rotund, Coca-Cola version of Father Christmas lives somewhere more northerly. Where, exactly, is up for debate.

In Denmark, Julemanden (the “Christmas Man”) lives in Spragle Bay, Greenland. In Norway, it’s the Norwegian town of Drobak, while Finland pinpoints the town of Korvatunturi on the Russian border, and Swedish Santa lives in the surprisingly southerly Mora, which is on an equivalent latitude to Shetland.

In the USA, the location is broader – Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, a belief often credited to Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast, who in 1866 drew a Christmas image of Santa Claus with the caption: “Santa Claussville, N.P.” British mythology long pointed towards the North Pole, too, before festive tours in Finnish Lapland took off in the 1980s.

Recognising the economic potential of making Lapland the home of Santa Claus, the governor of Lapland, Asko Oinas, declared Rovaniemi as “Christmas Land” and appointed a taskforce to develop festive tourism in the region. A landmark date was Christmas Day in 1984, when 98 British tourists disembarked a Concorde plane at Rovaniemi Airport as crowds of delighted residents watched on. The tradition took off, and for 16 years Father Christmas and a reindeer met delighted British families on the runway on December 25.

The “Christmas Land” tourism project has been a success. Last year, more than 1.5 million people arrived in Finnish Lapland, with British visitors still the primary audience. Both North Norway and Swedish Lapland, home to the famous Icehotel, also have thriving winter tourism economies based around festive activities and seeing the northern lights.

However, with husky sledding and snowmobiling forming a central part of Lapland itineraries, snow has become a non-negotiable. So much so that many tour operators now offer a “snow guarantee” – which means a full refund or option to rebook if there’s no powder on the ground in the days running up to departure.

Faking it

Some resorts are attempting to avoid that eventuality by turning to a solution found on 60 per cent of the world’s ski resorts: snow cannons. At Apukka Resort in Rovaniemi, artificial snow allows them to guarantee the white stuff for guests. In a recent Instagram post, it said: “Our snow cannon is working hard and making even more snow to ensure our routes stay in good condition, no matter the weather.”

Creating artificial snow isn’t without its problems. Cannons use large amounts of water – between 70 and 120 litres per square metre to produce a depth of 35cm (although some in Lapland, such as Apukka, use water supplies from lakes). They also produce considerable noise pollution, around 60 to 80 decibels, which is enough to disturb wildlife. Once artificial snow melts, the water can affect the chemical and nutrient composition of the soil below, affecting biodiversity, and the energy footprint of producing artificial snow is very high, too.

One solution is to go further north. On December 10, British Airways launched non-stop flights to the northernmost airport in Finland, Ivalo (returns from £349 per person). Sales for the debut season have been strong, and are expected to be even better for 2025/2026.

Sarah Pratt, the travel agent behind Sarah’s Instant Holidays, predicts a wider shift north. “A trend I can see is people are enquiring for resorts much further north for next winter,” she says. “I would myself be tempted to suggest this as to avoid any disappointment like this winter, of no snow. Or to travel later in December and not the earlier dates.”

But as we hear more reports of cancelled holidays and rainy resorts in Lapland in the years to come, will people start looking elsewhere in the world for their winter kicks? Pratt isn’t convinced. “I don’t think anyone will be put off Lapland – it’s about managing the expectations of our guests visiting,” she says. “Santa is still there – snow or no snow.”