All About the Aurora (Borealis)

Posted on by bc

In northern Finland’s “arctic resort” area around Saariselkä, a company has gone all-in on visitors seeking the Northern Lights. This outfit has been around since the 1970’s, starting with bare scratch campsites for hire. It’s grown a bit…

Things in the southern hemisphere are a long way off

The place has scores of independently-sited log cabins with glass igloo anterooms, each facing the magnetic pole.  These are spread around something like 130 acres in the compound.

Where’d the logs come from, ’cause their diameters are considerably above any of the local timber?

But wait – there’s also a king-size dining hall, dozens of miniature cache-houses on posts which serve as exterior lighting, a multi-hall art gallery, dramatic structures focused on sky viewing,  a  new planetarium (in a 200m sphere), outdoor art installations on a grand scale, …

This reindeer of stainless tubing is 30ft tall

 

On the left, a 90′ high bar with glass dome top. On the right, the addition to the art gallery, still under construction. Not shown, the mammoth planetarium.

 

I’m reminded of the Hammond character in Jurassic Park:  “Spared no expense”.