How Did the Nordic Countries Kidnap Santa Claus? (part 4)

What was bound to happen, happened: the inventors of Santa Claus’s Lapp residence saw their Swedish neighbors beat them to the punch by building a theme park (“Santaland”). Located a few hundred kilometers north of Stockholm, it included the first publicly accessible Santa Claus post office in 1984 (although it is known that Santa’s secretariat has been in Libourne, near Bordeaux, since the early 1970s; but it is not open to visitors). A year later, the Finnish Santapark opened with the same concept but two major advantages: a symbolic location on the Arctic Circle and proximity to a major city, Rovaniemi, well-served and the gateway to all of Finnish Lapland.

Text translated from french version by Gilles Fumey

Image : Matthiasboeckel