White magic in northern Finland

16.11.2024 – Photos by Marko Junttila

During the 16th and 17th of November 2024 WC competitions in alpine skiing (women’s and men’s slalom) will take place in Levi in Finland. That’s why I though it would be suitable to show some of Marko’s excellent photos from Levi.

Levi is a fell located in Finnish Lapland, and the largest ski resort in Finland. The resort is located in Kittilä municipality and is served by Kittilä Airport and Kolari railway station. At a latitude of 67.8° north, it is located approximately 170 km (110 mi) north of the Arctic Circle.

What are those dark spots in this photo?

They are, of course, reindeers which are the ‘national animals’ in the north of Finland.

Let’s take a little closer look ….

Hopefully these reindeers aren’t too hungry because it isn’t easy to find lichen under the snow. However, these animals are quite skilful to find it.

Hello Marko and all the readers of Knuti’s Magazine!

I’m a bit shy but very photogenique!

The days are very short this time of the year but some sun rays can be seen.

The ‘blue hour’ paints the landscape in beautiful pastel colours.

Many people think the ‘kaamos’ is dark and dull. It’s not true! In the late afternoon everything turns into a blue dusk …..

….. and thanks to the white snow it’s not very dark in the evenings either. When there’s a full moon it feels just like the day light. If you’re lucky you can even see the northern lights in the sky!

So far we can enjoy this kind of Winter scenes but how long can we do that? The climate change has made Winters warmer and the snow falls later and later ….. We can only hope the leaders of the world will finally wake up – but they must wake up NOW!! Unfortunately the current leaders don’t seem to care what’s happening in our planet.