Lapland Posters and Art Prints

Snowflake

When we first hiked 400m up a hill in Kâtkâvaara, Finnish Lapland, to see the northern lights, our guide pointed out north and told us that was the direction the lights would come from. Then we turned south and saw this! The lights stretched from horizon to horizon that night…it was stunning.

To me, this photo is Finland. Sure, in winter there would be a bit more snow on the trees, but regardless of the season, and regardless of where you are in Finland, there are always tall trees all around you, and there is always gorgeous light. Here, it's the light of the midnight sun, captured around 12.30am near Lake Ahvenlampi in Luosto.

The trees weren't bothered by the steep angle of Kesänkitunturi's slopes, although they were perhaps more sensible than I was, since they stayed out of "Pirunkuru" -- which in English, means "damn canyon"!

This night, spent on the shores of Lake Menesjärvi at Hotel Korpikartano, probably had the best clouds of my entire time in Lapland. I was lucky that they appeared on a perfectly still night in such an amazing setting!

It was crazy how warm an atmosphere the SnowCastle's IceBar had...even though it was -5C and made entirely of ice!

Reindeer take off from the starting gates during one of the reindeer races at the 2013 Sami Easter Festival in Kautokeino, Norway.

My design my work!

Even though it was mid-January, the Christmas trees all around Skellefteå were still beacons of light in the long night. This one looked especially beautiful, all frosted with snow and standing in the middle of the beautiful wooden buildings of Bonnstan, the old church village.

The aurora seemingly emanating from one of the cabins at Galdotieva, near the Norwegian border in Enontekiö, Finland. Even under the full moon, the northern lights completely lit up the sky in green.

Snowmobiles, walkers, and skiiers before had beaten down a wide path alongside the Juutua River in Inari.

The rush of Kiutaköngäs Falls in Oulanka National Park. And this is the river in relative calm -- a month before I captured this, the river, swollen with snow melt, would have completely engulfed the rocks I stood on to take this shot!

In a sea of brown wooden buildings, built around Skellefteå's church so people could have somewhere to stay when they came into town for church on the weekends (and now used as summer houses), this bright red one definitely stood out!

The calm waters of the Kemijoki under the gorgeous, late-night skies of midsummer's eve. Rovaniemi was a great place to spend my first midsummer holiday!

A perfect sky, a lake with a tree-lined shore, and a red cottage. That says Finland to me. All it needs to complete the perfect Finnish scene is a sauna!

The clouds over Lake Ahvenlampi in Luosto explode into colour just after midnight. These were probably some of the most spectacular midnight sun colours I saw on my whole trip, since they filled the whole sky...and the lake below as well!

The jetty at Hotel Korpikartano jutting out in between the clouds and the equally as clear clouds reflected on Lake Menesjärvi. Such a great spot.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the rivers in Lapland were frozen so thickly by March that you could walk across them with no worries at all. The River Juutua in Inari was not one of those rivers, given it had raging rapids fighting the freezing cold (and I mean freezing, since it was -33ºC the night before I took this). Those rapids eventually lost the battle slightly further downriver.

Abstracted interpretation of fall colours in Lapland.

The North Pole is the place to be

A stylish cool illustration of a snowmobile: arctic cat ZR200

The clouds over Lake Ahvenlampi in Luosto explode into colour just after midnight. These were probably some of the most spectacular midnight sun colours I saw on my whole trip, since they filled the whole sky...and the lake below as well!

Outside the smoke sauna at Fell Centre Kiilopää, one of the gateways to northern Finland's Urho Kekkonen National Park, trickles this gorgeous stream. You may not think it so pretty when you're trying to jump into it though! I jumped in after a long sit in the sauna and its 7ºC waters actually hurt. I can't imagine what it would be like in winter -- although the Finns assured me that it's "even better" then!

A group of hikers heads into Lemmenjoki National Park for a day of walking. The boat cruise helps cut off around 19km of walking so visitors can see the best parts of the park (such as Ravadas Falls) in a day.

It was hard to believe just how awesome the clouds looked with the (almost) midnight sun behind them over Lake Menesjärvi in Finnish Lapland. Unreal.

Light ripples flutter across the surface of the Ounasjoki underneath the midnight sun. It really did feel like I was standing in a painting.

WINTER WILD LIFE BEAR ARCTIC CIRLE LAPLAND SCANDINAVIA DESIGN

Abstracted interpretation of fall foliage in Lapland.

Abstracted interpretation of fall foliage from Lapland.

Abstracted interpretation of fall foliage in Lapland.

Finnish Lapphund painting

Insane clouds with an equally insane reflection, seen on a perfectly still night on Lake Menesjärvi, near Lemmenjoki National Park.

This was a couple-kilometer walk from Skellefteå city centre and we had to find alternate pathways after the ones we wanted to go on (mostly along the river) hadn’t been plowed, but it was well worth it. The ever-present clouds were lit up with the lights of the city and made the church look especially moody — my colleague likened it to the “Church from Hell” because it was so surrounded in red. The other thing that really struck me about it was that the columns and dome made it seem really Greek, and therefore a bit out of place in Swedish Lapland.

The gorgeous red tones of the Jukkasjärvi church standing out against the blue skies and snowdrifts of a late winter day.

White blankets the forests and the wide expanse of Lake Palojärvi beyond. Finnish Lapland is such a magical place in winter.