This Arctic village wants to be Santa's summer home

Millions of Canadian children learn every year that Santa lives at the North Pole. But ask the Finns, and they'll say it's all a lie.

Since the 1980s, the 60,000-strong city of Rovaniemi, Finland, located in the region of Lapland just inside the Arctic Circle, has claimed the title of the "Official Hometown of Santa Claus."

At a palatial gift shop nestled off the highway to the north, you can find Santa's main office, where he'll happily brainstorm gift ideas year-round. Across the way, you can find his main post office, where letters addressed to him arrive from locations around the world.

There's Mrs. Claus's Cafe, safaris with Santa's reindeer and even Santa-themed "luxury boutique apartments." This is Santa's Village: a sprawling complex of hotels, shops and restaurants that has served as Rovaniemi's main tourist attraction for decades.

Given that roughly half a million visitors come to Santa's Village each year, having the big man in their backyard has long helped fill the stockings (and line the pockets) of the town's tourist providers. But some are beginning to feel their Christmas spirit wavering, as ever-greater numbers of tourists descend on the town for just a few short weeks each year.

Santa's Village, a sprawling complex of hotels, shops and restaurants, has served as Rovaniemi’s main tourist attraction for decades. (John Last/CBC)

Now, Rovaniemi's tourist board is trying to reinvent the town as a summer destination. After all, with its sprawling forests, ample wildlife and unending daylight in the warmer months, why can't Rovaniemi be famous as Santa's summer home, too?

"They [can] say, 'Look, I visited Santa in the middle of summer, and he was there!'" said Sanna Kärkkäinen, CEO of Visit Rovaniemi, the town's destination marketing board. "That would be something that is quite new in the world."

The problem with Christmas

In the toasty offices of Visit Rovaniemi, sandwiched between Santa-themed hotels and billboards for husky rides in Rovaniemi's bustling downtown, Kärkkäinen explained how Santa came to dominate the town's tourism economy.

Summer, she explained, "used to be the strongest travel season." Rovaniemi was known for its long summer days, which provided visitors the opportunity to go fly fishing, canoeing, hiking and hunting in the vast wilderness of Lapland.

"Then… someone invented social media and Instagram, and… everyone wanted the photo of themselves under the northern lights," she said. "Suddenly, everyone wanted to come and travel in the darkest and coldest time of the year."

Around the same time, the town secured the worldwide trademark to market itself as the "hometown of Santa Claus," and visits to Santa's Village skyrocketed.

Roughly half a million visitors come to Santa's Village in Rovaniemi, Finland, each year. (John Last/CBC)

"It was suddenly such a great driver for tourism that everything else was kind of forgotten," said Kärkkäinen. "The summer was left there, and we were very busy with the winter season, which was then very short."

Down the street from Kärkkäinen are the offices of Wild About Lapland, where Theo Turner and his guides lead small group excursions to hike canyons, fish frozen lakes and watch the northern lights dance.

Turner's company is one of several trying to expand their summer business. Like many here, he currently survives largely on the work he does in the winter season. In winter, his company handles about 30,000 clients. "In the summer, we'd be lucky to have 500," he told CBC.

There are big downsides to this intense seasonality, Turner says. Housing prices fluctuate, employment offers are brief and peak season requires more and more infrastructure that goes unused most of the year.

"We want to keep our workers on. We want to give them a year-round job," said Turner, who employs about 40 highly skilled guides in winter. But the way things are now, he can only afford to keep three on full-time.

Lapland 'in full bloom'

Meanwhile, Rovaniemi's winter season continues to grow. This Christmas, the town is bursting at the seams — visits are up 23 per cent this year, Kärkkäinen tells me. A few big hotels are already under construction — more beds that will go unused 10 months of the year.

If Rovaniemi is ever going to even things out, Kärkkäinen and Turner are in agreement that the big airlines will need to make the first move. Direct flights to Rovaniemi — from destinations as far flung as Naples, Tel Aviv, Istanbul and London — have doubled in the past year. But almost all are seasonal routes operating exclusively during the town's busiest time.

Visits to Rovaniemi are up 23 per cent this year, says Sanna Kärkkäinen, CEO of Visit Rovaniemi, the town's destination marketing board. (John Last/CBC)

"I know lots of people want to come here in the summer, but airlines aren't supporting it," Turner said. "They only want to talk about winter ... because they know that's what's selling. I keep pointing out to them… all it takes is for one airline to lead the way, and other airlines will follow."

Discount airline EasyJet — which operates regular direct flights to Rovaniemi from the U.K., Italy, France and the Netherlands in winter — told CBC it is "always open to exploring new and existing opportunities to ensure our network matches customer demand." Ryanair, another airline that offers frequent flights to Rovaniemi, did not respond to questions by deadline.

For now, Turner says, those willing to take a connecting flight through Helsinki (and, for some, another capital or two as well) will find the experience is more than worth it.

"It's possibly the most picturesque place if you think about summer," he said. "Life in Lapland, in the summer, is in full bloom."

And of course, seeing as it's his hometown, the big man in red isn't going anywhere.

"What distinguishes us from others is that people really do meet and greet Santa any day of the year," Kärkkäinen said.

Who knows — maybe Santa even gets jollier in the summertime. As Kärkkäinen would say, there's only one way to find out.