Laponsko (chrakteristika)

Lapland
Lapland is called the land of the midnight sun, and for a good reason. when spring comes, the ice melts and the days become a feast of light. The nightless night, Lapland’s summer, can last up to 60 days .Every summer the sun provides energy and warms the hearts of travelers. In Lapland you have day and night time to make your holiday perfect. Climate
Lapland enjoys a continental climate typically with snowy winters and quite warm summers due to the Gulf Stream. The seasonal changes are quite apparent and strong in Lapland. The seasons are spring, summer, autumn, kaamos (winter twilight) and about six months of winter.

Population
In Lapland there are 191 768 inhabitants with an average population density of about 2 people/km˛ (national average 17). The indigenous people of Lapland are Saami with a population of about 7 000. Laplanders live mostly in Norway where they are etnic minority. The Laplanders are hunters and fishers from the begining. But as other people arrived they had to move to the forest and to the mountains. Throw times they have been trading. Later on they started to capture wild reindeers and tame them. The reindeer-herds started to grow. The reindeer-keepers moved between the inland and the coast, depending of the time of the year. In Finland the Laplanders lived in the woods whith their reindeers and their cows.


Culture

The Laplander´s culture is a special culture. Their history, language and culture is associated to the past, when they were reindeer-keepers.
The culture of Lapland is a mixture of north and south, east and west. It is Lapp and Finnish but also Swedish, Norwegian and even Russian. The times of logging camps and the gold rush have added spice to the culture. Today, to find culture, is to find and recognise those spiritual resources in which the people of Lapland base their livelihood. The culture of Lapland is broadly understood as the way of life and how to make a living. Due to the size of Lapland the cultural differences are remarkable in the various areas. In west Lapland a tight hundred-year border co-operation with Sweden has characterised the way of life in that area. The most charming feature is the language spoken on both sides of the border “meän-kieli” - a very special “own” language - fishing traditions and the many happenings. In east Lapland logging has always been a dominant factor and dictates the lifestyle.

You can still experience a touch of the old logging camp tradition in the Salla and Savukoski areas and villages. In north Lapland Saami is the most interesting living form of culture. They have also got a special kind of song called yoyk.

Cultural happenings - Lapland Festivals

Every month of the year there is some kind of cultural happening in Lapland. Musical events like jazz and opera to figure skating, sculpting and ice-sculpting, indoor- and outdoor theatre, cartoon and film festivals, gold panning…and everything related to the beautiful nature of Lapland. Gold
The gold rush was an enchanting addition to Lappish culture. This valuable metal was most intensively mined in the 1900’s and 1940’s. In many places in Lapland it is still a livelihood for some. The most famous place is Tankavaara Gold Village in Sodankylä with the history and today´s gold mining

City culture
In the four cities of the province; Kemi,Tornio,Kemijärvi and Rovaniemi you can feel the pulse of modern city culture. Encompassing services, hectic nightlife, theatres, art museums and many other propositions are to be found.

Handicrafts
In Lapland handicrafts presents a rare living cultural tradition. Craftsman’s working conditions can be quite modest and the work is based on traditional or modern techniques. Due to the climate, nature and sparse population the working methods and conditions differ greatly from other areas of Europe. Handicraft-workers and artists create a cache of cultural travel objectives, with a chance to see live working situations and see what northern cultural creators are made of. Most craftsmen will invite tourists in to see their working conditions and products, this way they too, become acquainted with the customer. Language
They have their own language whith many different dialects. Word order in sentences is free and it is written by latinic. Lappish is the language of the Lapps, or Laplanders. It is one of the Finno-Ugric languages, bearing certain similarities to Finnish, but the two languages are actually vastly different. Since the Lapps are of different racial stock than the Finns, it is assumed that about 2,000 years ago they adopted the language of the ancestors of the Finns. Subsequently many words were borrowed from the Scandinavian languages.

Religion and education
Today all Laplanders can visit school, where is the main language Lappish. In 1988 Norwegian Parlament pledged that Laplanders can keep their culture,language, lifestyle and traditions. In 1989 Lappish Parlament was constituted which was elected by Laplanders.

It resided in Karasjok, small town in land Finmark.
Laplanders were confessors to woodoo but in the 12th century were built first churches. And today they are all Christians.