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Articles

Searching For Santa

Sam Morris scatters solstice scepticism over the stories of the saint with the supersonic sleigh.

A bitter wind stings my face as I step out of the sleigh into the desolate snowy wastes of Lapland.

My guide, a native, barks a command to the reindeer in Finnish (Reindeer, he explained on the journey, are unable to learn the intricate Germanic languages of Scandinavia). He looks at me ominously. “We here,” he says before leaping off the sleigh himself and busying himself with the refuelling. It’s cold, bloody cold, and I’m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with the clothes on my back and a pocketful of the few Norwegian Krone I could find before leaving.

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