Jukkasjärvi

The promontory protrudes bravely into the raging torrents of the Torneälven River. A church has stood here for many centuries and this was also a meeting place for the Sami people. They named it Jukkasjärvi, meaning “meeting place by the lake”.

Photo: Peter Grant

The river is an artery
People met here once a year to barter and sell crafts, hides, fish and meat in exchange for basic necessities such as salt and iron. The meeting place was carefully chosen at a crossroads where Sami, coastal merchants and Lapp traders, the tax collectors of the time, passed by. The river was the main artery, an ancient transport highway both in summer and winter.

200 km north of the Arctic Circle
Just as bravely as the promontory defies the river currents, the small village of Jukkasjärvi sticks out its neck in the media noise and fierce competition of the 21st century to stake out its position as one of the world’s most interesting meeting places.

People flock here from all corners of the globe, to this site, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. They come to meet the magnificent, majestic creation borrowed from nature and sculpted by human hand – Icehotel. This motley mix of guests from afar contributes in turn to new meetings, between cultures, religions, languages, expressions of art, ideas and opinions.

21st century journey of discovery
In an age when most of us have seen and done everything, the meeting with Jukkasjärvi represents something new and unexpected, something unique. In an age when we travel enormous distances in jet planes, geographical distances lose their meaning. Yet the distance between nations, cultures and people, and also to ourselves, seems to increase.

A meeting with Jukkasjärvi leaves no senses untouched and the journey often turns inward in the search for answers to our own existential questions regarding time, transitoriness and our place in the cosmos. It is all about low-key humility in the face of nature and its wonders. A silent inward meeting with yourself.

The meeting place by the lake had a tradition to carry on. Now the world is meeting Jukkasjärvi.