Lapland is imagined as a magical place, where snow can fall more than a meter deep and sleds cross postcard scenes of fir trees, Christmas lights and Santa Claus waiting for tourists. It has the image of rustic charm, somewhere so remote and beautiful that nothing truly terrible should ever happen there.
Reality is less forgiving. Lapland has its problems like anywhere else, and life in the far north can be hard. The cold that seems remarkable to tourists visiting for a few days is something locals endure for months, while Baltic winds cut through the landscape and winter dominates everyday life. Game of Thrones made “winter is coming” famous decades later, but the warning could have been written for this part of Finland.
The winter of 1955 was no exception. On the evening of December 7, three young women stood freezing in the city of Kemi in southern Lapland. They were Maila, Anna Liisa and Elli Maria Immo.
The friends had spent the evening looking around the city and doing plenty of window shopping as Kemi prepared for Christmas. Perhaps wooden toys filled some of the windows, with new clothes and food displayed elsewhere for passing shoppers. Whatever caught their attention that night, by 9 p.m. the cold had become too much.
Maila told the others that her feet were freezing and she wanted to go home. Anna Liisa went one way, while Maila and Elli headed in the other direction. They lived close to each other and, with the city already in darkness, walking together made sense. Crime was hardly a major concern, but the snow, ice and even wild animals presented their own dangers.
That night, however, something far more dangerous than a wolf was waiting in Kemi.
