An abandoned reindeer steak and a scintillating night sky, only in Lapland. I was enjoying a splendid dinner in the restaurant at the Luosto Tunturi Hotel a few winters back when the other diners started leaving in droves. It was as if there was a fire alarm to which I wasn’t privy. My dinner companion, the hotel manager, looked at me and said in typically understated Lappish style: “Do you want to finish your reindeer steak or do you want to see the Northern Lights?” This created something of a dilemma. I’d seen an absolutely fantastic Aurora Borealis the night before and a pan fried reindeer steak is possibly my favourite meal in the world, so what to choose? Very quickly, spirituality won the day over gastronomy and I joined my fellow diners outside the hotel.
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