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The Palace of the Snow Queen: Winter Travels in Lapland
The Palace of the Snow Queen Winter Travels in Lapland Author:Barbara Sjoholm In November of 2001, fueled by the aftermath of 9/11 and the break-up of a relationship, writer Barbara Sjoholm left the United States to spend a polar winter in Lapland. Sjoholm was interested in exploring her childhood fantasy of Lapland based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, "The Snow Queen," and decided to research the budding pheno... more »menon of winter tourism. The Palace of the Snow Queen is the result of Sjoholm’s travels in Lapland, starting with her visit to Kiruna, Sweden, to observe the construction of the Ice Hotel. Over the next three years, she spent each winter in the North, meeting ice artists and snow architects, reindeer herders, and Sami writers and activists.
Throughout The Palace of the Snow Queen, Sjoholm provides a deeply moving look at the people of Kiruna and the Sami’s struggle to maintain their grazing lands and migration routes in the face of tourism, while focusing on the various political and ideological changes occurring within this icy region. Ultimately, Sjoholm contemplates the tensions between contemporary tourism and traditional culture, and delivers a powerful travel narrative of this comparatively little-known region of Europe.« less