Ep. 02 | Fire-Roasted Salmon and Unsent Postcards in Rovaniemi

Stepping out of Rovaniemi Airport and taking a deep breath of Arctic air brought back a very specific, long-forgotten sensation.

About eight years ago, I spent six months as an exchange student in Canada. I loved that chapter of my life. Leaving Korea meant escaping the relentless pressure of job hunting and resume building. As an exchange student, my course load was about two-thirds of what I took back home, and because grades were evaluated on an absolute scale, there was no need to compete with the friends I made there. It was a continuous stretch of good days—studying, partying, snowboarding, and just enjoying youth. I still keep in touch with a few friends from that time, and all of us look back on those months with immense fondness.

People hold onto memories in different ways. Some remember moments through scents and perfumes; others recall them through music or sound. For me, Canada is anchored in the sensation of pure, freezing cold air. Stepping outside on a clear day at nearly -4°F(-20°C) and taking a deep breath—feeling that crisp, unpolluted air rush all the way down into the deepest corners of your lungs, right to the point where your nose hairs freeze.

Who would have thought that exact feeling would greet me again at Rovaniemi Airport nearly eight years later? I was already riding high on good vibes from the Finnair blueberry juice, but that bone-chillingly fresh air instantly made everything in Rovaniemi look beautiful. To top it off, the airport bus was waiting right outside the terminal door and pulled away the moment I boarded, instantly dissolving all my worries about outdated bus schedules.

Like most people, I first learned about Rovaniemi because of Santa Claus Village. Like any child, I grew up genuinely believing in Santa Claus. I remember watching a Korean science communicator on YouTube make a hilarious joke: “Santa doesn’t hand out presents; he shoots them like lasers from the sky. If kids get hit, they wouldn’t survive, which is why parents tell them to go to sleep before Santa arrives.” If someone had told me that when I was seven, my Santa fantasy might have ended a lot sooner, but back then, no one broke the news to me, and the magic lingered well into my childhood.

To be completely honest, Santa Claus Village doesn’t have an endless array of high-tech attractions. Any major commercial theme park is probably more elaborate. Yet what made the village so special was the quiet nostalgia it stirred—a soft, gentle yearning for the innocence of those early years. The Arctic Circle, the quaint timber village, the sharp silhouettes of snow-laden pine trees, the muffled quiet as snow swallowed every stray sound, and the fond realization: I had a time like that once, too. The moment I stepped onto that snowy ground, the physical environment and the emotions surrounding me felt genuinely overwhelming. A quiet sense of: I’m really here.

Because that feeling was enough, what the village actually offered mattered very little. I walked into Santa’s Official Office, took one look at the long line of people waiting for a photo, and immediately turned around. In the souvenir shop downstairs, I picked up a few small keepsakes to remember the day. After stopping by the post office and browsing a couple of shops, there wasn’t much left to do.

I thought about sending a postcard from Santa’s Post Office, but decided against it. Somehow, I felt that if I sent a postcard now, I would never have a reason to return to Santa Claus Village.

When I was younger and traveled abroad, I felt an intense urge to squeeze every ounce of value out of a trip, rushing from dawn until midnight to see everything on the checklist. That worked in small Japanese towns, but as I started traveling to bigger, more diverse countries, I realized it was an impossible way to explore. At some point, I naturally stopped trying to see everything. Over time, I began intentionally leaving something unseen, something unexperienced, whenever I left a city—a quiet promise to myself that I would return one day.

So I left behind the two things that almost everyone does at Santa Claus Village: sending a postcard and taking a photo with Santa. I left them there with the quiet resolve that someday, I’ll come back to finish what I started.

What I was truly looking forward to at Santa Claus Village was something else entirely: tasting the open-fire roasted salmon at a tiny hut called Santa’s Salmon Place.

In Korea, Norwegian Atlantic salmon is by far the most famous. But while Atlantic salmon is great for farming, it isn’t necessarily the undisputed king of flavor. Personally, I believe Alaska’s King Salmon holds that crown. Most Alaskan King Salmon is routed through Seattle for distribution, which happens to be one of the main reasons I love visiting Seattle so much—the King Salmon there is incredible.

Still, even if Atlantic salmon ranks slightly below wild King Salmon, grilling it over an open wood campfire is a different story altogether. As someone who firmly believes pork belly must be cooked over charcoal or a campfire to taste its best, this little rustic hut was non-negotiable. I was also eager to try lohikeitto, the traditional Finnish creamy salmon soup.

That woodsmoke-kissed Atlantic salmon gave me an entirely new reason to love Santa Claus Village. We originally ordered one bowl of salmon soup and one plate of grilled salmon to share, but after the first bite, we looked at each other and immediately ordered a second plate of grilled salmon. We had waited outside in the biting cold for 30 minutes just to squeeze into the tiny timber hut, but the moment that tender, smoky fish melted in our mouths, it felt like a meal I would have gladly waited an hour for.