Life of the Locals – Tuomas Haapala, Ranua
Story of Tuomas Haapala from Ranua, Lapland
I was born in Ranua, the southern part of Finnish Lapland in 1989 and lived there until I finished high school in 2008, after which I moved to Rovaniemi. Growing up in Ranua was really good in general. Even though the town is really small, and getting smaller in terms of number of people, there basically never were times when you didn’t have something fun to do. I fell in love with sports and the beautiful nature at very young age and that love has lasted throughout my life. When I was young, we were all the time playing floor ball, basketball, street hockey and football. We even had our own leagues that could run throughout the summer and winter.
Ranua is full of activities
Fishing was also always a thing that I enjoyed. My neighbor started to take me with him to Simonize to fish Grayling when I was 12 years old. After just one summer, I decided that I would get rid of my spinning reel and started fly fishing. Back in the day it wasn’t so easy to learn how to fly fish successfully as for example at my house, we did not have ADSL internet connection until 2006, I think. I was really bad at fly fishing but I never gave up on eventually in the recent years. I could say that I have figured out the psyche of Simoriver’s Graylings quite nicely.
One other thing that I particularly like in Ranua is the cross-country skiing. This is a hobby that I “found” only when I was already an adult. Many kids hate this sport during school years, but it is also very common to start it again “willingly” when you are already an adult. This also happened to me. Now especially the Christmas day ski trip in the Ranua wilderness is a tradition that I still like to keep up as well as I can.
Relocating to Helsinki
After two years of living in Argentina, I have relocated myself in Helsinki (possibly for good). I am still really well connected to Ranua though. This is of course thanks to my mum and dad, who still live in Ranua. And also thanks to my job at Arctic Guesthouse & Igloos that is an accommodation business with Glass Igloos and a traditional B&B Inn at Ranua. My work consists of Digital Marketing and communications. I run all the digital channels of our business and also take care most of the outbound communications with collaborators and customers. It’s a really versatile role where you can see your “hand print” on everything that you do. It is also really interesting to be able to be in connection with people all over the world and actually make friends online after sharing thoughts with them. You can go see more of Arctic Guesthouse & Igloos from the Instagram as well!
“Lapland and Ranua will always be a home to me. A home that I am always happy and welcome to return to”
My job allows me to visit Ranua regularly. The Corona virus situation has of course changed this and I’m not going to travel to Lapland until it is completely safe, but otherwise this arrangement has worked really well for me. I get to work at Ranua once in every 5-6 weeks, which allows me to visit my family regularly and do all the activities that I like to do. This for me is a huge richness in life.
I might live outside Lapland and it is highly possible that I will never move back to Lapland for good, but the Finnish saying “man can leave Lapland but Lapland will never leave the man” definitely applies on my case. Lapland and Ranua will always be a home to me. A home that I am always happy and welcome to return to.
Story and images by Tuomas Haapala