Summer Olympic Bid by the "Coldest Place in Finland"
A small town in Finland’s Arctic Lapland region is bidding to host the 2032 Summer Olympics, in awareness-building campaign to draw attention to the effects of global warming.
Salla, the self-proclaimed coldest place in Lapland located just north of the Arctic Circle, started the new year by lanching the international “Salla 2032 Summer Games Candidate City” campaign with a news conference and a promotional video on YouTube.
In the video, residents of Salla, where temperatures can dip to -50 degrees celsius are seen practicing summer sports in full-fledged winter conditions and wondering whether there will any ice and snow left in the area by 2032.
"Warm heart, we have it. Warm place, coming soon", is one of the slogans of the elaborate campaign made to raise awareness what is happening in the Arctic.
Soon too late
Salla Mayor Erkki Parkkinen told Finnish media that the campaign aims to draw attention to the consequences of climate change. He described 2032 as a turning point after which Salla, with its population of 3.400 people, and other Arctic locations will “cease to exist as we know them” with the melting of ice and snow amid ever-warmer winters.
“If we haven’t succeeded in halting climate change by then, it is too late. We want to keep Salla as it is, and our winters cold and full of snow,” Parkkinen said in a statement.
“So, there was this crazy idea to host the Summer Games in one of the coldest towns on the planet.”
Eternal summer
In a post on Salla’s Facebook page people can get to know the campaign mascot, a reindeer named Kesa - that means summer in Finnish - “and the other 10,000 reindeers in Salla.”
Lapland makes up over a quarter of the Nordic country’s surface and is home to some 10,000 indigenous Sami people. Reindeer herding offers an important means of living for hundreds of Laplanders.
The area of Salla is known among Finns for its pristine nature, consisting of one of Europe’s largest wilderness with national parks ideal for hiking, cross-country skiing and other sports and outdoor activities.
Turning point
On the wep page of "Save Salla" people are urged to get involved:
"2032 will be a “turning point” in the battle against Global Warming. We either act now or our legacy to the next generation will be a worse planet than the one we met and we arrived to".
Helsinki, the Finnish capital, hosted the 1952 Summer Olympics.
