How about THIS great card?

This beautiful card is from Lapland.

Maria, who lives above the Arctic Circle in Finland,

send me this card and I am thrilled with it!

It is painted by Merja Aletta Ranttila, a Sami artist.

Sami people are the indigenous people of Lapland,

and they have their own culture, traditions and

language, according to Maria. She says they

have inhabited the northern Isolated areas

for thousands of years. The card shows a bit

of their traditional costume as well as someof the

ancient symbols.

You can see the symbols around the edge of the

painting, and then there is a symbol showing

a hunter in the lower left corner. I can also see

the reindeer, the midnight sun, and the Northern

Lights represented here.

Thank you so very much, Maria, for this wonderful

introduction to Laplanders!