Rebecca A Withey: A review of the BSL provision at Santa’s Lapland in Finland! (BSL)

If it wasn’t for my niece taking a seasonal job as a BSL ranger at Santa’s Lapland, it’s very unlikely I would have known such things existed. And in actual fact, the BSL provision hasn’t really been widely ‘advertised’ per se.

But I am here to share with you the good news. If you’ve ever dreamed of visiting Lapland or taking deaf children to see an accessible Santa in a true winter wonderland – there are BSL rangers working in the Santa’s Lapland resort in Saariselka, an initiative that started in the winter of 2024.

Now, I must tell you I have never been to a cold country ‘on purpose.’ What I mean by that is that most of the time when I step on an airplane, it’s with the knowledge that I’ll be stepping out into sunshine and sea air as soon as we land.

But when my husband and I booked a last minute trip to Lapland in December 2025, we knew we would be travelling to a very special place.

Sean – my husband – had actually already been to Lapland years ago as a child, with his local deaf association. They had made a daytrip from London, but as Sean made friends there with a local family and disappeared off with his new buddy, he missed the chance to go snowmobiling – a regret that he carried with him all his life!

We had just three weeks to prepare for our trip. I usually book things way in advance but in this case we wanted to grab the opportunity to see our niece at work and also have the chance to experience an accessible Santa visit with our two children.

Booking the trip online was easy peasy and flying from Southend Airport was a breeze too. We stepped onto the plane that had ‘Santa’s Lapland’ written on it and festive red plane seats, and settled into the 3.5 hour flight – not before a huge Elf had ran up and down the plane aisle and demanded high fives from all the kids.

Now – as Santa’s Lapland knew we were deaf and had requested BSL access for our time there, it seemed the company missed a trick by not ensuring our flight was also accessible. Because with Santa’s Lapland, the experience ‘starts the moment you get on the plane.’ Or so it should. Flight attendants knew of our deafness but did not approach us or relay any spoken information.

Instead, our hearing son told us when the captain declared that the Christmas magic had arrived (as we flew over Norway) and everyone was invited to sing along to Christmas songs. Staff even got children up to tell jokes and led a game on the plane too. Our kids loved it and got involved but as for the two deaf parents – we were clueless.

It still didn’t dampen our excitement though.

As the plane descended into Finland, a mystical darkness surrounded the plane. I looked down through the window and saw snow covered lands. Trees encased in blankets of snow. Miles and miles and miles without a sign of human life. I was in awe.

When we arrived and stepped off the plane, it was snowing! We couldn’t have had a more beautiful welcome. We then headed through passports/border control where the Santa’s Lapland representatives were to collect our baggage.

We were pleasantly directed to a male ranger who was fluent in BSL. He signed politely to us, explaining the plan for the journey to our resort and as we travelled by coach to where we were staying, he ensured we were informed and comfortable every step of the way.

Upon arriving at the resort, there was a little bit of confusion when we had to pick up our snowsuits and snow boots. There were long queues and lots of voices calling out, unaware that we were deaf. But the same BSL ranger popped in towards the end to check we had what we needed and kindly guided us to our cabin.

That evening, our family had so much fun tobogganing, sledding and enjoying the thick snow all around us!

The following day was our ‘Search for Santa’ activity day which took place at the Arctic Circle Activity Centre, about 30 minutes away by car. We were warned that temperatures are ten degrees lower in the Arctic Circle Centre so we layered ourselves in thermals, fleece clothing, extra socks, gloves AND mittens and a whole array of snoods, balaclavas and hats!

(Just a word of advice – take more snoods and gloves than you normally would!)

Accompanying us on the day was our niece, Bethan (hurray!) who is a CODA and therefore a fluent BSL user. Bethan’s role as a BSL ranger involved being responsible for repping the coaches and supporting all the families, ensuring everyone moves easily and happily between activities, delivering information in BSL whenever a deaf family requested it and being an all-round-embodiment-of-christmas-glee.

The Santa’s Lapland team had also printed off all of the spoken information that the rangers usually share whilst on coach journeys with the families. Given that it was quite dark, it was a little hard to read this with ease, but the torch on my phone did the job!

I was a little bit worried about spending all day out in sub-arctic temperatures, but as Bethan explained, we were encouraged to break up our activities by spending some of our time in the ‘Kota’ huts which were warmed with wood fires. There we could sip hot berry juice and enjoy freshly cooked pancakes with sugar or jam. There was also a warm restaurant to sit in and enjoy our hot lunch in too.

The activities throughout the day were truly fantastic and included husky driving, reindeer rides, performances by ‘elves’ and skidoo areas where you could practice your skiing techniques or slide across the snow.

The highlight for most young children, of course, would probably be the journey to find Santa – where a snowmobile takes you around a frozen lake and comical Elves direct you to his cabin where he waits for you.

I have to say – that if there was no BSL access to these activities – my husband and I would have been utterly lost. Our BSL rangers had to relay all spoken information and performances – and there was A LOT of them.

It was a long time for the BSL rangers to be processing information and relaying it in sign language, and in all honestly it’s a job that would probably require 2 interpreters working side by side if it was done in the UK.

On our final night in Saariselka we were invited to a festive dinner where families sat and ate, children danced and took part in party games and the overall spirit and merriment was very high!

Bethan was also present at this festive dinner – as well as her partner Darragh who is also a ranger and learning sign language (yay!)  We were delighted to see the team of rangers leading the evening all signing the words to ‘The 12 days of Christmas’ – something that Bethan had taught them during training.

To round off the evening, all of the children stood on the stage and performed a Christmas song in sign language, impressing their parents who had likely never seen them sign before and enabling our deaf daughter to feel truly involved. It was a moment, that’s for sure.

We had the same BSL support on our coach back to the airport, where we were told the process for checking in and how we can provide feedback to the company.

We returned home on Christmas Eve, full of the Christmas spirit, and very thankful for an accessible trip.

I would love to see Santa’s Lapland expand their repertoire of BSL rangers in the years to come, hopefully utilising two or more rangers at the same time when working with deaf families – so one can sign and one can speak. This would prevent the end of day fatigue for BSL rangers who are often asked to multitask and work cognitively harder than their non signing colleagues.

But on the whole – I heartily recommend the experience – and would like to thank the team for all of the small thoughtful touches – the signed ‘thank you’s,’ fingerspelling your first name, written notes, BSL provision – it all added up and created – for us – a wonderful memory.

Rebecca A Withey is the Assistant Editor for The Limping Chicken. She is also a script writer, BSL consultant and creative artist based in the Midlands. Rebecca is a Deaf, bilingual BSL user. Find out more at www.rawithey.com